Nirvana, 'Live at Reading' (Universal)

Ultimate rock gig from ultimate outsider-insiders.

Nirvana's headlining gig at the 1992 Reading Festival looms infamously large because of (a) that amazingly creepy photo of Kurt getting wheeled onto the stage looking like Norman Bates' mother, and (b) the show was a mind-blower -- sloppy indie rock as stadium-filling psychedelic punk.

The Mountain Goats, 'The Life of the World to Come' (4AD)

Indie-folk trio examine all that's seen, unseen.

Drawing his 17th studio album's title from the fourth-century Christian text the Nicene Creed, Mountain Goats singer-songwriter John Darnielle then uses Bible verses to launch into taut, unpretentious tunes that sound flawless (hard-strummed acoustic guitar, spare piano and strings, fat round drums) and scan smartly (finest non-hip-hop lyricist

Vic Chesnutt, 'At the Cut' (Constellation)

Refined punk luminaries help Georgia poet purge.

Reprising the underground all-star lineup from Chesnutt’s 2007 opus North Star Deserter (Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto, members of Godspeed You!

Polvo, 'In Prism' (Merge)

Original mathletes still diagramming weighty fury.

In the ’90s, before cardigan kids got into metal, and indie rock was actually capable of heaviness, the go-to act for complicated riff science was Polvo, four dorks from North Carolina whose guitar weave could hold up a bridge.

Jay Reatard, 'Watch Me Fall' (Matador)

Lo-fi mofo constructs palatial power-pop tribute.

Jay Reatard tells a big fat lie with the title of his second solo album’s shortest song, the one-minute, 45-second “Can’t Do It Anymore.” Instead, he’s giving the distinct impression that he can make his roller-coaster guitar roar for as long as he likes.

Blank Dogs, 'Under and Under' (In the Red)

Brooklyn enigma takes lo-fi to the graveyard.

Blank Dogs, a.k.a. Mike Sniper (formerly of garage punks DC Snipers), spent the past few years spewing dim-fi post-punk at a logorrheic pace, a Guided by Voices for überhipsters who worship the Cure's "Seventeen Seconds" and leave the house only when forced off the sofa.

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