(Indie Rock) Tokyo Police Club - Melon Collie and the Infinite Radness (Parts One & Two) - 2017, MP3, 320 kbps

Label: Team 8 Recordings

The high-energy indie rock outfit Tokyo Police Club features vocalist/bassist Dave Monks, keyboardist/vocalist Graham Wright, guitarist/percussionist Josh Hook, and drummer/percussionist Greg Alsop. Forming in the wake of the breakup of the foursome's previous project, they regrouped as Tokyo Police Club in 2005. They began performing live around Toronto that summer, and the rousing receptions their shows got convinced the group to make Tokyo Police Club a full-time venture. Early in 2006 the band signed with local label Paper Bag Records and began recording their debut EP, A Lesson in Crime, which was released that spring. Buoyed by blog and MySpace buzz, Tokyo Police Club embarked on their largest tour yet that fall. Around the same time, A Lesson in Crime was reissued with wider distribution, and 2008 saw the release of the band's full-length debut, Elephant Shell. By the end of the year, Tokyo Police Club had already begun working on their second album, Champ, which they ultimately released in 2010. After touring the album heavily, they began writing songs in 2011; that year, they also embarked on the Ten Days, Ten Covers, Ten Years project, which found them cranking out covers of songs from the 2000s by artists including Kelly Clarkson and Queens of the Stone Age. The band supported Foster the People on tour in 2012, and amidst all this activity, Monks relocated to New York and Alsop moved to Boston. In 2013, they returned to the studio with co-producer Doug Boehm. Late that year, the first taste of their third album surfaced with "Argentina (Pts. 1, 2 & 3)," which was more ambitious and polished than much of their previous music. Early in 2014, the summery single "It's Hot Tonight" arrived just before Forcefield's March release. At the end of the year, Tokyo Police Club reconvened in New York City to record two new songs, and continued to record in short spurts whenever they had the time. These spontaneous sessions resulted in Melon Collie and the Infinite Radness, a pair of EPs that the band released during 2017.