Defektors’ debut LP The Bottom of the City borrows from garage, punk and the melodramatic popular song through their flawless composite of pop-punk drumbeats and raw guitar riffs, matched by dark lyrics of discontent. In the first ten seconds of the nine track album, you’ll hear “Shadow of Fear” move from a fuzzed-out surf guitar riff to a full-blown, radio worthy track. This whole garage noir album, made up of older tracks that have been re-recorded and cleaned out, is worthy of being on the radio.

Ben Phillips’ (guitar, vocals) overuse of the word “baby” in his lyrics is balanced out by his much more anxious and grim lyrics like “Red with blood / And red with fire / So I’m longing in despair / For all the things we can’t repair.”

If you haven’t noticed yet, Vancouver is teeming with good music. The problem here isn’t finding something worthy of your attention, but finding too much and trying to decipher which of the bands to spend all your hard-earned minimum wage on. This record, though, will carry Defektors from the “maybe” into the “must have” pile at Scratch Records, where you can buy it. [ed. Also at Red Cat and Zulu. We called to check.]