Mike and Cody

Holy shit is this album incredible. If you're a fan of College or the Chromatics then this album is going to blow you away. Mike and Cody are old friends that have been making music for quite sometime and decided to make the leap from Jazz to Pop and I think it was probably the most amazing decision they could have ever made. Let's Go is a 7-track EP that was released over a year ago but it has a sound that will fit in any revitalization of the New Wave era. It's brilliantly crafted and each track builds on the momentum from the one before it. It's just catchy pop music that makes you want to move along and let them take you where you need to go."I'm Going to Steal Your Date" is an incredibly well written anthem to seeing someone that you know should be with you over the loser they are with. It really doesn't matter, they will be yours even if you have to just take them. "Headphones On" is this lazy romp that just bounces around and before you know it, you're just bobbing along with it. The bass line, the horns and all the little bits and pieces of "Everything You Do" makes a helluva funky song but then you listen to the lyrics and it's about a disastrous relationship that ends with having your eyes burned out by the sun. "Devilish" needs to be on the soundtrack to Drive. It's got a melancholy to it that makes it very moody. It's like the person that you see across a room and know they have some form of a past. This song is like that. It's been places. "Let's Go" will certainly get your booty shaking. I think it's probably one of the strongest contenders for a mainstream single. It sounds a bit like Patrick Stump and I think that's an incredible thing. "Party Machine" is this great song with a ton of hope about meeting someone in the club and making a connection but having a blast doing it. "My Favorite Place" is about as close to a ballad as the boys are going to pump out. It's one of those great pronouncement songs that you want to be blaring from your boombox outside their house a la John Cusack.

This album doesn't have any missteps as far as I can hear. It's going to be super easy just to throw it on and let it go. From start to finish, each track is as good as the previous one. They also have it on BandCamp where you can pay what you want for it. I love that site because it removes all the bullshit and I know the artist is getting my money. I know that it's not a lot but I would rather pay $5 to an artist for an EP and know they are getting 100% of the proceeds opposed to $15 with a record label and the artist maybe only get .1% of that.

It's a great album and it is unabashedly pop music to it's core and it is good. There are no false pretenses here, from the first lick to the final note, this music is just made to make you sway along. - Pop Rinse Repeat

At first, Boston-by-way-of-D.C. duo Mike and Cody drew me in with nostalgia. Upon listening to the first few tracks on their self-produced EP Let’s Go!, I immediately flashed back to the synthier-pop days of Hellogoodbye, a mainstay of the musical phase I get all heartsick for every now and then. But I give these guys credit for really impressing me with a song like “Headphones On,” which builds with a low-key guitar melody, some lo-fi vocals and subtle percussion, and then ratchets up just a bit with some catchy drumming and then cuts loose nicely with some echo effects and a little synth-and-guitar bridge. While they lean toward the unabashedly digitized side of electro-pop on a handful of Let’s Go!‘s seven tracks — and still manage to impress — “Headphones On” is the clear-cut example of the pair’s hard work on the short-player and ability to construct a traditional, good old-fashioned rock(ish) song. The whole EP is available for free on their bandcamp page, and you can grab “Headphones On” as well as “Everything You Do” below.
Long story short, I could see many of these songs blowing up on any campus — or commercial for that matter — radio station. - The Wounded Jukebox

Sometimes all it takes is one listen to a new act’s material to know that they’re going to be something major in record time.

Such is the case with D.C.’s Mike and Cody, an electro/ indie/ dance-pop act whose new seven-track EP Let’s Go! arrives jam-packed with the kind of insta-winners that seem destined to become every-blog’s new “favorite”, with multiple cuts dominating over Hype Machine’s Popular chart for the next season or two.

Intro cut “I’m Gonna Steal Your Date” sets the perfect opening tone, marrying the influences of Black Kids, The Strokes and B.o.B’s poppier side for an addictive keyboard n’ guitar-powered jingle tracking one guy’s hilariously persistent attempts to win over a girl on the dancefloor…all of which includes ignoring her many turn-down’s (“She say I’m too confident/ She tell me, ‘Take a hint’”), dissing her bad dancer of a boyfriend who’s giving him the evil eye across the room (“He’s got a white suit and some shades, like he’s famous/ I don’t care if he’s 10 years older/ His moves are real lame and you know he can’t fake it”), then proceeding to take her girlfriend out for a bump n’ grind spin in the hopes she’ll spot them “getting closer” and get jealous.

By track’s end, it seems like he’s gotten more closer to a beat-down than a successful hook-up with his fantasy boo, but that’s a-okay in our book, pathetic losers being far more entertaining (and relatable) song protagonists over slick lotharios who always get the girl in the end (with the usual added bonus of the girl’s friend too) any day of the week.

Hear the track below, then download it (and the rest of Let’s Go!) at the band’s Bandcamp page for one of those always-enticing “make your own price” deals. - Mixtape Maestro