London's The Joy Formidable are a swirling, dream pop band getting more enormous by the day. They're comprised of singer/guitarist Ritzy, bassist Rhydian, and drummer Matt (it's always the drummer that has the boring name...always the drummer).

So what exactly is a dream pop band anyway? I don't know. I thought you knew! Maybe dream pop is about having lots of hooky choruses under layers of fuzzily unthreatening guitar distortion. Maybe it's about those pretty vocals over that nicely put together noise that makes it dream pop. You know, because without the pretty vocals, maybe it would just be rock 'n roll?

Maybe dream pop is... well, maybe you should ask The Pains of Being Pure at Heart or something, because I don't really know what dream pop is. I just wanted to say it. Dream pop. It feels good on the teeth and the lips and the tongue.

But I DO know that The Joy Formidable are definitely catchy. You can't go on tour with Passion Pit if you're not catchy. That's Rule #1. Rule #2 is that there IS no Passion Pit.

Anyway, The Joy Formidable has a pretty good name too. Their name means they are happy when they cause fear, I guess. Whatever. They are also dream pop. Good dream pop. We think. And so do several hundreds of thousands of others, apparently. I mean, they just opened for Foo Fighters at MSG for goodness sake!

The Joy Formidable play Metro, on Wednesday, December 14th.