Animals As Leaders is the solo project of seven- and eight-string guitarist Tosin Abasi, who has played with such bands as the now-defunct Washington, DC band Reflux and Born of Osiris; I was quite honestly very excited to be reviewing the guy's debut album as Animals As Leaders. Besides being blown away by the absolute insane talent and musicianship of Tosin, I had never heard progressive rock so creatively fused with electronica outside of the likes of experimental free-jazz DnB artist Squarepusher. With a lot of progressive releases, it's often like a competition to see how fast one can shred or how many time signature changes one can throw into an eleven-minute song, but with Animals As Leaders the songs are all very organic and natural. AAL creates a listening experience that is combination of Blade Runner and Tron, with a little bit of Dreamscape thrown in -- and if you don't know those movies, you probably won't like this album, either. Easily one of the best releases of the year. (Dremaceo Giles // 01/05/10)

Let's get straight to the point: Blakroc is genius. It's rap-rock as it should be. It fills a void that neither rock or rap can adequately address while simultaneously erasing the damage done by the Fred Dursts and Mike Shinodas of the rap-rock world.

I've always felt that hip-hop could use actual instruments. Don't get me wrong , I enjoy the sounds of J. Cole and Z-Ro, but there's something about a drum machine and a synthesizer that feels too precise and sterile. Frankly, some beats are straight lazy -- I swear Gucci Mane, Jeezy, and Lil Wayne all use the same drum fill, and it's this kind of musicianship that can get a bit tiresome. That's what makes Blakroc so brilliant and so simple: grab some good musicians and make them write the music. Find some talented MCs and have them write the lyrics. Simple, right? Musicians make the music, and rappers do the rapping.

The difference between actual musicians and a drum machine or even a sample is huge. The Black Keys bring creativity through a guitar lick here or a vocal loop there, creating depth and style rarely heard in traditional hip-hop beats. Unfortunately, outside of Ludacris, the MC selection is all East Coast. It's hard to see how it could have been done differently, considering the album finished in eleven days, but there's something so enticing about having Dirty South MCs dropping lyrics to blues-inspired indie rock.

Despite this lack of diversity, though, each lyricist works hard at crafting their rhymes. Songs about heartbreak or the madness of sexuality fill the album, with each verse accompanied by a beat specially tailored for the individual MC. There are some low points on the album, especially RZA on "Telling Me Things" or Q-Tip's effort on "Hope You're Happy." The great thing about having a great duo of musicians, however, is that they can create music that'll still grab your attention, even when paired with a subpar lyrical performance.

Blakroc is an album that could have failed in a million different ways but didn't. Earlier this year, The Black Lips combined their brand of overly happy garage-rock with the GZA to create the mismatched and ill-conceived track "The Drop I Hold." Blakroc avoids all of that. Not a track on Blakroc feels out of place or awkward, due to the careful craftsmanship and focus of the participating parties. It's an album that's a triumph for creativity from the beginning to the end. (Daniel Yuan // 01/05/10)

Psychedelia-infused '60s-retro rock-pop is still in full force. It seems that a new artist in this very creative genre comes out every other week with a good-to-great album. Drug Rug's latest album, Paint the Fence Invisible, is a beam of sunlight splashing down upon your magic carpet ride, ensuring a bright and enlightening trip to your favorite happy place. Replete with reverb-drenched vocals and guitar plucks, the duo of Sarah Cronin and Tommy Allen weave their vocals into magnetic harmonies that bring to mind acts like Dr. Dog and Kelley Stoltz.

Sunny, poppy and short synth-etic opener "Follow" sounds completely different from anything on the album but also sounds like the end of an album, the band's members reminiscing over the previous songs they have created for you and encouraging you to "follow your dreams." This explodes into the guitar-led chug-a-lug ditty of "Haunting You," a feel-good song that states that, "Your love is here even though the world is so weird." The happy duo successfully convince me with their lyrics that there is nothing wrong with me, and I feel that there is nothing wrong with this song, either, except that maybe it's too short. I could've used a few more compliments, even though I've found my love.

"Never Tell" reminds me of Fleetwood Mac, Sam Roberts Band, or even Bob Schneider, blending elements of dreamy rock and a bit of country twang. Next up is "Blue Moon," which is reminiscent of the Dandy Warhols and a softer version of The Vines, using some "Ba Ba Ba" lyrics as well as a trippy organ sound to fill out the Vines-y melody. Cronin's voice is the driving force of "Hannah, Please," alongside some more "Ba Ba Ba" harmonized support. This is definitely the energetic pick of the album, with some Starlight Mints-like quirkiness.

The second half of Invisible is slightly different. "Don't Be Frightened By the Devil" begins soft; it starts to layer, picks up some Kurt Cobain-like, mumbly, drugged-out vocals, pairs them with Cronin's backing charm, picks up some fuzzy guitar riffs and a tambourine, and ends up in a long instrumental that contains sounds like some of the stuff on The Flaming Lips' Embryonic. The next track, "Noah Rules," starts with chanting vocals, guitar, and a muted tribal drum beat, then adds bass around 1:30, when you realize you've encountered a builder of a song. Stoltz-y repetitive guitar, Vines-y vocals...this is a cool song.

