We Are Scientists

With buzzing guitars, boisterous energy and an endless stream of wit, We Are Scientists rode the wave of spiky indie-pop bands (The Killers, Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand, etc) that burst onto the scene in the mid-2000s. Originally formed when Keith Murray met Chris Cain at college in California, they took off after moving to Brooklyn, New York and released self-recorded debut Safety, Fun, and Learning (In That Order) (2002). Relentless touring and some well-received EPs landed them a major label deal with Virgin and their first official studio album With Love and Squalor (2005) produced the cult hits "Great Escape," "It's a Hit" and "Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt." Bouncy, brash and noted for their funny interviews, the band's reputation grew on the NME Shockwaves Tour in 2006, during which Keith Murray ended up making a Brit Awards acceptance speech on behalf of the Arctic Monkeys, who deemed themselves too boring to do the job. Drummer Michael Tapper quit shortly before the release of Brain Thrust Memory (2008), which reached Number 11 in the UK charts, and was eventually replaced by former Razorlight man Andy Burrows for third studio album Barbara (2010). In 2009 Murray and Cain made a series of short comedy films for MTV entitled Steve Wants His Money. The New Yorkers went to Number 36 on the UK Albums Chart with their fourth studio album, TV en Français (2014) and Number 48 in the UK with fifth album Helter Seltzer, which was released in April 2016. Augmented by spiky electronics and smoothed over with a glistening synth-pop touch, their sixth studio album, Megaplex, arrived in 2018. 2021 marked the release of the band's seventh studio album, Huffy, via Masterswan Records.