I was planning to do a review of Brandon Flowers’ solo debut, Flamingo, but decided against it after a brief once-thru’. After all, we at poptart only put up stuff that 1) we like, and 2) we think you may like and Flamingo doesn’t come into any of the 2 categories. My sincere apologies to the fans of The Killers, but his solo effort sounds weak and too middle-of-the-road to say the least.

The Superhumanoids.

What can I tell you about these guys who don’t have a wiki-page as at time of writing?

This quartet is L.A. based (who says there aren’t any good West Coast indie bands anymore?) and is made up of Sarah Chernoff, Cameron Parkins, Max St. John and Evan Weinerman. Incidentally, Cameron and Sarah double up as Ronnie Ray Gunn and Mimi Malone respectively for the upcoming Garage/punk band the Franks.

Unlike the Franks, Superhumanoids has the boy-girl vocal, clean guitar rifts, electronic beats and synths all amalgamated into a melodic lush sound. Can’t really put my finger on the one genre that describes them but, in a record shop, you d most probably find it under “indie”. LOL.

At times they sound New Wave, while other times quite surf-ish/post-punk (the Drums). Cranial Contest is a good example of this. Listen to Persona and you could be forgiven for thinking that Superhumanoids is an Arcade Fire tribute band. Another fav, Hey Big Bang, is a power ballad with a catchy staccato drumbeat that feels tailor-made for Chernoff’s haunting vocals. Here again they sound like a different band altogether.

After reading all this, you’d probably go, “you are recommending a band that don’t know what they want!” Either way, these guys sound really good for something that was initially conceived in the bedroom of Parkins. Trust me on this.

Listen and download HeRe.

Persona from superhumanoids on Vimeo.