No, this wasn't what I was expecting to hear coming from a bunch of guys who've made their names playing raw, punkish garage-rock in bands like The Monocles and American Sharks. The guitars are thick and "round"-sounding and bluesy, the sound's warm and inviting, and singer Mike Hardin's vocals are confident and in-your-face. Put together, Bolt come up with a flamboyant, brash, almost theatrical chunk of '70s throwback rock, a cross between the boogie parts of the Rocky Horror soundtrack, The White Stripes (particularly the stomping groove of "The Man Who Couldn't Save the World") and, weirdest of all, Bowie.

"Hot Saturday Night" is the boozy roller of the pair, a song that sounds like it could've been playing on the hi-fi in the background of Dazed and Confused -- it's like a long, wild, warm night (duh) spent partying with your buds, just having fun and not giving a shit about the rest, even though you're due back at school in a month or two and you all know it. B-side "The Man Who Couldn't Save the World," though, is the one that really grabs me, more over-the-top and deliberate, sounding like the Thin White Duke could've easily written it himself (and the song title's maybe-unconscious nod to "The Man Who Sold the World" doesn't hurt). When singer Mike Hardin declares "We were born -- oh, baby, we were born!", I swear, I feel it.

The weirdest part is that if you were to describe this little two-song EP to me, I'd probably chuckle and shake my head -- nah, no way. I can't help it, though; put it on for two minutes, and the rest of the day, I'm singing along under my breath. The key, I think, is that there's not a trace of irony here; this is seriously retro-rock crafted by a bunch of guys who sound like they spent their formative years digging through their older brothers' record collections and loving every second of it.

[Bolt is playing 4/18/09 at Walter's on Washington, along with News on the March, The Eastern Sea, & The Tontons.] (Jeremy Hart // 04/03/09)

Popular bands always influence up-and-coming musicians. For every Radiohead or Coldplay, there's a Starsailor or South to counter them -- bands that make decent music but that don't quite reach similar levels of success, for whatever reasons. Portland-based musicians Banah Graf and Sam Krulewitch, recording under the moniker Caught In Motion, seem aware of the pitfalls of relying too much on their influences. While On The Edge Of A Dream favors the piano-based songs that make up Chris Martin's sappier songs, Graf and Krulewitch know when to rein it in and make the songs their own. From the emo-y pop of "Blood Still Beats" to the funky "Drop The Ball Now" and dreamy "Once Again," Caught In Motion's ability to make dramatic music without being over-the-top makes On The Edge Of A Dream a refreshing alternative to the band's stadium-sized influences. (David A. Cobb // 04/10/09)

Talk about a tailor-made release... Seeing as -- obviously -- the world naturally spins around yours truly, I'm halfway tempted to think these two bands, The Eastern Sea and News on the March, both of whom happen to be among my tip-top favorite things to listen to of the past year or so, heard I liked 'em both and decided to collaborate pretty much solely to make my day. And hey, if their joint efforts make other people's days, as well, then the more the merrier. Right?

Totally kidding, of course (my ego's not that big, thankfully), but damn, just seeing those two bands on the same piece of vinyl makes my heart do weird things and a manic grin creep across my face. I feel like the guy who puts a buck into the snack machine, presses the button for the oh-so-enticing bag of peanuts, and on the way down from its coiled-wire perch, the bag of peanuts catches on a chocolate bar and drags it down, too. Both are great on their own, but together they're out-and-out wonderful.

And not just theoretically, mind you. The Eastern Sea's half of the deal, "The Sea," is a surprisingly murky, dark piece of indie-pop experimentation, seemingly almost an ode to the ocean's power to wipe manmade structures off the face of the planet. Songwriter/frontman Matthew Hines hits the perfect note with one line, in particular: "We picked the wrong pig to put together our house / The one with the straw that always gets blown down."

The song starts off busy and apprehensive, quickly building to what sounds like it'll be a clashing crescendo, but abruptly shifts downwards to a delicate, somberly repetitive guitar figure, inexorable as the song's namesake and lending a weird heaviness to the proceedings. Fans of the band's self-titled EP may be thrown a bit off-balance by the track, honestly, since it eschews the pastoral, bright-and-shiny the band seems to use most of the time in favor of a corkscrewing, ever-falling melodic structure that brings to mind Radiohead's OK Computer more than anything else. Trust me, though -- it works, like Hines and company have been doing it forever.

