Indie pop, like so many cult-ish musical genres, can easily become a way of life. One day in your teens, you find yourself vaguely curious about a foppish singer named Morrissey; next thing you know, it’s 20 years later and you’re arranging your Fred Perry polos in a rainbow gradient while downloading Felt bootlegs from Rapidshare. We speak from personal experience.

We imagine that if we were a fly on Michael Grace Jr.’s wall, a similar scene would be playing itself out, much to our excitement. Michael is the lead singer of The Secret History, a band whose debut record, The World That Never Was, takes notions of indie pop and crash collides them, just like that double-decker bus, with hints of Ziggy Stardust, the Smiths, sixties female pop icons like Lulu and Dusty Springfield, and mid-20th-century Italian cinema. It’s quite nostalgic, but nostalgia is one of our favorite emotions.

The more astute of you might recognize Michael from My Favorite, the NYC mope-pop icons who met an untimely demise a few years ago (we actually attended what turned out to be their last-ever performance, which was at a wedding reception of a friend of ours, and everything was colored pink and a random joke band called Haunted Pussy performed–you see? Nostalgia!), and TSH works well as a continuation of the Favorite, as their debut single “Johnny Anorak” demonstrates. Michael is joined in the new band by Lisa Ronson (daughter of Mick Ronson) and Erin Dermody, whose female wiles add even more charged hormones to the already head-swillingly rosewater atmosphere. Download the song below and see for yourself, and check out the band soon at these following tour dates:

02.14.10 @ Zebulon in Brooklyn, New York
03.18.10 @ Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, New York
05.23.10 @ Littlefield in Brooklyn, New York

The World That Never Was is released on March 22 on the Le Grand Magistery label.

Click arrow on right side of player to download.