DUOLOGUE Song & Dance duologuemusic.co.uk As U.K. kids reared on Radiohead, Muse and Coldplay come of age, count on hearing more bands like this London quintet. Just don’t expect the same mastery of melancholy stadium pop and glitchy electro-rock. Emotional and experimental, Song & Dance is an impressive debut.  Read More →

X-TIVITY FACTOR Hard and Powerful xtivityfactor.com Manuel Marino makes electronic music under many guises, and as X-tivity Factor, he delivers driving beats and synth lines with a slightly noirish New Wave sheen. Had the folks behind the Drive soundtrack wanted aggressive, not atmospheric, Marino might have been their man.  Read More →

BOBBY BARE Darker Than Light bobbybaredarkerthanlight.com When a fella’s been recording for as long as Bobby Bare has, he gets to thinking about history—not so much his own, but the centuries’ worth of strange and wondrous songs that make up the American folk and country canon. Fifty years on from his first hit, the 77-year-old Bare picks a wide range of classics, everything from Dust Bowl laments (“Going Down the Road [I Ain’t Going to... 

JOHN CALE Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood john-cale.com Having tried every other genre imaginable—his spectrum spans avant-garde classical to the proto-punk of the Velvet Underground—John Cale has finally made his goth-pop album. With its tense beats and spooky electronics, Shifty Adventures suggests Cale has been on a serious Depeche Mode or Joy Division kick. His drab singing recalls the latter’s Ian Curtis—if not Paul Banks, frontman for... 

TURBO FRUITS Butter turbofruits.com When the going gets tough—too many long nights and drunken fights—Turbo Fruits get going. “Motorcycle, please take my problems away,” frontman Jonas Stein sings on “Harley Dollar Bill$,” leaving hopelessness in his dust. On their third album, these Nashville bashers drink, gamble, play with guns and get their hearts broken, but they find redemption where they can—sometimes on the open road, mostly... 

MONARCH Amber Waves of Cain monarch-the-band.com As Monarch surveys their kingdom—newfangled cities beset with old-timey problems, populated by single moms, drug addicts and Joe Six-Packs—they can’t help but smile. The L.A. quintet plays smart, tragicomic country rock—all reverb, twang, shuffling beats and spur-sharp wit. As frontman Jay Sosnicki spins his sorry tales, he neither pities nor mocks the folks he sings about. He knows the world... 

WHITEHORSE The Fate of the World Depends on This Kiss whitehorsemusic.ca Whenever a married couple sings about the “seven-year itch,” there’s a tendency to think the worst: trouble in paradise. But Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland, the husband-and-wife duo behind this dark and stormy Canadian twang-pop duo, haven’t made a breakup record. Their full-length debut is all about keeping things spicy, and while the acoustic ballad “Mismatched... 

UNKNOWN COMPONENT Blood v. Electricity unknowncomponent.com Like Kurt Cobain with a keyboard or Trent Reznor with a cooler head, Keith Lynch, the lone Iowan behind Unknown Component, channels his hopes and fears into bummed-out synth-pop. He loves his faux string and choral sounds—touches that turn his home studio into a gothic cathedral—but judging by his mumbled delivery and searching lyrics, he’s not super enthused about much else. “Nowhere... 

RICK HOLMSTROM Cruel Sunrise rickholmstrom.com Through his association with Mavis Staples, who he’s backed onstage and on record, this blues-rock vet has gotten to know Jeff Tweedy, Billy Bragg and Neko Case—songwriters who cast traditional music in nontraditional lights. Here, Holmstrom does likewise, using back-alley guitar riffs and pop-Americana hooks to power cautiously optimistic songs about chasing down dreams. Things don’t always work... 

BONNIE BISHOP Free bonniebishop.com Bonnie Bishop’s latest could almost be a Kelly Clarkson record, only this raspy-voiced Nashville belter writes or co-writes all of her own country-soul jams. The opening trio of “Keep Using Me,” “Shrinking Violet” and “Free” are you-go-girl female empowerment anthems, and in a way, so is “Bad Seed,” co-written by legendary songsmith Al Anderson. That one centers on a politician’s daughter who... 