As does the News on the March side of the EP, "The March (If You Had Gone Away)," which sees the band doing a beautifully organ-heavy, deliberate-sounding waltz 'round the room. It's a melancholy/pretty tune, swinging and slow and gorgeous, incorporating those awesome, awesome harmonies the band does so well (like nobody I've heard but maybe Fleet Foxes, really) to great effect and two dancers who used to be in love but aren't anymore twirl and step in perfect time.

There's a resigned bitterness to it all, the kind that comes at the end of a relationship, after the harsh words and slammed doors are done. The lyrics give it away, with the narrator giving an audible shrug as bassist/vocalist Brent Randel flatly sings, "It wouldn't matter / if you had gone away," all over a delightfully woozy melody that's like a ride spinning on its own in an empty, lonesome carnival. I doubt they planned it that way, but the two bands have managed to somehow meet in the middle, thematically -- while The Eastern Sea sings about how it feels to witness the death of a place, News on the March sing about how it feels to witness the death of a feeling.

[The Eastern Sea & News on the March are playing their 7" release show 4/18/09 at Walter's on Washington, along with The Tontons & Bolt.] (Jeremy Hart // 04/18/09)

At the end of the day, I have to admit it's the accent that makes Fever Ray's self-titled debut so strangely, darkly alluring. Fever Ray everything-woman Karin Dreijer Andersson, who's made her name as half of oddball Swedish electro-pop duo The Knife, has that Scandinavian lilt to her high- (and low-, but I'll get to that) pitched voice and alien, decidedly non-English phrasing that makes everything she sings sound like it's coming out of the mouth of the eldritch Elf Queen of the Winter Court or something. Andersson's voice, when married to the brooding keys and beats she orchestrates beneath and around the words, turns what would probably end up being fairly bland electro tracks into some wholly Other.

Things get off to a promising start with "If I Had a Heart" and its throbbing bass tones and shifting, deep-sea murkiness, the bass providing both the anchor for the song and leading the melody, at the same time; it's a duet, of sorts, between Andersson's un-affected voice and a weirdly low, vocoder-like vocal that sounds surprisingly masculine but that I'm guessing is Andersson again, just run through some kind of distortion filter. The effect makes me think of the slowed-down sample of Horace Andy from Snooze's The Man in the Shadow, where Andy's voice sounded so rough and deep I didn't realize for years that the guy's voice is actually pretty damn high.

Second track "When I Grow Up" switches up quite a bit, with the "real" vocals taking center stage in a meandering, cracked, quasi-confessional ramble about, well, Andersson herself. It's not as bottom-of-the-ocean deep as the previous song or the similarly lowdown "Concrete Walls," but it's still dark and weird, like a funhouse-mirror version of a Björk song -- and yeah, the aforementioned accent and phrasing makes the Scandinavian-female-vocalists comparison hard to avoid, in particular with Ms. Gudmundsdottir and her countrywoman Emiliana Torrini. Tracks like "Seven" further the resemblance, making me think of "Hyperballad" more than anything else.

Music-wise, there's a fair resemblance to trip-hop pioneers Massive Attack on Fever Ray, in everything from the semi-dirty beats to the nighttime vibe to the use of bass. "Triangle Walks" sounds like it could've fallen off Blue Lines, while "Concrete Walls" is Mezzanine all the way, all somnolent claustrophobia and urban malaise, a kissing cousin to "Man Next Door." In terms of production, though, I keep coming back to the overall sound of Peter Gabriel's elegaic Up; like that album, there's a lot of empty, sterile-sounding space here, Andersson apparently not feeling the need to gratuitously layer the crap out of every sound she can find.

That space works in her favor, allowing the songs on the album to breathe rather more than they might otherwise. It's all the ramblings in the dark of a possibly-disturbed person, but there's an openness to it throughout, like it's all happening in a very large, very empty room, or maybe standing on a silent hillside above town. Spooky, dark, and sometimes menacing, maybe, but nothing out-and-out evil. I find it intriguing, by the way, that Andersson primarily wrote Fever Ray after having her second child; while parenthood definitely has its share of late, late nights, this isn't exactly the sort of nighttime music that moves through my head when I rock my kid to sleep. At least, it wasn't, before now. (Jeremy Hart // 04/18/09)

Looking for a new album to put on as you slowly drift to sleep? Or maybe you really wish Enya would one day pick up a guitar? If so, Foreverinmotion may be your next favorite band; even the cover art of the band's two albums look like the front of every Enya CD.

