It's a problem of expectations. When I first heard M83's Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, I was blown away. I fell in love with Anthony Gonzalez and Nicolas Fromageau's primary-color-shaded walls of melodic, ethereal-yet-visceral noise, reveling in it like I had Loveless back in my youth. It was (and is) awe-inspiring, majestically grand music, the kind of which gauzy, intricately detailed daydreams are made. I hoped against hope for years and years of more of the same.

Then Fromageau split, and Gonzalez came back pretty much on his own with Before the Dawn Heals Us, which, while it's not a bad album -- in fact, it's quite good on its own merits -- left me disappointed and stunned. The coruscating, swirling noise-rock was replaced, for the most part, with poppy/New Age-y electronics just this side of Tangerine Dream, mangled-English vocals, and occasiona moments of utter brilliance (see the circular, terrifying "Car Chase Terror," which evokes more fear in four minutes than two weeks' worth of SciFi Channel B-grade horror flicks). I was left adrift, it felt like, left trying to fill the space left after Dead Cities ended. (Enter Ulrich Schnauss, but that's another review entirely...)

With this year's Saturdays=Youth, I'd clung to a vain hope that maybe the "old" M83 would resurface, that Gonzalez had decided all the vocal crap wasn't his gig and he should stick to sculpting noise into improbably melodies. Nope. On the contrary, Saturdays=Youth takes the formula of Dawn and amps it up tenfold, with vocals on nearly every track (courtest of guest vocalist Morgan Kibby, of baroque-pop band The Romanovs, and Gonzalez himself), lots of pretty, retro-fied synths, and melodies so thick you could spread them on toast and call it breakfast. And it's good, seriously; I find myself smiling just listening to it. It's just not what I'd hoped for. It felt -- at first, anyway -- like a letdown.

Then I started listening closer to the words, and caught myself thinking about what the music dredged up in the back corners of my mind, and it all began to make sense. True to its title, Saturdays=Youth is an homage to the teenage years (specifically Gonzalez's teenage years, obviously), when everything seems wide-open and new and amazing and important, even though you find out later in life that that's not always the case. There's a barefaced joy to all this, like Gonzalez is celebrating that period of his life, rose-colored raver glasses and all.

And true to M83 form, the whole thing comes off like a soundtrack, from the beautiful-yet-foreboding Mogwai-esque piano at the start of "You, Appearing" onward. Weirdly, what it makes me think, specifically (bear with me, here), is a kind of mishmash of River's Edge and The Virgin Suicides, as directed by John Hughes with musical help from Angelo Badalamenti and, um, Kate Bush. No, really -- I can't help but listen to Kibby's voice on tracks like "You, Appearing," "Skin Of The Night," "Too Late," and "Up!" without thinking I'm listening to some lost collection of outtakes to The Sensual World, and closing track "Midnight Souls Still Remain," in particular, could've come right off the Twin Peaks soundtrack.

Plus, there's the overall '80s vibe, with the synth-y drums, echoey keys, and unashamedly pretty melody lines; see "Kim & Jessie," a straight-up pop-rocker, or "Skin Of The Night," with its swooning, utterly romantic feel. "Graveyard Girl" has that whole devil-may-care thing going on beneath the shoegazer-pop instrumentation, sounding like a cross between Modern English and Mute labelmates Goldfrapp's latest, with thumping drums, soaring vocals, and sublime melodies. Plus, the spoken aside about halfway through sounds like it could've come straight out of Winona Ryder's mouth, so there's that.

There're hints of Dead Cities scattered around, to be sure, but even when they're there, as on the eminently danceable "Couleurs," their DNA's been spliced liberally with '80s synth-pop. On "Couleurs," in fact, the sound resembles nothing so much as Depeche Mode or New Order with its darkly-tinged keys and cheesy electronic beats. (And yes, it works quite nicely.) "Highway of Endless Dreams" perhaps comes closest to Dead Cities, but by that point (or maybe Trembling Blue Stars with distortion pedals), heck, it doesn't seem to matter.

The songs meander about the subjects of death, youth, and finding your place, all that teenage angst that sure as hell didn't feel real fun when it hit the first time but is entertaining to think back on now. There're ghosts, suicides, forbidden loves, and kids with clothes and haircuts about two decades out of date strewn all 'round, with the end result that M83's Gonzalez has crafted what could be an impressive concept album about a death (deaths?) among a group of teenage friends back in the '80s and the ripples the catastrophe causes.

