Event

The Intelligence

Noisenik Lars Finberg has played in some of that Seattle's noisiest, weirdest bands, including the A Frames, Unnatural Helpers, and the Dipers, but as The Intelligence, he throws downright poppy melodies in with jagged beats and shards of new wave and no wave guitars and keyboards. Now Oregon-based and comfortably among some of the best new rock bands on In the Red records, the Intelligence's latest Fake Surfers strips away some of the band's noise in favor of nods to '60s pop, and featured collaborations with the Lamps' Monty Buckles, Wounded Lion's Brad Eberhard and Christmas Island's Brian Carver. SPIN sums it up with this report from SXSW: "Best Discovery: When I heard this Portland, OR, quartet's psych-surf blasts, I immediately fell into a daydream about Ray Davies dropping acid and jamming with the Ventures. And that made me really happy."