The best song this week is "Partners in Crime" by CSS

Never cared much for CSS’ aesthetic. Their singer goes by Lovefoxxx and she dresses in skintight psychedelic bodysuits? OK, I get that she’s Brazilian and things are different down there, but it’s still not something I’m going to seek out. And despite R.E.M. being awesome, band names that are just letters/numbers and such are generally a hurdle to be jumped rather than a harbinger of good music.

But then there was that cover of “Knife” on Grizzly Bear’s Friend EP, and man -- that was good. Better than the original? I think so. It was certainly more fun. And there’s a yearning in her voice that you don’t hear in a lot of electro pop. Those keyboard tones were right on, too.

So when “La Liberacion” hit the internet, I went ahead and put it on my iPod. The only CSS song I’d heard prior was the aforementioned Grizzly Bear cover -- somehow their earlier efforts had managed to avoid my ears, and I’d never felt the need to seek them out. I read some lukewarm reviews of “Liberacion”, got a bunch of other stuff at the same time, and continued to fail to seek it out even though it was right there in my pocket.

And then, of course, shuffle happened. Walking back to my car after work as some droney black metal fades out (I think it was Alcest), and this song catches my attention. It’s instantly hooky and fun, then at 1:36 the bridge kicks it up from fun into downright good -- the guitar/bass interplay amplifies the vocal hook, and all the while it sounds like Steven Drozd is vamping some latin-flavored piano twinkles; I'm digging it. The fact that the singer has a goofy was of saying "the" lets her get away with clunky lines like "I fall for it, oh boy, like butter on the mild heat!” It was CSS, and the song was “Partners in Crime.”

It’s a classic budding romance excitement song, complete with cheesy “ahhhh!”s and a total I-want-to-be-Kim-Gordon delivery of “You know what? Let’s do this!” The drums are bouncy, the guitar strums are nicely staccato and that piano rolls over it with an otherworldly quality that elevates everything else that’s going on. The coda is replete with classical flourishes and the whole thing shows a maturity that I really wasn’t expecting from CSS, and that you don’t find much elsewhere on the record. Not that it’s a bad record -- it’s got some cheeseball moments but it’s mostly pretty fun and effortless sounding; it’ll stay on the iPod and definitely see some spins in the summer months. But “Partners in Crime” will find its way onto playlists and road trip cds, and it’s the best song this week.