Maybe. Honestly, I don't want to know -- if that's not what this album's about, I think I'll choose to remain blissfully ignorant. Because when I look at it from this angle, Saturdays=Youth looks downright amazing. (Jeremy Hart // 08/26/08)

This is not a Bright Eyes record. Don't believe the critics who tell you it is. Because it isn't, not even close. There are things very specific to Bright Eyes recordings, beginning of course with guru producer Mike Mogis. He's not here this time around, and it shows. Other things missing: obscure opening track distortion, consistent thematic elements that tie together what appear at first to be disparate songs but end up relying on each other completely to make the album work, literary devices fit for graduate students to study for their dissertations, Saddle-Creek -- oh, and politics. Up equals down.

The fact that Oberst released this record (his first solo effort since the cassette tape days of 1993 debut album Water) under his own name rather than the more famous moniker he's been known for since 1998 is both telling and important. Telling in that it gives hint to the idea that he is trying to distance himself from the brand that Bright Eyes has become. And make no mistake about it; "Bright Eyes" is a brand. It's taken on a life I think Oberst never dreamed it would -- it's become an object, a commodified piece of property chewed up and sometimes spit out by writers, musicians, and fans who take for granted Oberst's own subject-hood in the extraordinarily co-opted myth perpetuated by all of them.

Important in that Conor Oberst should not be compared to a Bright Eyes record. It would be unfair to even try. If, say, you put this album next to Fevers and Mirrors (which is, in my opinion, one of the best pieces of recorded music to come along in the last fifty years or so), it would be impossibly difficult to make sense of the fact that they were written by the same artist. Apple, meet orange, and so on. What we have here is a beginning of something else.

Oberst seems to be reveling in his own meaninglessness these days. For so long (going on fifteen years), critics have pegged him as the "next Dylan" (Jakob can't catch a break, man), some kind of musical demigod, or the provocateur of is-it-or-is-it-not protest music. Some writers (the type with the biggest balls, I assume) have even suggested that he's an emo wunderkind here to sing the soundtrack of universal teenage angst or some such nonsense.

Oberst is nothing if not divisive, and it seems more and more that if you have an opinion of Bright Eyes at all, you're either in the camp equipped with unconditional worship or the camp of transcendental detestation. People have, fairly or unfairly, made Oberst into something he clearly wants no part of, ascribing weight and meaning to him without bothering to ask him if he means anything at all. Surprise -- he doesn't.

Conor Oberst (available on Merge Records) was recorded over the course of a month in Tepoztlan, Mexico, in a makeshift studio in the middle of some mountains. It is a minimalist piece of folk-country strumming, produced by Oberst alongside longtime Saddle Creekers Andy LeMaster, Nate Walcott, and Jason Boesel (among others), who call themselves The Mystic Valley Band. On it are songs so complex in their simplicity that it's immediately apparent that it could have been written by no one other than Conor Oberst. On "Lenders in the Temple," the most beautifully composed song on an album full of them, Oberst sings, "Erase yourself and you'll be free" -- further evidence that that is that (that being Bright Eyes) and this is this (this being Conor Oberst).

And it's not only name that Oberst is trying to escape; he seems to want no part of place, either. In recent interviews, he's said that he never feels comfortable staying put for more than a few months, and that sentiment is heard throughout Conor. In "Sausalito," Oberst sings in all his Holden Caulfield-ian glory, "We should move to Sausalito / living's easy on a houseboat / let the ocean rock us back and forth to sleep." And on the jaunty, jingle-jangle (yep, it's a jingle -- I dread seeing this song live amidst 2,000 jumping thirteen-year-old girls; it's gonna be completely exhausting) "NYC-Gone, Gone," Oberst seems to be all too happy to leave the place that can numb the mind of the best of them, singing, "Gone, gone from New York City / where you going to go with a head that empty? / Gone, gone from New York City / where you going to go with a heart that gone? / Down, down to Mexico City / got myself a girl, she know how to treat me."

No word yet on what this girl from Mexico City did to Oberst, but on the very next song, ("Moab"), Oberst sings, "There's nothing that the road cannot heal" -- so she's bound to have done something. The thing is, though, regardless of what (almost every single solitary) critic has said about this record, it's not solely about travel. There's nothing necessarily connective about these songs, no theme that makes you think that hey, this song relates to this song and this song relates to this song.

