“Remember when indie rock was good?” Schande’s MySpace page asks. Judging from their sound, the members of the San Francisco-based band place these bygone halcyon days of indie rock somewhere between the respective eras of the Breeders’ catchy indie-pop and Sleater-Kinney’s thoughtful indie-punk. While frontwoman/guitarist Jen Chochinov’s infectious vocal melodies and edgy guitar hooks make these comparisons inevitable, they’re true of the band on many levels. The band’s overall sound is mostly upbeat and poppy, but there is a depth to it that few bands this captivating and fun can manage.

Their 2004 full-length, I Scored an Ocean (self-released), has all of Schande’s thoughtful catchiness on full display. There are guitar hooks galore, as the two guitars play parts that sometimes interlock and sometimes oppose each other, creating the type of melodies that stay with you for days, endlessly repeating in your head and – unless you’re a cold-hearted, jaded-as-hell son of a bitch – make your head nod every time. Punky riffs of the jangly and buzzing varieties are in abundance as well, injecting the perfect dose of rockin-out to balance the more angular and edgy parts.

If I Scored an Ocean relied entirely on its guitar hooks, Schande would still be in pretty good shape. But the band’s real strength may be its rhythm section, which provides depth to the songs by being thick and powerful while also smooth and grooving – not a rhythm sound that is common in indie bands these days.

Schande’s rhythm section and the band’s intricate melodies give the music a heft that transcends the modern genre of “indie” and harkens back to the days when indie was more of a descriptor: In particular, the 80s, when the independent scene flourished, and again in the 90s, when grunge broke out, both eras in which bands were exploring the darker nether regions of pop music. From the poppiest track on the album, “Dig the Halo,” and its most melancholy number, “Stella,” to the more experimental, noisey closer, “He Sells Hills,” I Scored an Ocean pretty much has no standout track: every single one is spectacular.

Schande translates all of this into an engaging live show that offers something to indie-rockers of every ilk. The guitar lines are just as catchy but with a smooth, almost lo-fi quality, giving the indie purists layers of tasty hooks to appreciate; while the bass and drums hold down such solid rhythms that even the hip kids just looking to have fun can do plenty of ass-shakin’.

The personnel has changed between I Scored an Ocean and the live band you’ll see onstage today, but Chochinov is most certainly the center around which the band coalesces and she’s keeping the indie goodness alive. Despite all of the impressive musicianship to be found in Schande’s music, the vocals are a central and defining component that stands out in the best way possible.

There’s something whimsical, nearly child-like, to Chochinov’s voice, which can almost come across as twee on your first listen. Her vocals are, in fact, the perfect encapsulation of the band’s aesthetic: always catchy as hell, but with a subtly implied depth that begs for close and repeated listening. Lines like “You should be drowning in a sea of me,” from “Drown Please,” and “You’re so pretty when you talk back,” from “Out on You,” hint at a sinister side to Chochinov’s vocals that belies the innocence of her voice.

Years from now, when some unforeseeable music craze has swept the nation and indie rock, like all other genres, has been caught up in its wake and irrevocably skewed, indie purists just might be putting on Schande records, logging in to whatever Web 3.0 social networking site has supplanted Myspace, and, with a nostalgic sigh, beseeching: Remember when indie rock was good?!?