BAMBI KINO Bambi Kino bambi-kino.com Before they were proven songwriters, the Beatles were the hardest-working cover band on the Reeperbahn, the main drag in Hamburg’s red-light district. Fascinated by this period, Bambi Kino—members of Nada Surf and Guided by Voices, among others—recorded this album at the Indra Club, scene of the not-yet-Fab Four’s first German gig. The disc features tunes the lads would have played in 1960—everything... 

AURICAL Something to Say auricalmusic.com Rachel Rossos and Michael Gallant are classically trained musician-composers with incredibly diverse résumés. She’s written orchestral works and performed at Lincoln Center, while he’s scored plays and jammed with Phish’s Page McConnell and Herbie Hancock (full disclosure: Gallant is a contributor to M Music and Musicians). Aurical finds the duo in pop-rock mode, and their cleverness comes through... 

SHANNON AND THE CLAMS Sleep Talk shannonandtheclams.com Large and in charge, singer and bassist Shannon Shaw presides over her Clams like a misfit Marvellete or punk-rock version of a John Waters film character. She lives for the teen melodrama of doo-wop and early-’60s girl-group pop, and on this Oakland trio’s sophomore album, she pouts and growls but never plays the pushover. Shaw sounds genuinely heartbroken on ballads like “Tired of Being... 

PRINCE: CHAOS, DISORDER, AND REVOLUTION By Jason Draper [Backbeat Books] Mercurial rock icon Prince is a difficult subject for biographers—privacy-obsessed and reluctant to be interviewed, when he does open his mouth he’s likely to throw you off the trail with a cryptic pronouncement. So author Jason Draper wisely sticks with a very nuts-and-bolts approach in Chaos, Disorder, and Revolution, an exhaustively researched volume that lays out... 

AMY SPEACE Land Like a Bird [Thirty Tigers] With Land Like a Bird, Nashville-based singer and songwriter Amy Speace has created a hypnotic set of songs that may be her best effort yet. She coos and croons through “Drive All Night,” “Galbraith Street” and “Ghost,” and assumes the role of nocturnal chanteuse on the alluring “It’s Too Late to Call It a Night.” There’s a decided sadness in Speace’s aching vocals and weary laments,... 

THE RAVEONETTES Raven in the Grave [Vice] In 2008, garage-rock revivalists the Raveonettes got their hands on some synths and recorded two uncharacteristic EPs, Beauty Dies and Sometimes They Drop By. The Danish duo still drew from ’50s and ’60s rock, but rather than stomping on distortion pedals they summoned the woozy-cool textures of ’80s dream-pop and David Lynch film scores. They followed those samplers with 2009’s bubblegum palette-cleanser... 

STEVE MILLER BAND Let Your Hair Down [Roadrunner/Loud & Proud] Steve Miller has lately returned to the blues-based sound he pursued prior to the poppier material that made him a radio staple in the 1970s, while maintaining the distinctive style he’s boasted for the past 45 years. His effusive vocals, vibrant guitar solos, playful humor and producer Andy Johns’ supple arrangements serve him well here as Miller navigates the same strict parameters... 

THE KILLS Blood Pressures [Domino] After releasing their third album together, 2008’s Midnight Boom, Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince took a break from the Kills and found new foils for their outsized personalities. Mosshart spent the hiatus singing for Jack White’s voodoo-punk supergroup the Dead Weather, while Hince found himself a U.K. tabloid fixture by getting engaged to supermodel Kate Moss. While their lives have changed, the duo’s musical... 

BRIAN SETZER Setzer Goes Instru-MENTAL! [Surfdog] The most surprising thing about Brian Setzer’s first all-instrumental recording is that it’s taken him this long to try it. From his debut with the Stray Cats three decades ago, Setzer has consistently proven his six-string dexterity, applying his economical but vigorous playing primarily to rockabilly and neo-big-band swing. While the guitar is firmly front and center on this new set, Setzer’s... 

K.D. LANG AND THE SISS BOOM BANG Sing It Loud [Nonesuch] This is the first release that comes with an “and” after k.d. lang’s name since the Reclines shared billing on her first three records. The last of those, Absolute Torch and Twang, was also the last country album she made. So does the return of a band also signal a return to those roots? Not exactly, but Sing It Loud may be as close as she’s been since then. Siss Boom Bang contributes... 

EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY Take Care, Take Care, Take Care [Temporary Residence Ltd.] It’s been almost four years since Austin, Texas, post-rock instrumentalists Explosions in the Sky’s previous album. Their fifth and latest picks up as if no time had passed, continuing to showcase the band’s gift for crafting sweeping soundtracks for movies that have never been made. One almost wishes that the six tracks didn’t have such evocative titles (“Trembling... 

LAURA STEVENSON & THE CANS Sit Resist [Don Giovanni] Laura Stevenson covers a lot of ground on the second album with her band the Cans. She does sunny pop, rootsy angst and rock ’n’ roll bite, bringing an infectious charm to each of them with her sweet, slightly rumpled voice. Sometimes she murmurs as if singing to herself, and sometimes she lets fly with full-throated bursts. She does both on lead single “Master of Art,” a standout track... 

IGGY POP Roadkill Rising … The Bootleg Collection 1977-2009 [Shout! Factory] Fans of Iggy Pop know the deal by now: There is a seemingly endless number of live recordings out there (mostly of illegitimate origin) that document the singer’s manic energy and raw onstage aggression, but most are tinny audience recordings. The four-disc box set Roadkill Rising finds Pop himself culling performances from some of the best—and best-sounding—bootlegs... 

SONS AND DAUGHTERS Mirror Mirror [Domino] Sons and Daughters’ 2008 album, The Gift, saw the Glasgow-based band toughen up the folk-goth sound first unfurled on their 2005 debut. Mirror Mirror finds the group ratcheting up the aural dynamics—and the gloom factor—even further. Adding dance rhythms and electronica to the mix (as well as more vocals from guitarist Scott Paterson, flanking frontwoman Adele Bethel), the album comes off as an unlikely... 

THE ELECTED Bury Me in My Rings [Vagrant] Five years after its sophomore album, Rilo Kiley co-founder Blake Sennett and his band the Elected are back with more simple, summery sounds. Sweet, tender songs and breezy slices of romanticism are perfectly suited for summer fare, requiring virtually no brainpower to absorb. Easily digestible melodies laced with Ric Ocasek-esque economy are Sennett’s stock-in-trade, and whether you’re lying in your hammock... 

PETER BJORN & JOHN Gimme Some [Startime] Writer’s Block wasn’t Peter Bjorn & John’s first record—in fact, the group’s 2006 U.S. breakthrough was the Swedish trio’s third release. Even so, 2009’s unfocused Living Thing, felt like a victim of the sophomore slump. They’ve shrugged it off on their latest with 11 catchy pop tunes that are punchier than a boxing gym on fight night. Guitars bob and weave on “Dig a Little Deeper,”... 

NEIL YOUNG A Treasure [Reprise] By the mid-1980s, Neil Young had effectively gone rogue. The upstart Geffen label may have thought it signed a reliable rock legend, but Young handed the company in short order an electronic-music experiment (Trans), a rockabilly album (Everybody’s Rockin’) and a straightforward country effort (Old Ways). Geffen responded by suing Young for not sounding sufficiently like himself, and the artist took his case directly... 

SARAH JAROSZ Follow Me Down [Sugar Hill] If repeating yourself is a sure way to invite the sophomore jinx, then 19-year-old wunderkind Sarah Jarosz has blown that sucker to smithereens on her second album. Follow Me Down finds the Texas native branching out into adventurous newgrass styles with the help of Dobro king Jerry Douglas, banjo pioneer Béla Fleck, violin ace Stuart Duncan and other instrumental luminaries. Jarosz establishes a spooky ambiance... 

MATRACA BERG The Dreaming Fields [Dualtone] In a perfect universe, Matraca Berg would be the Queen of Country Music. Blessed with a sparkling vocal instrument and an unerring knack for penning songs that pack a visceral wallop, the Nashville native nonetheless saw mainstream solo success elude her. The Dreaming Fields, her first album in 14 years, proves that her gifts have only sharpened to a stiletto point over time. Berg tells of a girl who longs... 