STACIAN Songs for Cadets stacian.bandcamp.com The really out-there pop music has never been limited to the coasts. Just as Detroit gave us eerily robotic early techno and Minneapolis spawned Prince—once Top 40’s chief experimentalist—Milwaukee has produced Stacian, aka Dania Luck. Keen on sci-fi imagery and primitive synth programming, this one-woman band fills her full-length debut with hypnotic minor-key riffs and harsh mechanized beats. Way... 

SLAM DONAHUE Hemlock Tea slamdonahue.com Sunshine pop for Brooklyn basement dwellers: There’s the tagline for this duo’s debut EP. Singer and guitarist David Otto has the soulful rasp and melodic sense of Them-era Van Morrison, and with the help of producer Ayad Al Adhamy, who’s pulled off similar retro-modern feats with Passion Pit, he sounds simultaneously young and used up, wide-eyed and red-eyed. “I’ll drop anything for fun,” he sings... 

EARLY GRAVES Red Horse earlygraves.com Without a lyric sheet, it’s impossible to say for sure, but the first word on the third album from these high-precision, higher-speed San Francisco metal mavens seems to be “death.” That would be appropriate, as new singer John Strachan fills a void left by founder Makh Daniels, who died in a 2010 van accident. Strachan and his steel-wool larynx keep pace with the band’s gnashing charge, and whether “Death... 

CRUSHED OUT Want to Give crushedoutmusic.com Jack White will leave behind boxcars of boss records, but his real legacy may be the male-female guitar-drum duo, a rock ’n’ roll model he virtually invented with the White Stripes. The latest—and one of the greatest—to follow his coed thud ’n’ thrash lead are Crushed Out, the husband-and-wife team of Frank Hoier and Moselle Spiller. These lovebirds dig Buddy Holly, the Ramones and most likely... 

BRICKWALL JACKSON Just Life brickwalljacksonband.com In life, this rock-tinged Virginia country-pop duo tells us, “There is no right or wrong way.” True, but as they celebrate the good stuff (four-wheel drive, spunky self-assurance) and make sense of the bad (miscarriages, heartbreak, sick children), it’s hard to argue with their methods.  Read More →

AMY GORE AND HER VALENTINES In Love thisisamygore.com Keeping one foot in the garage, poised to stomp on a fuzz box, the former leader of Detroit’s Gore Gore Girls joyrides through rootsy rock, country and even ’80s-style pop, a la Scandal’s “Goodbye to You.” The chorus on “Blackout” is bright enough to light the Silverdome.  Read More →

HABIB KOITE AND ERIC BIBB Brothers in Bamako habibkoite.com “Tombouctou” is your standard wandering blues—American bluesman Bibb and West Africa’s Koite have simply wandered very far afield. They’re caravanning through Mali, tracing the roots of modern music, and as with the other 12 songs, they hit on something fluid, uplifting and beyond time and place.  Read More →

THE REBEL LIGHT The Rebel Light therebellight.com On their debut EP, these L.A. indie-pop hopefuls announce themselves with guitars, pianos, strings, horns and synths. Amazingly, there are only three of them. With their big music and ideas (sample line: “All my heroes are dead”), they could be headed someplace, well, big.  Read More →

DOMENICO Cine Privê domenicolancellotti.com.br Your dad likes bossa nova and space age bachelor-pad music. You dig Radiohead. This Brazilian singer-composer brings peace to your weirdo family, playing groovy lounge jazz with an experimental bent. Dig the ray guns on “Hugo Carvana,” something George and Jane Jetson might have rocked on their honeymoon.  Read More →

THE WORLD FAMOUS HEADLINERS World Famous Headliners worldfamousheadliners.com How do you know Big Al Anderson still loves his job? Leading this Nashville supergroup, the 65-year-old sounds younger than he did on “No Good to Cry,” the garage nugget he cut in 1967 with the Wildweeds, the Connecticut band he fronted before serving 22 years with cult heroes NRBQ. In fact, singing and playing guitar is no longer Anderson’s main gig. Since the 1990s,... 

