“Tell me where you wanna live, Milwaukee or Eau Claire,” Laarks ask on their debut album, last year’s An Exaltation of Laarks. They certainly seem to have no reservations about being from Eau Claire, where they’ve benefited from the spotlight that’s been on that small city since Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon put it on the music industry’s map. Though it was recorded with some of Vernon’s borrowed equipment, their album owes little to Vernon’s understated folk. Instead it draws from the brighter, louder palette of guitar- and keyboard-based indie-rock, taking particular cues from Death Cab for Cutie and its dancier spin-off The Postal Service—without the cloying cuteness that latter project might suggest. The group splits tonight’s bill with two of Milwaukee’s hardest gigging acts, Conrad Plymouth and Surgeons In Heat.
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