DANGER MOUSE AND DANIELE LUPPI Rome [Capitol] Five years in the making, this collaboration between producer Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) and composer Daniele Luppi is an homage to the stylish sound of ’60s Italian film music, especially the so-called “Spaghetti Western” genre. As directors like Sergio Leone were trying to replicate American westerns a half-century ago, so Burton and Luppi journeyed to Rome to summon the spirit of a musical subgenre... 

THE CARS Move Like This [Concord] From Weezer in the ’90s to the Strokes and OK Go today, countless bands have realized what classic-rock radio never forgets: The Cars were pretty great. The Boston quintet built one of the era’s finest discographies during the ’70s and ’80s, making New Wave palatable for people without spiky hair. A quarter-century after stalling out, the Cars return with Move Like This—more a restoration project than the... 

FLEET FOXES Helplessness Blues [Sub Pop] With due respect to the band’s parents, it was nearly impossible to listen to Fleet Foxes’ 2008 self-titled debut album and not wonder if these harmonizers were raised in seclusion with a stack of sentient Crosby, Stills and Nash records. The voices were startling in their nakedness and purity, as if some irresponsible mentor had forgotten to tell the band that modern music isn’t supposed to be so gentle.... 

BRAD PAISLEY This Is Country Music [Arista Nashville] With its playful humor, above-average songwriting and stellar musicianship, Brad Paisley’s eighth studio album includes some of his strongest work in recent years—and some of his most uneven. If his trademark boy-next-door charm fades a bit on tepid tunes like “Working on a Tan” and “Camouflage,” he makes up for it on the ballad “A Man Don’t Have to Die” and the rip-roaring Western... 

LADY GAGA Born This Way [Interscope] Maybe she should have saved “Just Dance” for this one: Lady Gaga’s new album is a high-energy collection of booming club beats and crazed synthesizers on 14 new songs stuffed full of pop hooks. Gaga (Stefani Germanotta to her mom) has a message this time, too: Be yourself. She hits the theme on the Madonna-esque title track, asserts herself with her ’do on “Hair” (featuring Clarence Clemons on saxophone)... 

BEASTIE BOYS Hot Sauce Committee Part Two [Capitol] The long-awaited eighth Beastie Boys album begins on a familiar note. Over a funky, distorted organ riff and clanging, old-school beat, rappers Michael “Mike D” Diamond, Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz and Adam “MCA” Yauch respectively bark, shriek and croak their lines, complementing one another as they have since the early ’80s when the trio busted out of New York City nearly fully formed.... 

COLD BLUE REBELS Blood, Guts N’ Rock & Roll myspace.com/coldbluerebels Cold Blue Rebels could easily be knocking out Stray Cats covers or ’50s standards, but these L.A. punkabillies would rather slather on the corpse paint and sing about dating dead chicks. It’s tasteless, juvenile stuff, but that’s the point. If “Zombie Love” doesn’t make you chuckle, you might be among the walking dead yourself.  Read More →

WOLFRAM Wolfram diskokaine.com Trinidadian singer Haddaway scored a crossover techno hit with 1993’s “What Is Love?” Austrian producer Wolfram devotes his debut to revisiting that question in sound and sentiment, reviving the disco beats and minor-key electronics of early-’90s Eurodance. Haddaway himself guests on “Thing Called Love,” still searching, still grooving.  Read More →

IAN AXEL This Is the New Year myspace.com/ianaxel Like Owl City without the synths or Vanessa Carlton with a Y chromosome, Ian Axel churns out smart, catchy songs about the pains of being a pure-hearted 20-something. The best of this bunch is the title cut—a piano-pop pep talk that even cynics might get behind.  Read More →

DIRTY BEACHES Badlands dirtybeaches.blogspot.com Taiwanese-born one-man-band Alex Zhang Hungtai explores the seedy side of ’50s culture, demonstrating the influence of filmmaker David Lynch as much as Elvis Presley. He creates lo-fi, laptop-made minimalist rockabilly soundtracks for your darkest, most twisted nightmares.  Read More →

ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS Into Bass and Time myspace.com/ancientastronautsswitch Proof that hip-hop can come from anywhere and sound like anything, the sophomore effort by these German producers features funk-soul brass, turntable scratches and Far Eastern strings, among other sounds. The constants: thumping bass and drums, the cement and water in a foundation thick enough to support it all.  Read More →

TAHITI 80 The Past, the Present & the Possible tahiti80.com The sixth Tahiti 80 album arrives via the band’s own Human Sounds imprint, cheekily named for the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. The French sextet is clearly acquainted with that touchstone of classic pop, but Brian Wilson’s masterwork isn’t the only influence on this music. Most of the tracks here combine ’80s synth-pop with modern R&B, satisfying both the “past” and “present”... 

