Listen to this track from nervy nouveau new wave nabobs with a dancefloor fixation, the Montreal-based four-piece First You Get The Sugar. It’s a highlight from their upcoming debut record, “Tell Your Mama”, a tune that mixes rock instrumentation with post-punk attitude, in turn with a danceable groove that will get everyone up under the lights and onto the floor.

The key word here, good people, is groove. It’s an asset in four-piece indie bands that isn’t exactly plentiful. But, First You Get The Sugar has it in spades.

The band themselves are an amalgam of geography as well as style, with members hailing from here in Vancouver (bassist/vocalist Mick Mendelsohn), Toronto (vocalist/guitarist Adam Kagan), San Francisco (guitarist/vocalist Alex Silver), and Montreal (drummer/vocalist Daniel Moscovitch). And there’s got to be some TV nerd DNA in there; the name of the band is a reference from The Simpsons. You fellow TV nerds all know which one.

In true 21st Century style, all eras from the classic rock/pop spectrum, from disco, to swirly California ’60s pop, to Talking Heads-esque angular pop, to the ironic dance pop of Franz Ferdinand, are represented on the album, and typified on this tune. Yet, where are the seams between these styles? To me, this is what separates the also rans from the a-players; the ability to synthesize seemingly disparate musical approaches into something that is seamless, and still pops.

But the underlying emphasis here on this song is to provoke an audience to move, an ambition that was one of the founding principles of rock n roll, before it somehow became uncool to dance. When did that happen, anyway? Maybe when it became ‘rock’ and no longer ‘rock n roll’. Anyway, good people …

The record they produced was off of the back of their own elbow grease, and collective earnings in ‘seedy bars, all-night sets, months in the studio, rave-ups and promises’. One can only imagine the lowering of a disco ball and scores of sequined dancers converging on such places, if this tune is to be a gauge.  Yet the upcoming album was recorded in ‘dank basement of Stotland Yard Studios’, with the intention to propel the band from the Montreal underground and into indie music’s premiership.

Here’s the good news, if you happen to be in Montreal this month. You can help the band celebrate the release of their album on May 17, 2011, at Divan Orange, in Montreal! The tickets are $6 in advance and $8 at the door. The doors open at 8:30pm and the musical magic starts at 9:30.

You can follow First You Get The Sugar on Twitter.

Be sure to ‘Like’ the First You Get The Sugar Facebook page, too!

Enjoy!