For Real Estate’s Martin Courtney, returning to his native New Jersey  last summer after graduating from college may have been a regressive move, but it also turned out to be a productive one.

“I almost exclusively hang out with people from high school these days,” the singer and guitarist says, echoing that common post-collegiate experience of hometown dive bars and procrastinated job searches.

But Courtney also spent last summer writing songs and jamming in his parents’ basement with guitarist Matt Mondanile, bassist Alex Bleeker, and drummer Etienne Duguay, laying the groundwork for what is, little more than a year later, one of 2009’s most promising new indie-pop acts in a year replete with lo-fi fast-burners. Six months after its first gig, Real Estate—which plays at the Rock & Roll Hotel tonight with Japandroids and Neon Indian—was generating buzz at the South by Southwest festival in Austin and tickling the blogosphere with woozy, summery singles. Now, the band is about to release its self-titled debut on Woodsist Records.

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To the vociferous power duo Japandroids, rock, it seems, can be an adjective, noun, or verb. In a sprawling set at a nearly packed DC9 last night, the Vancouver band—shambolic, self-conscious, in its best moments inspired—played the bulk of its well-received 2009 debut, Post-Nothing, while rarely failing to remind an appreciative audience just how hard it intended to rock.

To wit: Japandroids’ set was heavy on foreplay and harder on banter, and throughout, guitarist Brian King promised that he and drummer David Prowse would “rock hard,” “commence rock,” and “rock out.” He asked the audience to forgive an obscure tune with “extensive rocking on our behalf,” and seemed to apologize for two concise, angular numbers that, one supposes, didn’t rock hard enough. The audience didn’t mind, of course; they were too busy … well, you know.

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