There are serious moments on the record, as on "Souled Out!!!", where Oberst sings about buying one's way into heaven (word up, Joel Osteen), and more serious moments -- see "Danny Callahan," one of the saddest songs Oberst has ever written, about a young boy who dies from cancer and the forgotten humanity associated with the questions that science never wants to answer. But there are also lighthearted moments here...about the joys(?) of suicide ("I Don't Want to Die in a Hospital").

Side note: hey, Rolling Stone, this song is so not about Oberst's grandfather. Read a liner note every once in a while, will ya? And there are even lighter moments; an entire song, "Valle Mistico," with nothing but a conch shell being played by someone, I think, named Ruben.

Conor Oberst is an incredibly interesting record, and if I hadn't said earlier that I wouldn't compare it to other Bright Eyes' offerings, I would probably rate it like number three out of anything Conor's ever done. I'm not going to rate it, though, because who are we without our integrity? It's an amazing piece of musical and lyrical evolution from an artist who is constantly evolving. Oberst matters to music, and this record shows precisely why. Is it time for top ten lists yet? (Brandon Hernsberger // 08/14/08)

All the clever things I wanted to say about Nil Recurring by Porcupine Tree ended up not being quite as clever as I thought. So I'll keep it simple. Porcupine Tree is one of the most exciting bands out there right now, and the amazing thing is that they've been around for almost 20 years. Most bands don't last half that long, and those that do tend to peak early and become dinosaurs. Porcupine Tree, on the other hand, has continued to grow and expand their musical palette, refusing to be pigeonholed into one genre and not being afraid to incorporate whatever sounds they feel fit the song. They're also not afraid to let a song take as long as it needs to get where it's going.

If you're a fan of Porcupine Tree and already own their previous full-length, Fear of a Blank Planet, buy Nil Recurring now. If you're not (yet) a fan of Porcupine Tree but are interested in trying something new and fresh, go buy Fear of a Blank Planet and Nil Recurring together, then listen to them as a single double-disc album. Simply put, Nil Recurring is not the best starting place for those who are not already fans, but it's a wonderful expansion of the themes explored on Fear of a Blank Planet.

The best analogy I can think of is the extended versions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The movies released in theaters were great, but the extended editions were even better. Trying to watch the extended footage on its own would leave you feeling dissatisfied; what you saw might be great, but it would be obvious you were missing the context. That's how I think of Nil Recurring.

The title track, which is the opening instrumental, is one of the most aggressive things Porcupine Tree has ever recorded, featuring some really sweet lead guitar work from King Crimson's Robert Fripp. It starts off rather lazily but builds into a frenzy over the course of its six minutes. In fact, all four songs here are excellent, taken individually. The problem, as I said before, is that they don't gel into a whole. When listened to back-toback with Fear of a Blank Planet, however, you can hear the recurring themes, both musically and lyrically.

So, do I recommend it? Yes, wholeheartedly. But not necessarily for neophytes. Granted, that's a relative term; after all, I only started listening to the band four months ago. In those four months, however, I've obtained all but three of their in-print releases (I'm a little OCD). Deadwing was my entry point, and it wasn't until I'd bought Fear of a Blank Planet and In Absentia that I finally heard Nil Recurring. Had it been my first exposure to Porcupine Tree, I'm not sure what I would have thought of it. I probably would have liked it enough to check out some of their other stuff...at some point in the future. But I don't think I'd have rushed right out and bought more -- and that would have been a shame, because I've discovered some incredible music in the last four months. Fortunately, that's not how I started off, and I can now appreciate Nil Recurring in its proper context. I encourage you to do the same. (Brian Galloway // 08/26/08)

Pushing Red Buttons' Foreign Film or Tango Dance? sounds like nothing so much as a lost Mike Patton project, or possibly a series of unreleased demos from Soul Asylum. All the best aspects of '90s alternative music are presented to the listener, and you had better be prepared for it. The album has an unavoidable sense of nostalgia for a time that might've been the last era when you could turn on to a major radio station and hear really good music.

That's not to say that all the songs are locked into a past groove with nothing to offer modern listener. In fact, the album is almost absurdly current and could be considered something of a different take on Green Day's American Idiot. Of particular note is the track "Girls Gone Stupid," which is about exactly what you think it's about. References to modern America's march toward idiocracy in the name religion, television, and a pathological need for the easy peek at a boob form the crust and topping in this bitter apple pie of an album.

All of this is presented, as well, with perhaps some of the greatest rhymesmithing heard on a rock album. The songs are incredibly lyric-heavy, with few instrumental breaks. Songwriter Steve Herrig (with the occasional assist from guitarist Rich Gaglia) always has something clever to say, however. His words and Gaglia's voice never falter, though singing along with the album might leave you a little out of breath if you don't stretch first.

