Voxhaul Broadcast ... remember the name

Their name has been mumbled, mangled and maybe even mocked — not that the four guys in Voxhaul Broadcast  can blame anybody. “Every name we’d pick would be taken,” singer-guitarist David Dennis says, “so we thought, ‘Let’s make up some words and hope it’s not taken.’ ”

In a way, the Orange County quartet set about making their music in similar fashion. “If it sounds too reminiscent of anything, we kind of [rough] it up,” Dennis says. “It’s really easy to be cliché; you have to be picky about what you do.”

Voxhaul Broadcast’s twitchy, soul-infused rock isn’t exactly new — but the work of Dennis, guitarist-keyboardist Anthony Aguiar, bassist Phillip Munset II and drummer Kurt Allen is distinctive, if only because it originated on an O.C. landscape populated by harder-edged bands. “It used to be a band like us could not play a show without being booked with a hard-core band,” Dennis says. “Now there is a lot of other music coming out of Orange County.”

Indeed, the band’s “Rotten Apples” EP, out on Retone Records, recalls the Charlatans UK or the Strokes more than any suburban thrashers. The quartet, now based in L.A., has spent much of the fall on tour. “Right now, we’re just trying to get our name out there,” Dennis says.

||| Voxhaul Broadcast plays the Indie 103.1 show tonight at the Viper Room with Last American Buffalo, Saint Motel and Le Switch.

||| Download: "Rotten Apples."

Other highlights for Monday, Nov. 26

The final night of the Softlightes residency has been moved from Spaceland to the Echoplex. The dreamy quartet spread some serious feel-good pop over the first three weeks of its stand. ... The Airborne Toxic Event ends its four-week stand at the Detroit Bar, with Orange County's Cavil at Rest. ... Restaurant winds up its residency at the Echo. ... And I See Hawks in LA holds forth at Bordello.