Tokyo Police Club

The high-energy indie rock outfit Tokyo Police Club first captured attention on mid-2000s music blogs, yet endured well beyond most peers of that era, partly because the group continually refined its approach. Early EPs delivered a brash energy aligned with the rock revival then underway, but the quartet shifted toward greater introspection for its 2008 debut full-length Elephant Shell. Whether pursuing a sleeker palette on 2014's Forcefield or a stripped-down one on 2018's TPC, the band never relinquished the melodic hooks that anchored its work.

Vocalist/bassist Dave Monks, keyboardist/vocalist Graham Wright, guitarist/percussionist Josh Hook, and drummer/percussionist Greg Alsop launched Tokyo Police Club in 2005 once their earlier group Suburbia disbanded. Local gigs around Toronto drew enthusiastic crowds, prompting the members to commit fully to the new project. Early the next year they joined hometown imprint Paper Bag Records and issued their first EP, A Lesson in Crime, that April; reviewers likened its sound to the Strokes, Buzzcocks, and Pixies. The 2007 Smith EP maintained the same taut guitar-pop attack and led to a deal with Saddle Creek Records. The following year the label put out the band's debut album Elephant Shell, colored by emo and dance-punk influences and fronted by the single "Your English Is Good." Wright also put out his own solo EP The Lakes of Alberta that year.

Late in 2008 Tokyo Police Club began shaping a follow-up. The resulting Champ, bright and wide-ranging, featured production from Rob Schnapf and surfaced on Mom + Pop Music in 2010, the same year Wright released his first solo album Shirts vs Skins. After extensive touring behind Champ, the group undertook the Ten Days, Ten Covers, Ten Years series, recording fresh versions of songs spanning a decade from artists such as Kelly Clarkson and Queens of the Stone Age. During this period Monks settled in New York while Alsop relocated to Boston. Returning to the studio in 2013, the band worked with co-producer Doug Boehm to refine its sound for 2014's Forcefield, which included the summery cuts "Argentina (Pts. 1, 2 & 3)" and "It's Hot Tonight." Monks issued his own debut solo EP All Signs Point to Yes the next year. Spontaneous New York sessions yielded two 2016 EPs: Melon Collie and the Infinite Radness: Pt. 1 arrived in April, followed in September by Melon Collie and the Infinite Radness: Pt. 2, which included a collaboration with Rostam. For their fourth album the members first developed material inside an Ontario church, then rejoined Schnapf; Dine Alone Records released the finished TPC in October 2018.