Freezepop

Best LIVE ACT in BOSTON

After years as perennial underdogs (or at least outsiders) in the generally guitar-heavy local scene, Freezepop finally appear to be getting their due, simply by sticking to their new-wave rayguns and writing playfully catchy tunes, which they released on their own Archenemy label until Ryko scooped them up last year. They’ve built a steady following both in the dance- and rock-club scenes and plus, to date, they’re the only guitar-less band to be featured in the Guitar Hero video game. Most recently, the keytar-driven “Less Talk More Rokk” from 2007’s Future Future Future Perfect (Rykodisc) made the cut for Guitar Hero II, one of four video games for which the band has licensed songs.

The brainchild of programmer/keyboardists Kasson Crooker (a/k/a Duke of Pannekdeker) and Sean Drinkwater (a/k/a the Other Sean T. Drinkwater), and frontwoman Jussi Gamache (stage name Liz Enthusiasm), Freezepop were way ahead of the neo-new wave curve when they first starting messing around with the QY-70 synth, and in the right place with the right sound when Daft Punk and LCD Soundsystem started making sine waves. The trio have since expanded their instrumental palette to include a bunch more sophisticated synths and samplers (as well as some real drums, or samples thereof) on Future Future Future Perfect, which out-B-52s the reunited B-52’s with the anthemic “Afterparty,” and generally makes the point that, with a knowing wink and an ironic nod, they are perfectly capable of “rocking” out with the best of them.

— Matt Ashare

LISTEN: Freezepop: "Less Talk More Rokk" (mp3)

See Also: Best Act, Best Album

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