Lookbook: Wild at Heart

Minneapolis duo Lookbook are bound to net more than a few comparisons to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on their full length debut album, Wild at Heart. Not only does vocalist Maggie Morrison share Karen O’s distinct mixture of squeaky playfulness, infectious enthusiasm, and commanding presence, but the music that she and Grant Cutler craft here is located at the same crossroads of dance floor euphoria and angular punk abrasion that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs finally found themselves at on last year’s celebrated pop-crossover It’s Blitz!. Lookbook even have, in the album’s opening one-two punch of “Over and Over” and “Yesterday’s Company”, a couple of potential singles to match the pop exuberance and expansive drama of “Zero” and “Heads Will Roll”.

Far from registering as merely derivative, though, Lookbook instead come off as fellow travelers on particularly rich and fertile grounds. More firmly rooted in synth-pop than their more famous peers (the rigid two-note synth hook on “The Only Ones” is way more 1985 than Karen O and Co. have ever allowed themselves to sound), Morrison and Cutler craft music that is cooly retro, yet feels fresh thanks to a deft sense of balance that pays equal attention to chilly atmosphere as it does to warm melody. The result is the rare electronic pop record that is every bit as rewarding in its fits of sonic indulgences as in its unabashed pop moments, and should justifiably land them an opening spot on the next Yeah Yeah Yeah’s tour, at the very least.