FIVE O’CLOCK HEROES Different Times myspace.com/fiveoclockheroes It’s no wonder these New Yorkers hit first in England and are just now, three albums into their career, making their stateside debut. The Brits surely hear in the Heroes echoes of late-’70s U.K. greats Graham Parker, Joe Jackson and XTC, if not latter-day equivalents like the Fratellis and Kaiser Chiefs. Most of these songs find singer Anthony Ellis doing his best Andy Partridge... 

TURISAS Stand Up and Fight turisas.com Listening to the third album from Finnish symphonic-metal crew Turisas, the foremost question becomes what to do with one’s hands. Throwing the classic devil-horns gesture seems fitting—but only when the guitars are chugging, the double bass drums are charging like a Clydesdale, and singer Mathias “Warlord” Nygård is affecting a demonic growl. When the horns and strings swoop in, setting the stage for... 

YOUNG PRISMS Friends for Now myspace.com/youngprisms On its own, each element that makes up Young Prisms’ debut would sound monotonous, abrasive or both. The bass and drums throb pleasantly enough, ramping up old-school girl-group rhythms, but the guitars drone like amplified vacuum cleaners and the two singers do little more than howl into the sonic tornado. But when these wily San Franciscans put all these elements together they get songs like... 

WHITE MYSTERY Blood & Venom whitemysteryband.com Boy-girl duo, fat garage riffs, surname White: It’s a familiar premise, but White Mystery is no White Stripes rip-off. In this Chicago band the girl is up front, and Alex White has a personality as big and mean as her growly guitar tone. She also sings like a feral Ronette—or maybe a young Grace Slick minus the artsy pretension. Alex’s brother, Francis (yes, her actual sibling, contrasting... 

THE PAPERHEAD The Paperhead myspace.com/lookingglasssound When Ryan Jennings, one of three Nashville teens behind the Paperhead, sings “Back to Those Days,” it’s obvious just which days he’s talking about. The trio’s debut flashes unabashedly back to 1968, its swimmy, fuzzy guitars and amorphous song structures evoking such psych-rock classics as the Third Bardo’s “I’m Five Years Ahead of My Time.” Because Jennings and his cohorts... 

GLEASONS DRIFT Blythe Township Mellencamp gleasonsdrift.com Power-pop isn’t solely the purview of city slickers in skinny ties. The members of Gleasons Drift are more beard-and-flannel types, so it’s fitting that on their third album they deliver big riffs and bigger melodies with a backwoods twang befitting their native Pottsville, Pa. At their catchiest the songs recall ’70s-era NRBQ. When frontman Bill Whalen really gets going, singing about... 

SIMS Bad Time Zoo myspace.com/sims On his sophomore album, Minneapolis hip-hopper Sims celebrates successes personal (“LMG”) and professional (“Good Times”), while still finding plenty to get riled up about. Taking full advantage of producer Lazerbeak’s plethora of sounds—horn samples, reggae riddims and even noodling electric guitar—the MC born Andrew Sims blasts materialistic mainstream rappers and modern consumer culture. He’s a... 

SHANNON MCNALLY Western Ballad shannonmcnally.com On “High,” the second song on her 11th album, Shannon McNally recalls watching a red prairie sunrise. Amid shimmering, ghostly guitars, she admits, “I was just a little bit high.” That confession could account for about half of Western Ballad, which finds her and collaborator Mark Bingham cranking up the reverb and creating a cool, spooky sound they call “psychedelic Americana.” “Toast,”... 

GREG TROOPER Upside-Down Town gregtrooper.com Singer and songwriter Greg Trooper goes slumming on the Upside-Down Town track “They Call Me Hank,” sung from the perspective of a luckless wino—but for much of his 10th album, he’s king of the barroom, the leader of the band. Backed by guitar, electric piano and a warmly whirring organ, Trooper makes sweet Saturday-night music: country, rock, soul and blues, all doled out in equal measure. Trooper... 

