We Need Surgery's self-titled debut heads back to the turn of the millennium

We Need Surgery (Light Organ)

If you find yourself pining for the days at the turn of the millennium when indie rockers in the skinniest of jeans could get crowds moving and moping in equal measure, We Need Surgery may be your new favourite band.

With the Vancouver-based quintet’s self-titled debut, it’s managed to recapture the visceral energy and danceable charm of the early 2000s’ new-wave and garage-rock revival. But this simultaneously works in the band’s favour and against it.

On the addictively catchy, New Order–ish “Simon Says”, guitarists Valentino Avignoni and Jungkyu Lim (aka Johnny Q) steal the show with their polyphonic, Strokes-y melodics. And their consistently versatile chops, along with drummer Brandon Butler’s mastery of the perfect toe-tapper beat, help elevate even the simplest of We Need Surgery’s tunes, like the disco-punk “Go! Go! Go!”, to something intricate and absorbing.

But once one similarity to another band is found on the album, it’s impossible not to find 10 others. Whether it’s the Rapture, Interpol, or Franz Ferdinand, this band clearly owes a lot to its indie-rock predecessors. That’s not to say that We Need Surgery is destined to wallow in their shadows, though. They’ve got enough talent between them to eventually carve their own space in Vancouver’s musical landscape.