MASTA ACE MA_Doom: Son of Yvonne mastaace.com In the flashback skit that begins this hip-hop nostalgia trip, young Duval Clear rechristens himself Masta Ace. The Brooklyn MC has used that tag for nearly a quarter century, influencing scores of better known rappers, but this album’s subtitle, Son of Yvonne, is perhaps the meaningful pseudonym. After all, it was Duval’s mom’s record collection—romanticized on “Ninteen Seventy Something”—that... 

RAFIQ BHATIA Yes It Will rafiqbhatia.com On his full-length debut, guitarist and composer Rafiq Bhatia presides over jagged jazz jams that don’t always feature guitar and seldom feel particularly composed. True, his sharp, spiraling runs are all over “Background Music”—a song with far too many dynamic shifts to justify its self-deprecating name. Ditto “Try” and “Endogenous Oscillators.” But on the seven-plus-minute centerpiece “Annihilator... 

SKYLINE DRIVE Topanga Ranch Motel skylinedrive.me Bless the acoustic guitar—the go-to instrument for rock ’n’ rollers looking to reinvent themselves as troubadours. Among the latest to unplug and rejoice is Skyline Drive main man Derek Thomas, formerly of experimental L.A. rockers 60 Watt Kid. On Topanga Ranch Motel, there’s nothing remotely innovative—just rootsy strumming, craggy singing, woe-is-me sentiments and the seriously sad pedal... 

HARLAN Night Loop thestillbeat.com This Southern duo has everything it needs to make edgy electro-pop for urbane Northerners. There are static-electric synth sounds, restless beats, reverb-rich vocals, cryptic lyrics, and the kinds of bluesy guitar riffs Depeche Mode uses to conjure the mystical dread of the Mississippi Delta. Only this isn’t music for nightclubs. Multi-instrumentalists John Norris and Scott Campbell aim more for planetariums, campfires... 

45 GRAVE Pick Your Poison 45grave.net One generation’s devil’s music is another’s easy listening, and while the return of L.A. “death-rock” pioneers 45 Grave—back after a 27-year hiatus—won’t mean much to today’s bloody-eared extreme-metal fanatics, there’s plenty here to recommend. Like a West Coast cross between the Misfits and New York Dolls, the band does trampy, campy psychedelic bar rock, gobbling up Halloween clichés like... 

KENDRA MORRIS Banshee kendramorrismusic.com Having spent nearly 10 years on the New York City scene, fronting an all-girl band before going solo, this Florida native is too poised and focused to warrant the “American Amy Winehouse” tag she’ll inevitably receive. That said, there are similarities. Like her late U.K. counterpart, Morris is a cool, tattooed retro-soul sister who came of age in the hip-hop era. On her debut, she links Billie Holiday... 

JANIS MARTIN The Blanco Sessions cowislandmusic.com Rockabilly pioneer Janis Martin—dubbed “the female Elvis” during her brief ’50s heyday—died in 2007, but not before teaming with producer Rosie Flores, one of the genre’s finest revivalists, for one final session. After Martin’s death, Flores struggled for years to shop the album, and she ultimately financed this release via a Kickstarter campaign. The result is a bittersweet 11-song... 

RUBY VELLE & THE SOULPHONICS It’s About Time facebook.com/soulphonics The title doesn’t lie: It is about time, and that time is the golden age of soul and R&B. We’re talking Motown, Stax and young Aretha, but rather than mimic any single artist or classic label stable, Ruby and her suit-clad sidemen roll a decade of music into one nattily dressed package. That means a mix of JFK-era love songs—check out the “(Love Is Like a) Heat... 

SUSAN CATTANEO Little Big Sky susancattaneo.com Students at Boston’s Berklee College of Music have a fine teacher in Susan Cattaneo, part-time faculty of the songwriting department. On this EP, she leads a crack Nashville squad through seven pro-built country tunes. Whether stomping (“Let the Music Deliver Me”) or pining (“A Place Called Love”), she places each verse, chorus and bridge exactly where it belongs. Like any master crafter, Cattaneo... 

DISPATCH Circles Around the Sun dispatchmusic.com This insanely popular New England band’s first album in 12 years takes its name from the leadoff track—an underdog story that may be a parable for Dispatch itself. As the song opens, doctors rocket a sickly child into space, and after a few years in orbit, he returns “with a smile as big as the whole world.” Formed in Vermont, this markedly un-hip trio logged mad miles in the ’90s, becoming... 