Foreverinmotion is the name of Brendon Thomas' one-man band, and the music sounds like a mix between The Rocket Summer and Andrew Bird, but less poppy than Rocket Summer and less catchy and original than Andrew Bird. I am a huge fan of singer-songwriters, but this album really doesn't do anything for me. I really love the first few songs, especially the album opener "Magic," but I just don't get pulled into the album. I thought that after "Magic" I would be hooked, but I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up.

Like I said, I may put this album on to play as I am trying to fall asleep, but only after The Get Up Kids' Something to Write Home About and Slowreader's Slowreader plays multiple times each. It is a charming, calm album, but I just can't seem to get into it very much. "Avalanche" starts off really good, but ends like the rest of the songs. The songs all sound the same, and they are quite lengthy as well, not a good combination. I thought I had been listening to the album for a long time, but when I looked, it was only half over.

One thing that I did really enjoy about the album is its lyrics. Thomas sings about positive things, and I enjoyed that a lot. In "Turn and Chase the Wind," he sings, "I feel so lucky to be alive / Just behind every raincloud is a starry, quiet night / or a beautiful, bright blue sky." He also sings a lot about love, and the more the positive side of it, not the whole breakup/bitter side, which I find refreshing.

I'll probably listen to the album again, especially the first few tracks. After that, however, I will probably shuffle on to something else. I was hoping for a really good ending track to lift my spirits, but unfortunately, Foreverinmotion didn't deliver it for me. While Thomas is very talented, and I feel like there are a lot of people out there who are really going to like The Beautiful Unknown, it just didn't do it for me. (Spencer Flanagan // 04/03/09)

In my book, Austin's Cotton Mather were one of the most sadly underrated bands of the late '90s; while good-but-not-great people like Fastball got the hype and the spotlight, Robert Harrison and company's absolute gem of a magnum opus, Kon Tiki, languished in obscurity. And that still feels downright criminal to me, given that the album was so good that for a long time it was (and sometimes still is) the benchmark by which I judged all subsequent pop albums, and a lot of the judge-es didn't measure up. I never got to see them live, but that almost made the band's mystique better -- they were just these eccentric, immensely talented, Beatles-obsessed geniuses who lived somewhere up in the Hill Country and put out brilliant albums on totally obscure record labels that only critics like me ever truly loved.

Actual reality aside (I suspect that the band did have a fair number of devoted fans up in A-town, and likely elsewhere, to boot), the above's why Peoria, the latest full-length from ex-Cotton Mather frontman Robert Harrison's new band, Future Clouds and Radar, has had me so conflicted for the past few months.

First of all, it is good, with scattered moments of full-on brilliance -- the beautiful falsetto in "Old Edmund Ruffin" and the slipping-downwards guitar in the break on "Mummified," for two -- those crystalline Beatles-derived melodies are in full feather, Harrison's still McCartney-ish vocals (to my ears, anyway) sound even better, more refined and controlled, than ever, and the guy's lyricism always makes me shake my head in wonder. I mean, I've got to hand it to anybody who can make me Wikipedia the titular subject (sort of) of a song like Harrison did after I first listened to "Old Edmund Ruffin" (handy factoid: Ruffin was one of the leaders of the pre-Civil War secessionist movement in the South and claimed to have fired the first shot of the war at Fort Sumter).

Where Harrison's work with his old band was desperate and strange, however, feeling like the band was trying to pack the energy of a twelve-minute epic into traditional pop-song length, Future Clouds and Radar come off languid and sleepy, with too many pointless excursions into aimless psychedelia. Take "Mummified," probably the worst offender on Peoria, as an example. The track is gorgeous and weirdly sweet, like a love song from one dessicated corpse to another pretty much has to be by default, with a brittle, delicate feel to it that works.

But then, at about 4:30, the song staggers off into self-indulgent, meandering piano, alien atmospheric noises, and guitar scrapes, and the whole ensemble loses the plot completely for the remaining three minutes of the track. Had Harrison cut things off when they started to go south, "Mummified" could have been a great song, but at its full length, it's instead overlong, pointless, and confused, a decent pop song derailed by the band screwing around in the studio. And the sad part is that Harrison knows better; he's proven that, both with Cotton Mather and elsewhere on this album.

Even on the best track here, "The Epcot View," the pace is slow and methodical, and I hate to say it, but it makes the song drag. It's still good, yes, and I've had bits and pieces stuck in my brain for a while now, which demonstrates that Harrison definitely knows his way around a hook, but the fiery, wide-eyed frenzy that made his other work truly sing is missing. The music just drifts, anchor-less, in an almost Floyd-ian psych-pop haze.

