GREG REESE
Arts Editor

The Exploding Hearts were the lost sensation of the 2000s. If you like the Clash, you’ll probably like the Exploding Hearts. And it isn’t that they were simply a knock-off of the Clash, either — the Exploding Hearts were just a great punk band with an old school approach. Echoes of many of the great early punk bands reverberate in their tunes: the Buzzcocks, the Undertones and the New York Dolls, to name a few.

Unfortunately, in 2003 they crashed their tour bus and only one of them made it out alive; guitarist Terry Six now plays in another great power-pop band, also based out of Portland: The Nice Boys.

The Exploding Hearts were only beginning to garner the following they deserved when their career came to a sudden end. To their annoyance, major labels were breathing down their necks for a never-completed sophomore record. Some of the unreleased material has been put on an Exploding Hearts best-of, aptly titled Shattered. “Making Teenage Faces” and “Your Shadow” show the potential of the band to continue to develop in the power-pop genre were it not for a flipped tour bus.

Guitar Romantic was the only album they properly released in their short career, but it packs a wallop. What so many modern pop bands forget — namely, punchy hooks and great melodies — Guitar Romantic has in zounds. For what it’s worth, Pitchfork lists it at number 60 of the top 200 albums of the decade.

Songs like “I’m a Pretender,” “Modern Kicks” and “Throwaway Style” make Guitar Romantic more believable as a best-of than a stand-alone album, but that’s what it is: a debut album transmitted from punk rock heaven as a gift for a too quiet decade.

Lyrics about heartache, late nights, sniffing glue and all the wonderfully trashy stuff of early punk music make their way into the album and are sure to satisfy the teenage spirit within — whether you’re aching for the past or happy with the present. To be sure, the ’70s aesthetic is part of it. And though the pink clothes, leopard print scarves and scratchy guitar sound are all integral to the Exploding Hearts’ thing, the spirit is the engine of the operation.

To witness the love still held for these lost rockers and hear a sampling of their catchiest numbers you can join their sizeable fan club on MySpace.