Most of the album is like having sex in the closet at work; short, hard, and absolutely awesome. No new ground is being covered as far as bare musicianship is concerned. If you're looking for the next step in the world of tonal progressive brilliance then sorry, Mario, your princess is in another castle. This is a rock album for people who get the bad joke that is our current decade.

If there is a flaw to be pointed out, it's a sense that PRB feels themselves above the world they are commenting on. Whereas American Idiot was a tale of someone caught in the world of mindless suburbia, Foreign Film or Tango Dance? is more of a denunciation by someone too good to get their hands dirty. Few of the songs are written from a first-person perspective, and this robs us just a little of an emotional anchor for the message. Instead of tragedy and triumph (not necessarily in that order), we get a sort of jolly nihilism. It's a very minor point, though, all things considered.

To sum up, if you know what sucks, then you will know that this album doesn't. If you don't know what sucks, then this album is about you, and you are the problem. (Jef With One F // 08/26/08)

An interesting coincidence happened to me the second time I listened to the Seximals' latest album Small Songs. Right as track five began playing in my car stereo, I noticed in my rearview mirror that a group of motorcyclists had pulled up behind me. The irony here is that the song I was listening to was entitled "I Dreamed About a Motorcycle Crash Last Night." The chance occurrence of visual aid arriving right as this particular song began, and the song itself, which deals with coping with a sudden death, made me think about the unpredictability of life.

Such is the nature of Small Songs, a record whose tracks betray their album's namesake by inviting much rumination over life's heavier subjects. Here Anthony Barilla, the man behind the music, has crafted eight dark, cinematic pop songs that, even in their sunnier moments, still have a few clouds on the horizon.

Before Barilla moved from Houston to Kosovo, he served as music director for the now-defunct theater group Infernal Bridegroom Productions, experience that is evident as Small Songs' soundscapes are lush and layered and its instrumentation varied. Case in point is second track "When The Lights Go Out." Beginning with an ominous, whiny clarinet and clattering percussion, the song quickly evolves into a danceable affair reminiscent of Dntel, with its programmed beats and bouncing bassline. When Barilla sings, "Ooh, I get a bad, bad feeling / When I'm stumbling around in the dark just the best that I can," it's hard to believe the lighthearted vibe throughout the song, and another lyric, "I'm pretty sure I had the time of my life when the lights went out," leads the listener to conclude that the darkness here is something to revel in rather than repel.

The second half of the album is devoted to more ballad-esque songs and is the stronger half. "L'Esprit D'Escalier"'s delicate acoustic guitar plucking and sharp harmonica squalls evoke a sort of Southern Gothic feel when Barilla sings in his baritone, "Where were you when the bottom dropped out / when the mine collapsed / when the canary died." The song continues to build toward a climax by way of bouncing low-end piano chords and stuttering violin, until all drop out and the same acoustic picking resumes, the harmonica whispers its last notes, and Barilla whispers the song's last lyrics.

The one detractor from an otherwise cohesive and beautiful album is the oddball blues stomp of "Year of The Drought." With its sing-speak vocals, jangled piano parts, and distorted guitar, the song sounds more like a Modest Mouse B-side than the rest of Barilla's work on the album. Though the record does feature a good bit of stylistic variation, "Year of The Drought" seems to be missing a certain unifying quality that the rest of the songs have, and for an album like Small Songs whose sum is greater than its parts, this is a noticeable flaw.

The motorcyclists behind me rode in tandem for the duration of the song, and shortly afterwards I turned and they rode on forward. Just as I wondered then where these four were going, I wonder excitedly now what Barilla will pull out of his orchestral bag of tricks to follow up the sublime Small Songs. (Wes Buhler // 08/26/08)

That Darren Keen, he's a wily one. Hailing from Omaha, NE, by way of Lincoln, Keen seems like the only act in Omaha not on Saddle Creek, and he is doing his damndest to make sure you don't mistake him for one of the litany of Conor Oberst disciples he shares a city with. And it's a smart move. It's difficult, I'd imagine, to get noticed in a town when Saddle-Creekers seem to be everywhere, but on The Show Is The Rainbow, Keen screams his way through ten songs, begging you to try and ignore him. You can't.

