BR’ER City of Ice fullgrownman.com By the fourth track of this harrowing collection, it’s high time for some sunlight—the tune in question is called “Hope,” but even that title turns out to be misleading. “Now there’s no hope for one,” sings Benjamin Schurr, the Philly auteur behind Br’er. “He lives in songs that are sung of pity and empathy and all in between.” That’s putting it lightly. Schurr funnels heartbreak, resentment,... 

DARRELL SCOTT Long Ride Home darrellscott.com For decades Darrell Scott’s father, recently deceased, played roadhouse bars, singing country hits while squirreling away his own material. That explains Darrell’s fondness for classic country and fascination with the musician’s lifestyle, both of which are celebrated on this disc—a literally down-home collection he cut in his house with a team of Nashville aces. Scott is a respected Music City... 

THE MARSHMALLOW GHOSTS The Marshmallow Ghosts myspace.com/themarshmallowghosts On their third straight Halloween-inspired release, the Marshmallow Ghosts move beyond singles and stretch their spookadelic aesthetic across an entire album. The band includes members of Dreamend, Hospital Ships and Black Moth Super Rainbow—bizarro pop acts from the aptly named Graveface label—but the men and women behind the instruments might as well be swirly-eyed... 

GLOSSARY Long Live All of Us glossary.us After a month holed up in a rural Tennessee house, this veteran quintet emerged with an album’s worth of revelatory self-help rock ’n’ roll. Singer Joey Kneiser comes on like a Springsteenian Southern preacher man, piling positive exhortations and affirmations (”Crawl with me out of the dark,” “You don’t have to know what got you here to be happy you’re alive”) atop Stones-via-Skynyrd guitar... 

ALERT NEW LONDON Youth facebook.com/alertnewlondon Alert old London—as in the British capital—and tell the city’s nostalgic 25-year-olds that there’s an American band reviving the sound of their teen years. On their debut, Alert New London harks back to the chiming, heroic turn-of-the-millennium U.K. rock of Travis, Doves and early Coldplay. Another reason 20-something Brits (and Americans) might dig this? The Ohio quintet packs Youth with... 

KID SAVANT Drop It on the Stereo kidsavant.net Four years after forming in Indianapolis, this electro-rock quartet has finally released its debut EP. The long delay might explain “4 Years,” in which frontman Ryan Weisberger seems intent on putting the past behind him. “Let’s let loose and forget,” he sings, but the band—now based in Brooklyn—sounds neither loose nor forgetful. All pointy guitars and walls of synth, “4 Years” recalls... 

BRETT NETSON Simple Work for the Dead thisisthenewblack.com Acoustic guitars anchor Brett Netson’s solo debut, but it’s his electric tones—coarse, buzzing and intended to agitate—that give this album its post-apocalyptic feel. The Built to Spill guitarist and longtime Caustic Resin leader plays through amps that sound as if they’re powered by iffy generators, and indeed given this disc’s major themes—greed, war, environmental and economic... 

SORRY EVER AFTER Meet Us When the Lights Go Low sorryeverafter.com Nostalgia for the ’90s was all the rage this year, and while much of it centered on Pearl Jam and Nirvana, there was more to the alt-rock era than oversensitive dudes in flannel. The Clinton years also gave us Magnapop, Letters to Cleo and the Muffs—female-fronted pop-punk bands whose spirits live on in the music of SorryEverAfter. Formed in August 2011 in San Francisco, this... 

TALE WAGON Tale Wagon kanedaily.20fr.com Don’t be fooled by the word “Wagon”—this New York trio is no outlet for bearded alt-folk softies singing sad songs and pretending to live in prairie days. Bandleader Kane Daily grew up on ’70s glam and bluesy rock, and the Big Apple nightclub lifer makes with plenty of Keith Richards riffs and red-hot slide playing. His chops are impressive, but he plays with welcome economy on the strutting standouts... 

ADRIAN YOUNGE PRESENTS VENICE DAWN Something About April waxpoetics.com/tag/adrian-younge Before he earned plaudits for scoring the 2008 neo-blaxploitation flick Black Dynamite, Adrian Younge released Venice Dawn, conceptualized as a soundtrack for a film that didn’t exist. Something About April is the sequel—and again the producer and multi-instrumentalist reveals a crate-digger sensibility, using electric pianos, organs, fuzz-tone guitars,... 

WUSSY Strawberry wussy.org The way it’s described throughout Strawberry, if love were a piece of produce you’d give it a squeeze, frown and think better of the purchase. That’s the metaphor suggested by the title, but on the rest of their fourth full-length these Cincinnati alt-rock stalwarts come up with cleverer ways of expressing romantic disappointment. Singer and guitarist Chuck Cleaver (formerly of Ass Ponys) digs space metaphors, and... 

DAN BLAKE The Aquarian Suite danielblake.net Dan Blake doesn’t need chords to hold his music together. Working with trumpet, bass and drums, the Brooklyn saxophonist and composer dabbles in formalism—you can whistle “The Whistler”—and digs deep into formlessness. Marvel as he and trumpeter Jason Palmer take turns racing into the rhythmic churn.  Read More →

JASON REEVES The Lovesick myspace.com/jasonreeves Having crunched the numbers, Jason Reeves knows the odds of finding true love and happiness are pretty slim—roughly “Infinity to One.” But that doesn’t stop him from singing the sunniest pop songs this side of Gavin DeGraw. Leave math to the mathematicians, and love to the lovers.  Read More →

DREW WILLIAMS Engineerium listn.to/drewwilliams Like a toned-down Tom Waits or T Bone Burnett, this wily Georgian does Americana with murky textures and a willingness to get weird. There are songs about hobos and migrants, and on the feral blues sketch “Wigwam” he pitches his tent as far from the suburbs as possible.  Read More →

BURAKA SOM SISTEMA Komba buraka.tv A byproduct of our shrinking world, this Portuguese dance collective comes with fierce Angolan beats and synths that blare like sirens and blip like cheap digital watches. The disc’s anthem, “(We Stay) Up All Night,” is thrilling, if redundant—with this stuff blasting, who could sleep?  Read More →

THE ICARUS LINE Wildlife theicarusline.org Born and brined in L.A. sleaze, these garage-punk miscreants draw strength from defeat and depravity. (Sample titles: “We Sick,” “Sin Man Sick Blues,” “Like a Scab.”) Catch them at their thorniest, though, and they’re all shriek, fuzz and thrust: Iggy and the Stooges for the Sunset Strip.  Read More →