TUMBLEWEED WANDERERS So Long tumbleweedwanderers.com Are those echoes of Sugar Ray’s “Fly” in “Take It Back,” the closest the Wanderers come on their debut album to penning a summer jam? Could be—the members of this San Fran Americana quintet are children of the ’90s, even if they’d like to pretend otherwise. “This ain’t ’69 / you’ve gotta change your mind,” frontman Jeremy Lyon sings on the soulful “Take It Back,” only... 

PINEY GIR Geronimo! pineygir.com Raised by a Pentecostal minister, Gir failed at speaking in tongues—unless you count “tang-ticky tang-tang-tang-tang,” one of the nonsense phrases she’ll throw into her smiley ’60s-style pop songs. Her sheltered upbringing hasn’t left her naive—just sweet and hopeful, even when life bursts her balloon.  Read More →

LOWTALKER The Marathon EP myspace.com/lowtalkermusic Properly channeled, the rage required to play hardcore can also produce music like this: earnest, surging, scream-along rock for tattooed dudes in touch with their feelings. It gets pretty heavy, but love of classic Midwestern punk keeps this Milwaukee foursome from steamrolling the listener.  Read More →

JOE FIEDLER’S BIG SACKBUT Joe Fiedler’s Big Sackbut joefiedler.com Three trombonists and a tuba player walk into a studio. It has the makings of a joke, but bandleader Fiedler plays it straight, fitting intricate melodies and inventive solos around Marcus Rojas’ anchoring tuba. On “Calle Luna, Calle Sol,” he even makes the t-bone sound sexy. Take that, saxophone.  Read More →

GRACE PETTIS Two Birds gracepettis.com Landing somewhere between old-school country and Top 40 folk-rock, Pettis pens detailed songs about lovers on the mend and young musicians on the move. Through these vignettes, she offers glimpses of her own personality, revealing herself to be an observer and a dreamer—a winning combo.  Read More →

BIRDS OF CHICAGO Birds of Chicago birdsofchicago.com It’s not quite Rod Stewart-meets-Billie Holiday—and that’s probably for the best—but husky-voiced JT Nero and silky-smooth Allison Russell lead a kind of Americana equivalent. They deliver barefoot, butt-shaking country-rock uplift and somber folk meditations, never skimping on poetry.  Read More →

RYAN SHAW Real Love thisisryanshaw.com Sharp suit, buttery voice, record label that abbreviates as D-Tone: These elements will ring familiar to fans of neo-soul music. For sure, Ryan Shaw shares much in common with the good folks at Daptone, the Brooklyn imprint renowned for reviving the look and sound of the ’60s and ’70s. Throughout his second album, Shaw digs deep into the Motown and Al Green grooves he heard growing up in Georgia, and while... 

GUANTANAMO BAYWATCH Chest Crawl guantanamobaywatch.com Surf rock didn’t need Quentin Tarantino to make it sound badass. Long before Pulp Fiction, the genre’s best instrumentals paddled into pretty dark water, suggesting after-hours intrigue down at the shrimp shack. On its second album, the Portland trio Guantanamo Baywatch offers a particularly trashy take on this venerable ’60s sound, ripping trebly Ventures guitar runs with violent garage... 

ALBERT CASTIGLIA Living the Dream albertcastiglia.com On “The Man,” the kind of smirking anti-Wall Street screed every good bluesman is required to record these days, Castiglia sings about how gin or reefer might dull his pain. Said substances have been known to work, but so has music. “Freddie’s Boogie,” his cooking cover of the Freddie King instrumental, reveals a guy too focused on his guitar—here an instrument of joyful showboating—to... 

GEORGE MARINELLI Believe georgemarinelli.com As a sideman for the likes of Bruce Hornsby and Bonnie Raitt, Marinelli has learned to fold folk, blues, jazz, rock and light reggae into instantly likeable pop songs. With this latest disc, he does all the playing and producing, writes or co-writes every track, and even handles the graphic design. It’s essentially all Marinelli, and yet Believe never screams egotist or control freak. The lyrics are as... 

