It can be hard these days to incorporate horns into your rock band without automatically being labelled ska, even if you decide against adding a permanent dancer to the band (hello Mighty Mighty Bosstones!). Even though it’s been years since ska was anywhere near the mainstream, it’s still one of the first things to come to mind whenever someone hears you’ve got a trumpeter in your lineup. And though being a ska band isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it does mean you have to work a little harder to avoid being pigeonholed by people who haven’t even bothered to listen to your albums or anything. Maybe it’s because no one knows what to do with horns unless they’re backed by a rocksteady beat. You got me.

Winnipeg’s Novillero formed out of the remnants of a lounge pop band, but don’t go thinking that you’ll get any stylistic clues from those formative years. (Besides which, lead singer Rod Slaughter was formerly a member of Elevator and Duotang, which you probably recognize if you know your prairie indie pop history.) Nor do they have a dancer on staff. (Or do they?) Instead, for the better part of the decade Novillero have been specializing in energetic indie pop on both the Endearing and Mint labels—a sound that just happens to incorporate a lot of horns. And though none of the band’s current members play horns, the band’s devotion to all things brass is so strong that they even wrote a song called “The Day The Trumpet Player Fell In Love And Learned to Hate Men,” possibly written for then-member and keeper of the trumpet, Rusty Matyas (who now plays with the Waking Eyes, formed after Novillero’s hiatus in 2002).

For their last album, 2005’s Aim Right For the Holes In Their Lives, Novillero upped the ante with an entire suite of horn players and produced “The Hypothesist.” It’s a righteous orgy of shake-your-booty rock n’ roll, with the requisite rock piano and a killer chorus that begs for audience! participation! As for the aforementioned horn section, they mostly lurk in the shadows until the final measures, when all hell breaks loose and everything kicks into overdrive. It’s a solid slice of hard rock candy that hopefully isn’t the last we’ve heard of the band—it’s been two years now and we’re all getting a bit antsy up here.