New ZOX album "Line In The Sand" is peppered with pop, surprising and delighting fans. Pearl Street Clubroom TONIGHT at 8:30.

ZOX is a reggae-influenced indie quartet that's gotten favorable press, but flown mostly under the radar since releasing an ambitious debut CD, Take Me Home, back in 2002. The band followed it up withThe Wait in 2005 and was eventually picked up by Side One Dummy Records (Flogging Molly and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones). For the new CD, Line In The Sand, ZOX hooked up with producer John Goodmanson (Death Cab for Cutie, Sleater-Kinney.) The band, formed at Brown University five years ago, is probably best known for having a classically-trained electric violinist, Spencer Swain, in lieu of a lead guitarist.

There's little in the band's past that could have predicted it would come up with a CD that's as start-to-finish brilliant as Line in the Sand. Here, ZOX moves beyond the basic reggae rhythms of its first album and leaves the hyper-kinetic ska beats that dotted the second effort in the dust. The music is bigger and more spacious. ZOX has been compared to ‘80s revivalists, and while it’s easy to pick out influences in the arrangements, the actual songs aren’t just vehicles for the band to make cute references to XTC or Game Theory. Strip away the ornate instrumentation, and Miller’s confessional, hyper-literate lyrics wouldn’t be so far away from those of, say, Paul Simon. Opening the show is The Everyday Visuals who were recently named "Best Band in New Hampshire" by New Hampshire Magazine. (Article courtesy Pop Matters.) Get tickets here.