The Postal Service

The Postal Service could be Sub Pop’s answer to a New Order/Pet Shop Boys graft (and maybe a Coleco game system in the background). Give Up pairs singer Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) and Jimmy Tamborello (DNTL) in a project they completed mostly 1,000 miles apart. This Indie-with-less-melancholy puts the vocals in the foreground with lightly looped electronic effects vibrating outward as if they never touch the ground at all but somehow hover in the middle of your head. Favorites include the MTV hit “Such Great Heights,” “Clark Gable” and “We Will Become Silhouettes,” catching my ear with the line “because the air outside will make / our cells divide at an alarming rate / until our shells can no longer hold our insides in and that’s when we’ll explode / and it won’t be a pretty sight…” delivered in dreamy deadpan.