The Unicorns

By Rob Scherf

Oh, indie pop. With its swooning oohs and aahs, it’s too cutesy for its own good. 


It’s stuck in the rut of Sgt. Pepper-era psych experimentation, enough that one could see the unimaginative likes of Elf Power and The Flaming Lips dominating the genre forever. 


Then this summer, out of nowhere and with a flash of divine pop brilliance, came The Unicorns. Sporting a healthy helping of Vincent Price panache, a barely-lucid frontman who may or may not actually think he’s a mythic horselike creature and a huge dose of good old-fashioned guitar distortion, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone is a divine crossover wake up call to both strict punk scenesters and the freaks who liked Chutes Too Narrow. 


Yes, falsetto dialogue exchanges and cancer jokes can comfortably co-exist–it just takes a fiercely charismatic group like The Unicorns to pull it off. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that tracks like "Tuff Ghost," "The Clap" and "I Was Born A Unicorn" will rock your balls off.


In a word, delicious.


Runners-up:

Cat Power–You Are Free

Death Cab For Cutie–Transatlanticism