Old 97’s, 'Blame It on Gravity' (New West)
Despite real-world intrusions, twangy lifers find pop spark.
By Rob O'Connor 05.15.08 2:11 PM
With growing families, solo albums, label changes, and geographical barriers (two main members living on opposite coasts), should Old 97’s even exist in 2008, never mind be this focused?
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Mudhoney, 'The Lucky Ones' (Sub Pop)
Like the Ramones, but with seasonal affectation disorder.
By Steve Kandell 05.15.08 2:03 PM
Seattle's G-word forebears must get a special kick out of releasing a 20th-anniversary reissue of their debut EP, Superfuzz Bigmuff, alongside an eighth full-length that so brazenly resembles it.
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Mr. Gnome, 'Deliver This Creature' (El Marko)
Cleveland duo gives feminine nuance to prog-rock complexity.
By Jason Simms 05.15.08 2:00 PM
If it weren’t for the willful, overweening weirdness that’s apparently required of every proggy pop-metal album (see Coheed and Cambria, System of a Down), this record probably would’ve been made already. But it’s approach was just too powerfully obvious. Why not give heavy, down-tuned, open-string riffs the unadorned beauty and poise to match the glistening production?
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Midnight Juggernauts, 'Dystopia' (Astralwerks)
Glammy rave-pop rockers energetically ham it up.
By J. Gabriel Boylan 05.15.08 1:50 PM
On this Aussie trio’s debut, the best bits, like the fuzzy, organ-driven “Ending of an Era,” with its deadpan vocals and feedback guitar, or “Into the Galaxy,” with its melodic bass line, falsetto, and baroque synths, smartly channel Jeff Lynne’s cosmopop confections, a good model for how to fold dance music back into rock.
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Mates of State, 'Re-Arrange Us' (Barsuk)
Indie-pop couple calm down and compose masterpiece.
By Spencer Kornhaber 05.15.08 1:46 PM
These proud parents ditched their old-timey organ, and with it much of the band’s hyper-active, carnivalesque vibe. About time, too: Adorned with piano and synth, the ten songs on Re-Arrange Us are fuller, more elegant vessels for the duo’s warm, intricate melodies.
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Ecstatic Sunshine, 'Way' (Cardboard)
Experimental riff wranglers add digital color to the drone.
By Amanda Petrusich 05.15.08 1:45 PM
This Baltimore duo began as a guitar-only ambient project, but for their third LP, they've folded even more diddles into the drone by way of "electronics" player Kieran Gillen, and the band's spastic curlicues (obviously inspired by experimental New York guitar maestro Glenn Branca) are all the more dizzying.
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