Broken Bells Debut Out 3/2010, Includes Dangermouse and James Mercer (The Shins)

Hope everyone had a great holiday. It took what felt like 899 hours driving up, and then back from upstate NY (I shake my fist at you Maryland traffic), but ensuring my rental car had an adapter for the iPod stocked with some favorite mixes helped immensely...as did the speaker option on my cell phone for those great catch-up phone calls you tend to make on long drives. We're looking forward to 2010 being a supremely rad year around here and hope you are as well!

On to some interesting news...NPR's "All Songs Considered" sent along a little preview of a band called Broken Bells today. The band's name may not ring any bells just yet, but as its members are Dangermouse and James Mercer, lead singer of The Shins, I'm sure you'll be hearing a bunch soon enough. On the first track, "The High Road," is more of a slow jam with Dangermouse's style and influence definitely permeating throughout. It will be interesting to see whether the whole record is like that or whether Mercer's Shins-style of music gets incorporated as well.

Broken Bells' self-titled debut is due out 3/9/2010 on Columbia Records. You can pre-order it here.

Give a Listen: