Broken Bells: Broken Bells [COLUMBIA]

Why you'll love it

Columbia's pressing comes with a poster and a download code. The album debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album.

This edition

• Poster included
• Download card included

About the album

James Mercer and Brian Burton (better known as Danger Mouse) met at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark in 2004, found out they admired each other's work, and promised to make something together. Four years later they were quietly recording in Burton's Los Angeles studio, and nobody outside knew until the project was announced in September 2009.

It's a lovely meeting of minds: Mercer's bright, wistful melodies and high, clear voice, set inside Burton's lush, slightly spooky production, with vintage keyboards and warm, crisp drums giving it a sound somewhere between a 1960s film score and a modern indie record. The songs are short, tuneful and built to stick. "The High Road" floats in on a gentle shuffle and a big chorus, "The Ghost Inside" grooves on a falsetto hook, "Vaporize" adds a little organ-pumping swing, and "October" and "Mongrel Heart" lean into cinematic melancholy.

It has sold more than 400,000 copies in the U.S. Two people met at a festival, said they should work together sometime and then actually did it, which in our experience puts them ahead of most of humanity.

Also at Kops: more Broken Bells on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Columbia (cat# 88697558651), the 2010 album.