Halfway through, some acid feedback shines through the thus-far crisp song and distorts everything into a psychedelic freakshow that actually has the band's mind haunting me. Sounds like playing a Zeppelin track backwards but forwards at the same time. The weather clears at the end, but then it still sounds like a mushroom trip. "Coffee In the Morning" is a twangy, bluesy song perfect for a Sunday morning with Cotton Jones on your playlist. "Passes On" and "Sooner the Better" are a mediocre blend of all of the above elements, sounding pretty similar to some of the other tracks. The last track is very sparse, just Cronin and a guitar for three-plus minutes, but it hits a very emotional, down-to-earth chord and is definitely worth a listen. The whole album is.

They're recommended if you like the Dandy Warhols, Spindrift, Kelly Stoltz, New Pornographers, Spiritualized, Dr. Dog, or Fleetwood Mac, amongst others. This talented psychedelic duo is coming to Houston on January 29, supporting Fiery Furnaces (another strong act) at around 8PM. Let us go and we shall rejoice. Free love for everyone.

[Drug Rug is playing 1/29/10 at Walter's, along with The Fiery Furnaces.] (Preston Payne // 01/29/10)

Of the four tracks on Female Demand's self-titled EP, the one that hits the hardest is the opener, "Sweet Nothing" -- it starts off with almost wah-wah-sounding bass and stuttering, barely-restrained drums, then stomps its way into two minutes and change of driving, thundering, bass-and-drums instrumental rawk, leaning heavily towards the sludgy, garage-y side of things. The sound swings between noisy, punkish blues, stoner-esque metal, and an almost prog-funky vibe, if you can believe it, and the result is something like a loose, angry-drunk, alternate-universe version of Dub Trio, or maybe Jucifer rocking a dance party without the vocals. Put it all together, and it's a hell of a ride, especially for a two-man outfit.

The band slows things down somewhat for "I Thought I Told You...," and on first listen my heart sank, figuring the FD duo had done the inevitable and, y'know, toned things down for the record. Happily, they step back in after the mid-tempo intro, kicking and punching their way through the remainder of the track while riding a sing-song-y riff -- it feels weird to say that, I know, about a vocal-less instrumental, but Bradley Muñoz's bass at one point sound like it's taunting the listener, daring 'em to make something of it. "Skies Are Falling" is even more fuzzed-out and crunchy-sounding (a good thing, in my book), with drummer Jonathan Perez hammering away at his drums like he's trying to crack the ground below his kit wide, wide open. For final track "Like Catching Butterflies," the duo delve a bit deeper into footpedals-and-laptops territory, letting Perez manipulate stretch his bass sound out to infinity and then launch it into space.

If there's a quibble to be made about this, it's that I honestly wanted to hear it louder -- messier, more raw, more overdriven, so loud the speakers start to crackle. The bass sounded nicely grimy, but I wanted the drums right down in the muck with it, dirtied up and boomy, like, say, the way the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's Russell Simins sounds on "Sweat." Muñoz and Perez pull it off on "Sweet Nothing," but not really on any of the other tracks on the EP.

The kind of noise Female Demand makes really shouldn't be cleaned up, not one bit; it should make you feel like the band's playing right on either side of your head. (And yes, I did turn the damn thing up 'til my ears nearly bled.) 'Til that happens, this is no replacement for seeing the band explode live on stage...but hey, it's a damn good start.

[Female Demand is playing 1/30/10 at Mango's, along with Caddywhompus & Smiley With A Knife.] (Jeremy Hart // 01/29/10)

The Fiery Furnaces's eighth album, I'm Going Away, is their rock album -- it's much more linear and stripped down than their previous records, with much less of the crazily proggy stuff. The record is for those people who wish they'd cut out that wanky prog stuff and just rock. It also has some of their indelible melodies they've written.

While the melodies are more straighforward, though, this album still has the Furnaces' trademark whimsical chaos. They still come up with plenty of strange riffs and breaks, interspersed throughout the songs. "Drive To Dallas," for example, starts as a slower ballad with a bombastic thrash-math style bridge which progressively subsumes the rest of the song, but there are also a number of songs on the album like "The End Is Near," which is a completely normal song with none of their weird prog stuff -- completely quiet and mellow, with a big epic rock solo in the middle, but even that solo is all straightforward rock guitar lines. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. (Which, for them, is extremely strange.)

Again, the thing that's most different on I'm Going Away is the shift towards big, simple, catchy melodies. Most of their other records have featured casually-atonal melodies, but the melodies on this album are their most striking yet. "Take Me Round Again" is one of the best songs here, a big chugging piano/keyboard epic with a big anthemic chorus, the kind of song you could imagine on the radio in the '70s. Rarely have the Furnaces written songs that have been this purely pleasurable. "Even In The Rain" has a similarly gorgeous melody, with another strong chorus and cool call-and-response instrumental parts.

