Infinite Shuffle

Apparently, unbeknownst to me, Two Door Cinema Club has been tearing up the blogosphere for the past year. As for my discovering of the group, chalk this one up to the classic “record store recommendation.”

While on a recent trip to Indianapolis (for an amazing Pearl Jam show), my friend and I happened upon Luna Music. When we walked in, we were immediately greeted by a wall of employee suggestions. As I scanned through them, one in particular caught my eye. I was sure I’d heard of Two Door Cinema Club at some point in the past couple of months, but I knew nothing about them. The description — which went something like, “band from Ireland channels the best of ’80s New Wave/synth pop” — was enough to sell me.

I don’t feel totally out of the loop, since the electro-indie duo from Northern Ireland only released their debut full-length album, Tourist History, in the U.S. on April 27.

Perusing the web, the one band that pops up the most in terms of comparison is Phoenix. It’s no wonder that TDCC remixed the French band’s song, “Lasso“, and also toured with them earlier this year.

To me, from the opening track, “Cigarettes in the Theatre”, I couldn’t help but compare them to the less-heralded VHS of Beta. The electro instrumentation that permeated the entire album sounded just like that of the latter band’s 2004 release, Night on Fire.

Other bands that came to mind at various points in the album included The Bravery, The Killers, Editors (briefly) and MGMT.

There isn’t one bad track on the disc, and there are several solid ones, including “Do You Want It All?”, “Something Good Can Work”, “I Can Talk”, “What You Know”, “You’re Not Stubborn” and the aforementioned opener.

My two favorite songs were “This Is the Life” and “Undercover Martyn”, one of the album’s three singles.

The group was supposed to make a tour stop in Chicago recently with Phoenix, but it was postponed because of travel delays caused by the volcanic ash hovering over Europe.

They promised to make up the missed shows, and, with any luck, I’ll be in the audience for one of them.

In the meantime, they’ve got a whole slew of songs on their MySpace page for you to listen to.