MTV Buzzworthy Blog › Survivor

When smooth-funk dispensers Tigercity write their name as a single word, they give it the connotation of a noun that means tiger-ness. Tiger-icity... As in, it was too dark to see the animal, but you could tell what it was by the tigercity of its movements. Inconsequential as that may seem, it's a fitting little quirk when you're talking about a band whose easy-riding jams feel like variations on Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger."

Tigercity is Bill Gillim (vocals) and Joel Ford (bass) -- Hampshire College alums who met playing pick-up basketball (badly) -- and their new found Brooklyn buddies Andrew Brady (guitar) and Aynsley Powell (drums). After a couple years of actively not becoming another NYC-based Velvet Underground / Television derivative, Tigercity have pushed through the noise with their compressed soul grooves.

In doing so, the self-declared unironic hipsters have played a major role in keeping the underbite alive in the Brooklyn music scene, playing unapologetically flamboyant Hall & Oates updates with their teeth clamped firmly on their bottom lips. Their van-bumpin', yacht-humpin ballads, like "Mallory" and "Fake Gold," will have you scrambling for your silk scarves, sequined pants and Sperry Top-Siders. Smooth, nasty and righteous, all at once. That's Tigercity. Listen/ love here.

Tags Hall & Oates, Survivor, Television, Tigercity, Velvet Underground