Johnny Foreigner

Originating in Birmingham, England, the three-piece outfit Johnny Foreigner spent 2005 sharpening its mix of abrasive shared vocals and restless, off-kilter guitar figures. Its debut single, “Sometimes, in the Bullring,” appeared the next year, vanishing from stores inside eight weeks while gaining rotation on BBC Radio, London Live, and XFM. Sufficient buzz by 2007 earned the group a deal with Best Before Records, sending Alexei, Junior, and Kelly to London to cut the Arcs Across the City EP. They tracked a full-length album in New York later that year, prefacing its arrival with the March 2008 7-inch “Our Bipolar Friends” issued to stir anticipation.