Dressed Up As Life [PA]

Performer: Sick Puppies
Distributor: EMI Music Distribution

Notes: Sick Puppies: Shimon Moore (vocals, guitars); Emma Anzai (vocals, electric bass); Mark Goodwin (drums). Based largely on the strength of their genuinely moving YouTube video for "All the Same," which features one man's "Free Hugs" campaign, Sick Puppies garnered international attention, making their 2007 album, DRESSED UP AS LIFE, a surprise hit. Formed in Sydney, Australia, the Los Angeles transplants, fronted by vocalist/guitarist Shimon Moore, offer up songs on the heavy end of post-grunge alternative rock (see the urgent "Pitiful"), although the aforementioned single reveals that the trio has a knack for crafting more reflective numbers, giving them an impressively wide appeal. Because it introduced itself to U.S. audiences by way of a hug felt 'round the world (check out the heavily downloaded video to first single "All the Same"), it's hard to think of Sick Puppies as all that sick. But the Australian band's approach to music is hard and swift, and its fully unbuttoned songs reach toward hard rock's metal edges with intelligence and something like grace. While "Cancer" arrives at a not unlikable growly place, "What Are You Looking For" unravels the kind of pretty melodicism that wouldn't sound completely wrong on a Coldplay disc. "All the Same," meanwhile, is an energetic love song that, explicitness aside, should translate across the generations, and "Deliverance" dabbles in the kind of angsty post-punk you might expect to find on a My Chemical Romance disc. The Puppies are hard-chargers -- they get into a song and work it up in a way that seems distinctly American. Count on Dressed Up as Life scoring as many converts here as the red-hot-at-home Puppies have down under. ~ Tammy La Gorce

With a name like Sick Puppies, you wouldn't think hugs would play a major role in the gutsy indie crew's rise to fame, but they do. The band's mojo took off in 2006 when singer Shimon Moore met performance artist Juan Mann, who carried a "Free Hugs" sign around a mall. Moore used him as the centerpiece of the video for "All the Same" and by the end of 2006 the heartwarming video had ten million views. Moore met bassist Emma Anzai in 1997 over a shared love of Silverchair and the Living End plus many of the other angst rock/punk rock bands from their native Australia. While many pop punk bands are fly-by-night, Sick Puppies placed album after album on the American charts, and were a touring and radio staple of the late-'00s.

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