Minnesota’s Now, Now (formerly Now, Now Every Children) have existed for some time but have really begun to generate a significant amount of buzz in the indie world since signing to Chris Walla’s (Death Cab For Cutie) Trans Records. The first single off their upcoming album Threads, “Dead Oaks,” is a short, sweet indie-pop gem that is infectiously catchy while keeping things incredibly simple, both musically and lyrically.

Clocking in at a modest one minute, forty-one seconds, “Dead Oaks” is unassuming in its lack of sophistication. The cut starts with some soft, palm-muted acoustic guitar riffing and a cutesy vocal line with coy, romantically-inclined lyrical work. After the first verse, some lo-fi percussion and lead guitar accompany the vocals, which benefit from some pop backing harmonies, as well. The song continues hinge around pop nuance with a healthy dose of “oh-oh’s” and tambourine shaking, then halts abruptly, everything ceasing, save for the same lone acoustic riff that started the song.

In the scope of the emerging canon of uncomplicated, lo-fi, indie-pop bands, Now, Now’s “Dead Oaks” isn’t a bellwether or anything remotely unorthodox. Quite the opposite, rather—a song like this, with its head-nodding, foot-tapping dance beat and its coquettish female vocal line, seems more like a Brooklynite’s wet dream than an envelope-pusher. While Chris Walla’s taste in band shouldn’t necessarily lack all merit, one would think a group that garnered enough interest of a member of Death Cab to earn a record deal and a modicum of underground buzz would be more, well, original-sounding. This notion, however, is no slight to Now, Now. They don’t profess to be some sort of incendiary, genre-breaking wunderkind; their material doesn’t need to be substantive. They make pop that’s nothing if not wonderfully catchy in its simplicity—pop that doesn’t presume to be anything else.

★★★★☆

*This review was composed by Paul Adler