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Despite the overt flamboyancy of John O’Reagan in his fabulous rainbow eye shadow and my usual attraction to the more conservatively masculine male (but who’s to say what is masculine or feminine anymore?), there is something about this guy’s voice and beats that have got me going more than a little bit for him. Someone put on “Something Else” last night at a house party where we all sat drinking on the hardwood floor with nothing but YouTube, some gourmet lollipops, and our good taste and eagerness to share it. I immediately took a liking to him.

With a voice deep enough to rival Ian Curtis’s, but with more softness, sincerity, and that magical secret ingredient that I’m convinced every musician needs to make his or her way into people’s music collections these days: Pop appeal! Catchy hooks! Synthesizers! House influences! All of which makes new musicians like Toronto-based Diamond Rings refreshing in compared to that whole tormented, mentally-disturbed suicidal thing Curtis had going with his monotonous droning and that pale and blank wide-eyed, wet-haired look.

Diamond Rings brings to you light playful tracks like “You & Me,” “All Yr Songs,” and recent release “Show Me Your Stuff,” with its funky house and synthpop influences that create a danceable beat, a must-have to make all the bright and glowing summer youth want to drink and dance and fuck to your beats. Plus his patterned leggings, chameleon-like androgyny, and ability to move his shoulders and hips ever-so-gracefully make him much more fun than Curtis ever was. I’m actually not sure why I’m continuing with this Ian Curtis virtual Venn diagram when he was only initially there to serve as a vocals comparison, but I’m going to stick with it anyway. Maybe an illustration of how music today has moved past those dark, sombre years of the reckless waif angst post-punk 70s and into a new era characterized instead by a little glitter, dream and style leftover from Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust days added with a touch of suburban indie teen romance. You can see this in lyrics like “And if you move away I’ll try not to hesitate/Thinking I cannot lift the weight without you here to share it/But if you have to go I promise you that on my own/It would be known that I was trying hard to grin and bare it/‘Cause in the winter weather I lent you my warmest sweater/I would not want you to get cold” from “All Yr Songs.”

Nevertheless, it’s O’Reagan’s melancholic, injured soul-revealing tracks like “Something Else” and “Give It Up” that are closer in line to Curtis’s mournful self-destructive nature that really find their way to this cold little heart of mine. In “Give It Up,” he croons: “Wrap your breath ’round my own neck/Be the hangman in my moon/Feel my scar in a burned out car breathing in petrol perfume/Put me down in a one-horse town/Be the poison in my veins/Break my fall in a washroom stall when I call you out by name.” But suicide in the hands of O’Reagan becomes more about asking for consolation and trying to break out of that isolation that Curtis sadly succumbed to in the end. O’Reagan’s flair and intuitive understanding of the need to reach out to both peers and listeners even when you’re at your most rock bottom state is something I like, and I think many will agree. So keep moving those hips, baby, and making girls and boys alike fall hard for that fierce set of baby-blue eyes, that smooth-as-velvet voice.

Diamond Rings is definitely an artist to keep your eyes on for the next little while. He opened for Robyn last night at Echo Beach, which I’m sure was an awesome show, but don’t fret if you missed it — he’s playing two sets for NXNE: First at 7:30 PM at Dundas Square on June 17th, and again the following night at Wrongbar at 12 AM. I’m going to be there — are you?

Diamond Rings – All Yr Songs

Diamond Rings – Give It Up

Diamond Rings – Show Me Your Stuff