LIFEGUARDS Waving at the Astronauts robertpollard.net Ohio-born Robert Pollard has released music under various pseudonyms during his long and storied career. But regardless of what it says on the album cover, the music within tends to sound a lot like Guided by Voices, the indie-rock institution he founded in the early ’80s and masterminded for more than two decades. Lifeguards is a collaboration with onetime GBV guitarist Doug Gillard, who wrote... 

RICHARD X. HEYMAN Tiers/And Other Stories richardxheyman.com Whether it was intended as such or not, Tiers/And Other Stories stands as the ultimate test of Richard X. Heyman’s songwriting prowess. As the forward slash in the title suggests, this is two albums in one—and all told, an ambitious 31-track concept piece chronicling Heyman’s life since meeting Nancy Leigh, the woman who would become not just his wife but bass player and engineer. Best... 

ROY ORBISON The Monument Singles Collection [Monument/Orbison/Legacy] BOX SET Now that vinyl has made its comeback, why not mono? Stereo sound vanquished its single-channel predecessor decades ago, but some stubborn souls never stopped touting the merits of mono—its punch, its clarity and the fact that for music made through the mid-’60s it was the dominant format and therefore the truest reflection of the artists’ intent. The Beatles, for... 

THE GRASCALS & FRIENDS Country Classics With a Bluegrass Spin [Cracker Barrel] The Grascals share a wealth of individual and collective experience in the bluegrass world, and it shows on this masterfully rendered set of covers populated by marquee guests. Opening with a faithful take on Buck Owens’ signature “Tiger by the Tail,” with Brad Paisley contributing the lead vocal and Kent Wells wailing on electric guitar, the Grascals prove once... 

TEDDY THOMPSON Bella [Verve Forecast] Teddy Thompson thanks someone named “Bella” in the liner notes for his new release—but if she is indeed the record’s inspiration, whoever she may be, it sounds like she’s been causing him endless grief. Bella is fixed on the down side of love: the difficulty of finding it, the ease of losing it and the heartbreak it leaves in its wake, accompanied by regret and unblinking self-recrimination. Thompson... 

NORTH MISSISSIPPI ALLSTARS Keys to the Kingdom [Sounds of the South] Swampy, soulful and drenched with bottleneck blues, North Mississippi Allstars take their cue from a distinctly Southern musical tradition. It’s hardly surprising, considering that two of the band’s members, Luther and Cody Dickinson, were sired by legendary Memphis producer Jim Dickinson, a man who helped shape an archetypical regional style. So when the band convened with guests... 

BRUCE COCKBURN Small Source of Comfort [True North] One might think that by album No. 24, even a singer-songwriter with Bruce Cockburn’s undeniable gifts might have nothing new to say. And there have been times in recent years when it would have been fair to wonder just that: 2005’s all-instrumental Speechless was hardly what Cockburn does best, and 2009’s live solo Slice O Life was, well, just another live album. Small Source of Comfort, though,... 

BUDDY MILLER The Majestic Silver Strings [New West] Despite a long run of stellar albums as a solo artist and with his wife, Julie, Buddy Miller’s reputation as super sideman to artists like Robert Plant, Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin and others tends to overshadow his own work. He has it both ways on his star-studded latest, enlisting top-shelf guitarists Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot and Greg Leisz for some adventurous reworking of classic... 

BRAD MEHLDAU Live in Marciac [Nonesuch] Brad Mehldau’s restlessness is as much a force of nature as his musicianship, so it comes as no great shock that the master jazz pianist follows last year’s double-disc quintet recording Highway Rider with another double album (plus DVD), this time solo. Mehldau is an explorer, in his compositions, his playing and—to the delight of his loyal flock—his eclectic choice of cover material. The music he interpreted... 

COWBOY JUNKIES Demons: The Nomad Series, Volume 2 [Latent/Razor & Tie] Beloved Athens, Ga., songwriter Vic Chesnutt took his own life last year, leaving behind a quirky, richly poetic body of work that dazzled fans and made his songwriter peers shake their heads in awe. On this striking covers disc, Cowboy Junkies achieve the near-impossible feat of framing Chesnutt’s songs in more palatable settings while preserving the off-kilter beauty and...