Daphne Loves Derby, Good Night, Witness Light

The music industry loves to stumble upon bands like Daphne Loves Derby. This Seattle-based trio churn out the kind of polished, amphitheater-ready indie-rock that would appeal to the Death Cab for Cutie set. Lead singer Kenny Choi is easy on the eyes, and in the band’s press photo, pays homage to his Northwestern locale by posing solemnly yet attractively in front of some deer taxidermy at a lodge.

On Good Night, Witness Light, recorded at the home studio of Panic! At the Disco producer Matt Squire, the band mines familiar power-pop territory, offering clean riffs and let’s-hold-hands lyics. With pitch-perfect harmonies, the boys of Daphne Loves Derby deliver lyrics like “I want to run / I want to run / but you’ve got a gun pointed right at me” with a straight face. The lyrics are repetitive enough to stick, but sufficiently nuanced to stand up after a second or third listen.

It would be grossly unfair to say that this band appropriates and then sanitizes the kind of indie rock that blew out of the Midwest in the late ’90s (Braid, Sarge, Promise Ring, et al). Daphne Loves Derby have made the effort to diversify Good Night, delving curiously into marching band tunes and disco. (The press kit said they were inspired by the film Drumline.) The experimental numbers are hit or miss, but overall, this album consists largely of solid and very listenable mainstream indie rock.