On "Up a Creek Without a Saddle," (which isn't on this record but is still interesting enough to note), Keen beefs with Oberst in ways that are often hilarious, sometimes even rather silly, but to nit-pick would be to miss the point. Keen is making his mark. One piece of advice, though, Darren: if you want to separate yourself from bands on Saddle Creek, for the love of Pete, stop touring with them. But that's neither here nor there -- on to the record review.

On this self-titled full-length on S.A.F. Records, Keen (the singular man behind The Show is the Rainbow) is trying to get noticed. On "I Am the Decline," he fretfully shouts (and raps, smooth it out) that he wants to be bigger than Jesus (which might be another jab at Oberst; who, let's face it, is bigger than Jesus, and why not?), but realizes that, until a major label comes calling, his screams are futile.

"Do the Skinny" laments the fact that girls these days only want to dance with boys who can wear girl's jeans, while "Safe Art" and "Waiting Not Working" both intelligently address the growing divide between popular music and art, telling us all that art is dying because gas prices are rising. Yeah, this dude's angry. Or maybe just ironic. I can't decide. But at just under 30 minutes (for 12 songs! Who the, what the...), The Song Is The Rainbow is a brilliantly catchy dance record that might just make you interested again. (Brandon Hernsberger // 08/14/08)

SCR's own Scott Whitt lukewarmly reviewed sputnik Monroe's first effort, Wake the Sleeping Giant, back in 2007. In that review, his major criticisms seemed to be that Sputnik Monroe failed to live up to the experimental fusion of Muse and Mars Volta that they claimed to be. I can't speak knowledgably on the subject, as I'm only a passing Muse fan, am barely interested in Mars Volta, and don't own Wake the Sleeping Giant anyway. All I have to go on is Sputnik Monroe's latest release, We're Doomed.

The term "experimental" is thrown around today so much that it has lost all real meaning. Most bands seem to think all you need is a delay petal and all of the sudden you're Pink Floyd. To me, experimental is John Cage telling his audience that the show is over when the piano eats the bale of hay. Still, I will admit that We're Doomed is sufficiently left of the dial to warrant the label "oddball," at least. Set up as a five-chapter story, with two songs mimicking the multi-movements style of Green Day's "Jesus of Suburbia," We're Doomed is almost everything I ask for these days in a CD: it's short, it's weird, and it's got absolutely no chance of ever being on mainstream radio.

The atmosphere of the album cannot be denied. The air is so thick in these tracks I'm surprised my computer doesn't ooze an oily smoke. It's a fairly dark album, with Kevin Netzley's voice rarely exhibiting anything but a kind of desperate neediness. Still, many of the tracks rise out of the synth-y ambience to exhibit the smoother notes of ska or the revivalist energy of the Polyphonic Spree. The true mark of distinction of We're Doomed, however, is the seamless way that the album progresses. Often, you'll have no idea that you've switched to a new song, and with that in mind, you should view We're Doomed as a thirty-minute, one-song opera.

And that is the only real drawback of the album, if you can call it that. It really is one song played for thirty minutes. Now, it's a very very good song, don't get me wrong, but the album lacks any notable tempo changes, or even real key changes. There is not a lot of up and down in the musical presentation. Rather, you have a sort of continuous slope (is it up or down? Good question...) interspersed with brief rest stops for hamburgers and to use the bathroom. You are in for the long haul, and there is little to be gained by skipping to the end. The damn thing plays like a musical of Camus's The Stranger, ending on approximately the same melancholy note it began on.

Who's going to like We're Doomed? People who stand in the corner and look sad to make friends will like it. Librarians will like it. People who own one (and only one) Legendary Pink Dots Album will like it. People who prefer pencil drawings to watercolors will like it. Do you still believe in the Loch Ness Monster? Then you will probably like it. I like it. (Jef With One F // 08/14/08)

There is something to be said about a band who unabashedly embraces their roots and in so doing makes music that appeals to an almost singular set of people who come from the same place. This approach has led to what has become a hugely popular genre of music: Americana. Stuyvesant is one of those bands. It's not Americana, though; it's not roots-rock, either. They're from Jersey. Call it Jers-emo.

Stuyvesant's official press release has an entire paragraph devoted to the origin of the band (they're named after an area in northeastern New Jersey, as well as the name of a liquor store where one of the members of the band worked as a teenager), and there are many, many, many references to various haunts in the Garden State littered throughout the press material I was sent (something about a statue and a brewery and a cannonball -- it's all very abstract -- but they're from Jersey, how abstract can it be? I'm kidding; I love the place).

