Might I Recommend: Army Navy

Looking for a sign that you're getting older? Here's one--the place you buy your clothing is the same place you buy your groceries and fill your prescriptions. Ah, the wonders of Target.

Thanks to their crisp whites, circular reds, and bouncy tunes, Target commercials have a way of making the everyday-everything store seem like it's the hippest place in town.

Los Angeles trio Army Navy could easily write an entire Target soundtrack on their own. Their songs are immediately infectious and toe-tappingly fun. Their sophomore album, "The Last Place," is solid front to back. Most importantly, it's impossible not to feel just a little better after having listened to it.

Song of the Day: The Naked and Famous - Young Blood

I'm a sucker for music that makes me feel like I am in high school, about to embark upon the most important night of my life.

This is ironic because in high school, the most important night of my life may have been the time Matt Slivka and I (the two un-muscle-i-est guys at Murray High School) decided to go to ShopKo and buy our first-ever wife beater tanktops and wear them around the SugarHouse Movies 9 on a cold January night.

How's that for a music video idea?

Might I Recommend: The One AM Radio

If you like midtempo, melancholy electronica (a la Hot Chip, Postal Service), you should probably give The One AM Radio a listen.

I interviewed the band a couple of week's ago. I got some of the most intelligent music-guy answers in recent memory. I guess the lead singer's Yale education paid off. You can read the full article here.

I love the slightly snarky response to this simplistic question:

ME: Is it a happy album?

HIRWAY: No, it’s not a happy album, but “happiness” and “sadness” rarely ever come to me in pure form. That’s one of the side effects of no longer being a teenager.

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You may want to check out these tunes as well:

When You're Sleeping (YouTube)
Everyone But You (YouTube)

Death Cab for Cutie - Codes and Keys

Death Cab for Cutie
Codes and Keys

Remember The OC? You know, with Marissa Cooper’s self-destructive tendencies and Ryan Atwood’s endless insecurities about growing up in Chino? And who could forget Seth Cohen, the lovable hipster with a passion for comic books and Death Cab for Cutie?

A lot has changed for Death Cab since they made an onscreen appearance on The OC, playing a gig at the show’s fictitious club, the Bait Shop, in 2005. Back then, Death Cab was a band who had earned a Seth Cohen-esque fan base by touring endless in a pre-MP3 Blog world. But they were also a band in transition--counting down the days to their major label debut and clearly on the verge of something much bigger.

If you ask me, 2003’s ”Transatlanticism” was the band’s high-water mark. The songwriting was miles beyond its LP predecessors, yet the endearing roughness remained, like Ben Gibbard’s warbly tenor or the fuzzed-out studio experimentation. Not to mention that it included two of the best songs in the band’s catalog--the title track and the heartbreaking “A Lack of Color.”

After such a strong release, fans were poised to disdain their first big budget release, “Plans.” But it didn’t happen. It couldn’t happen. The looseness of early records had disappeared, but the songwriting was stronger than ever before and the production was painstakingly perfect.

Given all of the effort to make “Plans” a masterpiece, it’s not surprising that 2008’s “Narrow Stairs” headed in the opposite direction. Filled with rock ‘n roll abandon, it was a guitar album, fueled by some of the darkest lyrics Gibbard has ever written.

In 2011, things feel a bit more sunny in the Death Cab camp. Gibbard is now a married man and alcohol-free. Their new record, “Codes and Keys,” is the most upbeat in years. Beats skip along wistfully, like a band in love (“You are a Tourist”). At times, it’s all the Gibbard can do to not start dancing (“Some Boys”). Even tracks that are less immediate (“Doors Wide Open,” “Unobstructed Views”) still deliver a rewarding punch.

Much like “Transatlanticism,” “Codes and Keys” strikes a beautiful balance between traditional arrangements and studio embellishment; it would not be surprising to hear these songs played on an a piano or an acoustic guitar, but the layers of synths and noise give the tracks an added depth.

Somewhere, the writers of The OC are huddled together, trying to figure out how to bring the show back to life, just so Seth Cohen can tell the world how much he likes this record.

For fans of: Modest Mouse, Franz Ferdinand
Rating: 3.5 of 4