The Fiery Furnaces continue to get a lot of ground out of their sound. You don't really think about it, because their sound is so distinctive and odd, you sort of expect all the albums to be weird in the same way. But each of their albums has its own character, and I'm Going Away is no exception. Most "weird" bands that find a sound try to milk it for everything they can, or if they try to do something different, they fail utterly. It says something about Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger's writing that they have so many different ideas for sounds and songs and yet can make everything work well. They've chosen a much harder course than a lot of their contemporaries, but it clearly rewards them, too.

[The Fiery Furnaces are playing 1/29/10 at Walter's, along with Drug Rug.] (Henry Mayer // 01/29/10)

Okay, I give: I'm not entirely sure what to make of Giant Battle Monster's seven-track EP, Giant Battle Monster vs. The Man With a Gun for a Head. It's a bewildering, chaotic listen, wedged halfway between mind-melting prog-metal, weird-ass pseudo-screamo, Dadaism, and...hell, I have no idea what. The whole thing starts off with the oddball video-game bleeps and bloops of "Bill Spiller" -- which makes a strange kind of sense, honestly, because there's a seriously ADD-addled video game fanatic vibe to everything -- but shifts quickly to the stomping, crunching surrealism of "Man With a Gun for a Head," which marries seemingly stream-of-consciousness lyrics to weird, spastic, metallic noise-prog rock, then throws in at least a little more melody for "Dog of Man," which subsequently devolves into meditative noise before coming back in with the heavy guitars.

Tracks like "Avoiding Fornication!" make me think of The Paper Chase's John Congleton, but that's mostly the vocals; there's no Paper Chase-esque sinister-ness here, not really, just wild-eyed, off-their-meds weirdness. The end result is possibly closest to the late, great Bring Back The Guns, partly because both bands run in a frantic, desperate groove and play like they're really too damn smart for their own good. Giant Battle Monster come off like those freaky kids who nobody else in school can understand because they're so ridiculously bright, the ones whose collective sense of entertainment is on a completely different plane from the average kid. Oddly, the most "straight" track on here is the last one, an instrumental entitled either "Penguin" or "Pengwin" (sorry; the font's a little hard to read) that dwells at least partly in Pelican-land, with its crushing riffs, soaring melodic passages, and heroic drumming.

And yes, I like it. The Man With a Gun for a Head isn't easy to listen to, by any means, but I find myself nodding along and grinning as it runs, and then I zip back 'round to the beginning for another dose. Maybe on some level I'm figuring that if I listen to it enough, I'll "get" it; I dunno, and in any case, I'm probably deluding myself in that regard. Still, this EP's a fantastically sprawling, mesmerizing mess, lunging in all directions like some kind of many-headed prog-metal-playing beast anchored to the floor with adamantium chains, and it practically demands full attention -- I made the mistake of first listening to the disc as background while doing other things, and when it finished, I felt uncomfortable and confused, unsure what the hell I'd just heard. Listen close; it's worth the effort.

[Giant Battle Monster is playing 1/15/10 at Mango's, along with Clockpole, Darwin's Finches, & Cop Warmth.] (Jeremy Hart // 01/15/10)

I've listened to the album several times, but it still all kind of blends together -- nothing really stands out to me. Don't get me wrong; it's a beautiful album worth listening to, and for the genre of music they play, I think they do it well. It's just that nothing about it says "wow."

Keep in Mind Frankenstein is pretty much a repeat of Grand Archives' previous release, debut album Grand Archives, released last year, with the same chill, relaxing songs and the same soothing vocals. I would say, however, that this new release is even more toned-down and less catchy than the band's previous release.

Whenever I pop in any of the band's CDs, it seems like the perfect music to listen to on a rainy day while stuck indoors all day long and working on homework or crafts or something. It's good background music.

Grand Archives remind me a little bit of Slowreader, the side project of Rory Allen Phillips and Gabe Hascall of The Impossibles, formed in 2001. Slowreader only released one self-titled album in 2002, but it's since remained on my list of top albums to fall asleep to. Grand Archives are quickly rising on that list of mine. The higher-pitch sound of the vocalist, mixed with a wide variety of instruments that seem to relax your mind and body at the same time, create something very similar to Slowreader.

Grand Archives use guitars, the harmonica, the tambourine, the piano, and several other instruments to create its indie-folk/country sound. All of the sounds fit well together and create a beautiful, original, and unified sound.

"Silver among the Gold" and "Did that Crazy Grave" pick up the tempo a little and could possibly be the tracks that get stuck in your head. Or they may just blend right in with the rest of the album. I think Keep in Mind Frankenstein is a good choice if you're looking for something to help you fall asleep late at night or want some rainy day music on your iPod.

If you're really interested in the band, I'd recommend checking out its previous release, and if nothing else, listening to opening track "Torn Blue Foam Couch." It's great. (Spencer Flanagan // 01/05/10)