Things amp up only once, for "Eighteen Months," which is faster, closer kin to modern Britpop than the Beatles, and which incorporates Matthew Sweet-esque (okay, Robert Quine-esque) raveup guitars and handclaps; a coherent, sharp-edged pop-rock blast that never outstays its welcome, it's a stark contrast to both the songs before and after.

Of course, while I'm a fan of his old stuff, I can't fault Harrison for wanting to take a bit of a different direction this time out; it just doesn't work all that well for me. Good? Yes. Great? For my part, I think I prefer the Lennon/McCartney side of his British psychedelia obsession to the Gilmour/Waters. (Jeremy Hart // 04/03/09)

On Chub, Austin band The Gary (none of the members of which, it should be said, are actually named, y'know, Gary) manage to take hold of three of my favorite elements of late-'90s indie-rock, the flat-sounding vocals and understated but still powerful guitars of all those dead-serious Touch and Go/Dischord bands from that era (think Arcwelder, Fugazi, and Silkworm, for three) and the warm, melody-leading bass of fellow Austinites Silver Scooter. Which, for my own selfish part, is a combination I'd love to hear happen more often.

The result is strong, erudite, restrained-yet-bitter, almost methodical indie-rock that doesn't so much knock you down and invade your head as step past you with a hard look, sit down inside, and start reading your books, all uninvited. The Gary rocks with a ridiculous amount of restraint, surging and rolling along with barely a nod towards the audience; they can roar and burn, but fuck it, they don't need to. Why play an ace when a two will do, after all?

These guys aren't out to be rockstars or blow away any observing scenesters, but rather are playing pretty much for themselves and for people who understand them; they make a point in the press materials of saying they each moved to Austin for reasons not connected to music, which is a nice change from the "get to Austin to make it!" mentality that happens far too often. I get the feeling that The Gary is just three guys who work, have families, and want to make music they themselves would like to listen to, and assuming that is really the case, I respect the hell out of 'em for that.

The closest musical comparison I can get to, really, is Arcwelder, both in terms of the "flat" singing (heck, bassist/vocalist Dave Norwood comes across almost like Johnny Cash on "Damn Machine") and the churning groove of the music itself. On tracks like "Expiration" and "Freeways," the band plays low and loose, with the bass and Paul Warner's drums driving things and Trey Pool's scraping-yet-melodic guitars sliding back and forth across the top. Pool's guitars can be utterly beautiful when he wants them to, as on the mostly-(all?-)instrumental "Freaks Go Forward," which sounds like it could've fallen off of the aforementioned Silver Scooter's The Other Palm Springs, but he mostly tends to play things more Silkworm-style, with the guitars as embellishment where needed.

Out of the songs on Chub, it's difficult to pick one best track, but I find myself coming back to "Expiration" and "I May Have a Drink," in particular, over and over again -- the former has a solid majesty to it that I love, while the latter puts up a somber, all-knowing facade over doubt and desperation, finally cracking when Norwood flips the repeated "I assure you, it passes" line around and demands, "Assure me it passes." That combination of pleading uncertainty and resignation hits home, hard.

[The Gary is playing 4/10/09 at Rudyard's, along with The Jonx.] (Jeremy Hart // 04/10/09)

I've heard bands before that blur the line between Southern-fried rock and the blues -- hell, Stevie Ray Vaughan rode that line at times -- but few obliterate it as completely as Austin's Grady. They grab hold of a fistful of downhome Delta blues licks, drown 'em in cheap whiskey, the run 'em through Godzilla-sized amps they borrowed from Pantera and a bunch of pedals they stole from some hapless grunge band, and play 'em like they're channeling Junior Brown (which, honestly, gives far too little credit to guitar virtuoso frontman/singer Gordie Johnson). End result? Bluesy, thick as hell, wall-shaking, hillbilly sludge-rock that sounds equally inspired by the Queens of the Stone Age and Robert Johnson.

And like I said, while there're folks out there that do similar things, sure, it's hard to imagine 'em pulling it off as deftly as this. I dearly love The Black Keys -- who drink from the same raw, heavy, amplified-blues well as Johnson and crew -- but I always get the feeling they're content to sit at the end of the bar and drown their sorrows. They come off like genre purists, to boot; with those guys, every move feels like it's done with reverence to blues masters past.

Grady, on the other hand, isn't willing to just sit there at the bar, but rather drains its collective glass and smashes it in the face of some big loudmouth jerkoff a few stools down. Not for any real reason, of course, but just to start some shit and get fists flying. And the band's music's like that, like a drunken bar brawl nobody can remember starting or really wants to finish.

