The Mean Wells

This garage quartet from Chandler cooks up raw rock recipes with the best ingredients — solid, fuzzy guitar hooks; danceable beats, and sexy vocals with all the lusty thrust of Cramps singer Lux Interior and the sassy swagger of Jack White. Some Mean Wells songs, like "The Storm," are built on more of a pop foundation, with the bop-and-pomp of bands like Hot Hot Heat, while other tunes, like "Seizure Song," sound like something the house band for a mod formal would jam on. The band's list of influences includes modern garage/New Wave (The Strokes, Local H, The Killers), and some classic garage rock acts like The Animals — and the Mean Wells do a stellar job of combining the two sounds on their own songs. Such an approach isn't as surprising as its success, or the fact that the band remains unsigned — which just goes to show that even if there's no justice on the indie rock scene, at least there's still good music.