THE ROCKETBOYS Build Anyway therocketboys.com For those familiar with this Austin band’s backstory, Build Anyway will play like a concept album about the sextet-turned-trio’s promising start, subsequent hiatus and triumphant—singer Brandon Kinder hopes—comeback. Then again, “Marching to the Palace” and “These Are Hard Times” could just be about girls. Either way, Kinder and his two remaining bandmates turn bad feelings into big music,... 

LYNN TAYLOR BarFly lynntaylor.com About a decade ago, Taylor quit the band Felix Wiley to focus on his family and landscaping business. By 2009, he’d started writing and performing again, and it’s fortunate he did. His solo debut is steeped in early rock ’n’ roll, R&B and mostly shuffling, summery country. Taylor is older and wiser, prone to singing sweet and insightful songs about his wife (“Stay With Me”) and kids (“Decatur Street”),... 

ROYAL SOUTHERN BROTHERHOOD Royal Southern Brotherhood royalsouthernbrotherhood.com No one is going to argue with the name. This super group features a Neville (percussionist Cyril) and an Allman (Devon, son of Gregg)—kingly names in Dixie circles—as well as celebrated blues guitarist Mike Zito and the ace rhythm section of bassist Charlie Wooton and drummer Yonrico Scott. What do they get for their shared pedigree and stockpile of talent? For... 

HAROULA ROSE So Easy haroularose.com Sometimes love is hard, like on “Only Friends,” the confused “Are we or aren’t we?” tune that leads off this excellent five-song EP. Other times it’s “So Easy,” as the Chicago-born, L.A.-based Rose sings on the title track, barely containing her joy amid an airy ’60s-pop backing. Either way, this singer and guitarist radiates hope and light, even on “Slow Dancing,” a moody (by this disc’s... 

A CITY ON A LAKE A City on a Lake acityonalake.com Written for a certain kind of 30-something—the type that spent the early ’00s in college listening to Coldplay, Death Cab for Cutie and maybe even John Mayer’s Room for Squares—this solo project from Brooklyn producer and multi-instrumentalist Alex Wong is an album about holding on. On “The Fighter” he likens himself to a bloodied boxer, and if that metaphor suggests a toughness and bravado... 

THE BLAKES Art of Losses theblakesband.com This Seattle trio cut its latest in the wilds of Maine, where the idea was to unplug from the modern world. Off went the internet, and on a handful of tracks, so did the guitar effects—more or less. “Black Carnation” and “Paralysis” are runaway rockers reminiscent of Dylan or the Kinks, and both give the impression of a band bashing away in a barn. Elsewhere, the Blakes try throbbing New Wave (“Narwhal”)... 

TORA FISHER Spilling Over officialtora.com It’s a familiar archetype, the angsty young female singer-songwriter, but more than most this native New Yorker has earned the right to write about pain, confusion, disappointment and the love that hopefully makes it all worthwhile. At 13, Fisher was the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed her father and stepmother, and if that’s not fodder enough for an album—or a lifetime—of soul-searching... 

EXRAY’S Trust a Robot exraysvision.com Do androids dream of electric pop? If they do, they might imagine a group like Exray’s, two San Francisco dudes who use drum machines, keyboards and guitars to create wonderfully low-key robo-funk tunes. Much of their third album moves at a plodding clip reminiscent of Trio’s “Da Da Da,” while the synths and muffled vocals place Beck at the helm of OMD’s Dazzle Ships. After instrumental opener “Something... 

CINEMA CINEMA Manic Children & the Slow Aggression cinemacinemaband.com These Brooklyn cousins hit the studio looking to rage, and famed hardcore producer Don Zientara wisely let them. Over 80 challenging minutes, the drum-and-guitar duo unspools 13 sharp, tangled barbwire tracks. Is it cerebral bar rock or Hüsker Dü-grade avant-punk? There’s ample time to ponder.  Read More →

STUART DAVIS Music for Mortals stuartdavis.com The “punk monk” tag is cute but limiting. Sometimes, Davis rocks like vintage Joe Jackson; other times, he’s more like Bob Dylan, Sting, Peter Gabriel or even ho-hum ’90s hitmakers Live. Regardless, this Buddhist singer-songwriter-comic thinks deep, plays hard and coats spiritual questioning with plenty of sugar.  Read More →