Ah, dork rock. Possibly the single greatest invention of our time. Dork rock is what made hipsters and their bad-is-good philosophy so darn popular, but there are good things about it too. For example, Noise, the debut album from Built By Snow.

Forget the classic Hollywood image of the dork – chess over chicks, asthmatic wheezing over Weezer – the members of Built By Snow are the New Dorks. And like the band, the music is just cool enough to admire, just emo enough to sway to, just hyper enough to dance to. (Ok, I don’t actually know if the band members themselves are emo. Or hyper. I’m pretty confident about the cool thing, though.)

“We are kids with no dreams, we are sleeping machines,” growls lead singer JP in a gravelly voice. You just want to buy these guys a round of west coast microbrews and sit around geeking out for hours, pausing only to dance like a frantic nerd when one of their more energetic tracks plays. You will not even be embarrassed by this dancing. We’re all friends here.

Favorite Track: “Sleeping Machines”