Aberdeen

Don't mistake Aberdeen for the California group that trades in shimmering sunbeams of keyboard-based melancholia: These Kansas City musicians are scene veterans celebrating their band's first decade of existence in 2004. Named after the city in Scotland -- vocalist Cash actually hails from nearby Edinburgh -- the quartet cranks up the guitars and the catchy choruses instead of twee postcards to distant lovers, especially on platters such as 1999's See How You Are. An appearance on a Material Issue tribute record showed the group's affinity for booming power-pop, and its profile noted influences as diverse as Cheap Trick and Duran Duran, an unholy combo of arena rock and pop schlock that informs the band's sound, which falls somewhere between Oasis and the Clash. If you can imagine that.