Polite Sleeper - Lake Effect

Before we proceed any further, there's a great big elephant in the room that needs to be dealt with: Jason Orlovich has a set of vocal chords that make him a dead ringer for Hutch Harris. Whether by accident or design then, Polite Sleeper steer away from The Thermals and into the great tweemo wilderness (the Death Cab-esque My Head Still Hurts), before building monuments to Modest Mouse (These Are Not Fall Colours), and then going camping with The National's Matt Berninger (From Waiting List to Walk In).

Even these calmer tracks are perforated with a nervous energy that is both endearing and unsettling, with Orlovich sounding like he needs a huge dose of ritalin to stop him from hulking out and spiralling out of control. Stand-out tracks 'So Serious' and 'Eleven Months', on the other hand, see Orlovich singing so hard that the veins were undoubtedly throbbing in his neck, and blood vessels in his eyeballs popping approvingly.