The guys (well, and girl, but drummer Nina Singh's a recent addition to the band) in Grady throw everything they love into the mix, from the heavy, crushingly bassy rock to the sun-stroked stoner metal to the most basic, rootsy blues imaginable, and it all fucking works. "Three Minute Song," for one fine, fine example, steers a Mötörhead-style stomp-groove into the stratosphere, incorporating country-boy harmony vocals with tales of boozing it up and partying down out on the road.

Then there's "Woman Got My Devil," which sounds for all the world like Thin Lizzy if they were from somewhere in the Piney Woods of East Texas, with a great high-pitched guitar line that mirrors the vocals and a shaggy-dog story about a guy whose woman gets kidnapped by the Devil, only to discover she's too much to handle and kick her back out of Hell. (Hence the title.) And "Reach Out Yo Hand," an amped-up gospel boogie that sees frontman Johnson playing tent-revival preacher in some alternate universe, all over speeding, rockabilly-esque guitars and four-on-the-floor drums. And "Western Cowboy," a tribal, electrified country-rocker that could kick Toby Keith's flabby ass without even getting up out of its seat.

Craziest of all, Y.U. So Shady? isn't new; it's actually an expanded version of Grady's 2006 debut, re-released with a couple of fiery extra live tracks on punk/oddball label Alternative Tentacles apparently at the insistence of Jello Biafra, who loves the damn band. So these folks have been out there all this time, and this is the first I've heard? Damn.

[Grady is playing 4/3/09 at The Continental Club, along with Two Hoots and a Holler & Molly and the Ringwalds.] (Jeremy Hart // 04/03/09)

Side Two by Hail The Size is a comical, light-hearted take on dysfunctional relationships, explosive farts, and addiction. The whimsical and witty lyrics remind me a bit of Weird Al or even Flight of the Concords, but country music-style, if you can imagine.

"Booze, Pills, & Her" is a love-ditty about a man who falls for a registered nurse (innocently, of course), where Charles Ezell sings, "Two out of three really work up a thirst." The tune is highlighted with a punchy B-3 organ and steel guitar, all of which kept me listening. "When I'm sober, I don't call ya whore" is another delightful line wafting from the song "Mean Means I Love You," complete with melodious fiddle. "I Can't Hold It In" is a jazzy rendition of Ezell's horrible flatulence problems, complete with congas, piano, and trumpet, and proves they can offer up a range of different genres.

The "7/11" song is slow and boring, but "The Ass Kicking Song" reels you back in with a faster-paced guitar, peppy drums, and haunting steel guitar melodies. I think HTS would be fun to see live, but I don't think I could listen to the album on a regular basis; sorry, folks, but this album would make a great gag gift. (SCR Staff // 04/10/09)

Fucking Awesome. Those two simple words are the perfect description for Wrath, the new release from Lamb of God.

Wrath is a return to form that allows the Richmond, Virginia, quintet to reclaim its crown as the new kings of metal. The album sets you up for disappointment at first with opening track "The Passing," a soft instrumental that lulls you into regretting your purchase, but what it does is set you up for the 10 knockout-punch tracks to follow. "Set to Fail" should serve as a warning to all those that thought the band had lost their way on the disappointing Sacrament. It's full-on metal, with Chris Adler's blast beats and the twin guitars weaving monstrously meaty hooks, all of it topped off by Randall Blythe screaming bloody hell. Blythe's vocals are best described as what it might sound like if the crazy man that wears the "The World is Going to End" sandwich board finally snapped and grabbed a microphone. The combination of anger, hatred, frustration, and rebellion acts as an intoxicant and grabs onto the listener and gleefully throws them into the mosh pit.

The best example of how great Wrath is, though, is on the track "Contractor." Starting with an opening "Yee-haw!", the track is a lyrical attack on the controversial Blackwater Security and its cowboy attitude. It starts off with machine-gun riffs and Blythe spitting lyrics just as rapidly. It slows down to the heaviest of chugs before it launches into a full-on aural assault that peaks with what can only be described as metal Viagra. If this song does not give you a musical boner, then you need to put this CD down and go buy the new Jonas Brothers.

Lamb of God has worked its way up from being a struggling band on a tiny label to being a headliner and the face of the American metal scene. Wrath serves as a milemarker on their journey to ascendancy. Fucking Awesome.

[Lamb of God is playing 4/24/09 at the Verizon Wireless Theater, along with As I Lay Dying, Children of Bodom, Municipal Waste, & God Forbid.] (Scott Whitt // 04/18/09)