There are some bands that cut straight to the quick. The Pica Beats are smart enough to put lead singer R. Barrett's voice front and center. Listening to the Pica Beats, it's almost as if Barrett is sitting on the opposite end of a campfire with you, singing right at you with uncomfortable eye contact. It's intimate pop music that avoids being maudlin or sleepy and boring. The band's childlike interest in the insides of bodies and the threshold of human emotion lend quirkiness and peculiar sadness to the whole.

The Pica Beats

With Basemint, Santee, Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside
Thursday, June 10, 9 p.m., $8
The New Frontier Lounge, 301 E. 25th St., Tacoma
253.572.4020