Happy Bullets

Originally a bedroom-demo partnership, Happy Bullets was born two years ago, when founders and core members Timothy Ruble and Jason Roberts had a wow-we-have-the-same-taste-in-records moment. Now a full band, the Bullets have released their debut, The Vice and Virtue Ministry, a playful sendup of, well, a lot of things, that touches on imagery from British high society more than once. Unsurprisingly, the Bullets aren't British at all, nor does the band's jangly geek-pop necessarily sound like it. On the other hand, Vice, recorded by Stuart Sikes (the Walkmen, Modest Mouse, White Stripes, Loretta Lynn), is so unabashed in its cheeky intellectualism that you'd expect it would get the band beaten up in its hometown of Dallas — precisely why we'd listen in the first place.