Hitch must be Belgium's best kept secret. The band has been around for at least a decade and released a couple albums and a couple 7 inches along the way, all the time flying under...well, at least my own personal radar. It's a damn shame too, because We Are Electric! is definitely one of 2006's surprises for me.

Electric produces punchy, enthralling indie rock in the vein of early Burning Airlines with a vocalist who's definitely flashing more than a couple shades of Tim Kasher, Things are most exciting when the band is lively, like the memorable "Nothing to Regret," but they're usually playing somewhere between mid and up-tempo, a good example being "Last Man Standing." All this is contained within an ideal sound quality; with the album recorded on two-inch tape you can be assured there's nary a moment of overproduction. The mildly rough-hewn bawl of Electric! is perfect for Hitch's style: all gravelly, sometimes interspersing half-yells layered atop earthy, distorted guitars.

As I'm completely ignorant about Hitch's back catalog, I can't really compare this to any of their other albums, but I can tell you that on its lonesome it works as a fine piece of `90s indie rock 10 years or so after the fact. Hard fans of most of the band's influences (Fugazi, Slint, probably Pavement) are likely to take at least partially to We Are Electric!.

(This Shallow Heart)
Nothing to Regret