Audio By Carbonatix
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The Strokes’ influence sings in bands like Kings of Leon and Phoenix, but the most homogenized take on NYC’s brat kings has to belong to Utah’s Neon Trees, whose debut Habits bears criminal similarities to 2006’s First Impressions of Earth. It could be innocent, as four years seems a likely cultural timeline between Manhattan and the band’s home town of Provo, and there is no denying their songs are sing-a-long catchy with tons of teen appeal. But there is something wholly distasteful in their stylized (faux-hawks anyone?) approach. Playing after Fences, who are masters of organically honed, sincerely edgy pop, will only illuminate the artifice Neon Trees’ name suggests.
Tue., Dec. 14, 7:30 p.m., 2010