Linden Calling, Stuyvesant's newest release (on Manual Phono Records), is what you'd expect it to be given the long list of famous Jersey rockers (The Boss, Jon Bon, Kool and the Gang, The Jonas Brothers). It's rock music. Plain and simple. Very similar to Bon Jovi's seminal New Jersey (released in 1988, two years after Slippery When Wet, and, in my mind, criminally neglected). If you want a rock and roll record, this one will do just fine. Its themes include the normals for rock and rollers -- drugs and sex and poker and so forth. There are also two mysteriously unnamed songs, unnamed for the sake of something in the name of rock and rollllll (though I'm not sure what that something is).

Linden Calling is solid, though. It's a fun ride through the landscapes of New Jersey (Exit 14 on the Jersey turnpike kicks ass), and there is a lot here for the fan of American rock and roll music. Loud but sweet guitars, extra-pound-y drums, lyrics that strike deep and stay there, and probably long-haired singing dudes. Really good stuff. (Brandon Hernsberger // 08/26/08)

Normally I can't stand it when bands use polysyllabic words too much, but The Velocet pulls it off on A Quick and Dirty Guide to War. They use words like "circumstance" and "coronation" without even rhyming them with other words. And I've never even heard the word "childrening" before, but it's in here, amidst some of the most interesting lyrics I've heard in a while.

If one were so inclined to read the liner notes, they'd read as if said lyrics were one long song/schizophrenic story, if that makes sense at all. On "Chinatown," they begin with, "I'm hurtling home again / A sad device / At the precipice / Of something fake intelligent, my friend / Still I'm not through." Nice. Then "O, Concertina" starts with, "And there's a garden; / There's a subway line / I'm cueing up the dominoes / To fall a second time." Also nice. Or how about the aforementioned "Coronation": "We lay black wreaths / Of circumstance / Three snakes weave / In and out of / Chance's eyeball." I'm not sure who that makes sense to, but there's got to be someone out there. I personally find it fascinating.

So the guys in The Velocet swagger gracefully along like an edgier version of The Killers or a less grandiose Bloc Party. Their sound is sharp and refined, as if they've been doing this for years. The music is driving and somehow honest without being arrogant. They sound like what you'd expect a band named The Velocet to sound like: mean and passionate, like your ex-girlfriend. There's lots of sweeping vocals and wavering feedback on the record, a very tightly produced one, and the guitar-work is punk-influenced and loud.

The band's '80s influence is subtle, unlike most bands from their genre these days. Sometimes Billy Idol glimmers through, sometimes it's The Cure. But The Velocet sews it all together into a noisy, confusing, progressive spin. Vocals are layered over distorted wails and hollers better than anything I've heard as of late. The album keeps going and going and it builds momentum to some heartfelt instant, and then it's time for the next song. The choruses are hard to differentiate from the bridges or the verses, but it works. The guys in The Velocet do a smashing job on A Quick and Dirty Guide to War. My only complaint is that it ends too quickly. (Stephen Conley // 08/14/08)

I popped this shit in my CD player and genuinely knew within the first 30 seconds that this would not be a one-and-done listening. Not that I knew I was going to love it -- rather, that it was going to be one of those CDs where you really didn't know what to make of it at first. That's still a good sign. It made me uncomfortable, and it was on the fringes.

Imagine the guy from Crash Test Dummies doing his best to emulate the singer from Wolf Parade, then getting together with a goth chamber pop group, spitting out carnival tunes (case in point: "Sails"). Not exactly party music, but it's definitely a step outside the lines of most modern indie-rock. It's a mustache-scratching experiment of the highest order (see what I did there?).

The rumor is that these guys pieced together this album without even stepping in the same room together. I'm not buying that (at least two band members are related). Truth be told, a lot of the shit on this album seems like a couple guys dicking around -- but I'll bet money you will be hearing bigger and better things from these guys in the near future. (David Hanrahan // 08/26/08)

Roll up your sleeves and dig on this wack Explosions In the Sky cover band. On the one hand, all this fancy guitar noodling is hard to dismiss -- then, on the other hand, I feel like I should be watching Friday Night Lights as this shit pounds out of my truck while I wait to board the bus to the state high school football championship.

Apologies: I'm old and dismissive, but really -- these guys have no future in music unless they bring in a singer, actually start saying something, and start piecing together actual songs, as opposed to Pelican-meets-Phish jam sessions. Otherwise, it's all just lifestyle music, or the mixtape for your roadtrip across West Texas. (David Hanrahan // 08/14/08)