New York foursome Pop. 1280 are not shy about showing their hand-- they take their name from a Jim Thompson crime novel about a killer cop, and they've given their first full-length album the self-explanatory title of The Horror. Pop. 1280 wallow in the same pool of pigfuck sloppy seconds as East Coast contemporaries Pissed Jeans and the Men, but where those bands respectively soften their blows (somewhat) with wry observations about domesticity and knowing classic-rock references, Pop. 1280 offer no such salve. If the ray-gunned synth-punk stylings of the band's debut 2010 EP, The Grid, suggested a certain fondness for cheeky, B-movie thrills, The Horror is a far more traumatic experience, conjuring all the dystopian futurism of an early David Cronenberg film, but delivered with merciless, medieval brute force. The first words we hear on the album are "two dogs fucking"; it proves to be The Horror's most romantic lyric.

Steak without eggs; ham, hold the cheese; pork chops and, no thanks on the apple sauce today: Mount Carmel’s Real Women is rock qua rock, real Detroit muscle (one state removed), and nothing else (qua nothing else). One listen to Matt Reed’s burnished bellow and you’ll know he’s as born to this rock as Fogerty was born to imitate someone from the Bayou. For all the brevity and simplicity of its 1973-vintage look and sound though, Real Women neither quite wallows in retro-mud nor seeks to reinvent the mag wheel. But you might notice that the Columbus trio changed the tires for this, their second album – the longest jams here come in under five minutes yet pack the heft of an album-side blowout. Rock this pure and powerful doesn’t take well to in-depth analysis – except to maybe venture the opinion that those making bank off the Black Keys might want to keep word of Mount Carmel’s far more formidable blues-rawk from getting around – and I’ve already skidded past my exit. But a look under the hood is certainly warranted.

When they started making burly, progressive sludge almost 10 years ago, Baroness weren't teenagers: They were grown men with a refined, nuanced approach to heavy metal. Even in 2003, it wasn't your typical Southern sludge swamp. That said, I doubt anyone listening then could've predicted Yellow & Green. The quartet's new 18-song, 75-minute double album offers a broad, rich expanse of pretty, psychedelic, occasionally heavy, mostly straight-up rock that veers easily into pop, post-rock, and lulling ambient washes. There are a number of new elements to Baroness in 2012-- frontman John Baizley is the father of a young daughter and lives in Philadelphia instead of Savannah; after the recording of Yellow & Green, Matt Maggioni came on board as the group's new bassist (which means longtime member Summer Welch is no more). The sound itself is the biggest shift, though it shouldn't come as a total surprise. They've hinted at these new avenues, and even tentatively explored a few, on their first two LPs, Blue Record and Red Album. What's surprising here is how well it all works.

As a metal band, Torche exists paradoxically. The band puts rainbows on their album cover and sets their name in a pink typeface. Their music sounds happy instead of pissed. The band’s tattoo-less, ordinary-looking members aren’t interested in gory imagery (read: Slayer) or acting like mongoloid tough guys (read: Metallica); instead, Torche plays metal because playing metal is fun. Harmonicraft embodies that ethos.
Aligning guttural riffage with frontman Steve Brooks’ uplifting melodies, Torche’s “doom pop” is as cheerful as it is metallic. Harmonicraft sees the band sharpening its sludgy hooks and expanding upon the ultra-catchiness of 2010’s Songs for Singles EP. “Kicking” begins with an ear-snatching pick slide that melds into bouncy chords. “Lights on in the kingdom,” Brooks shouts with a Dave Grohl-ish delivery. Although his lyrics aren’t always discernible (or literally sensible), they’re sung with such triumph that it doesn’t matter. Brooks is most lyrically direct on “Kiss Me Dudely”, an apparent reference to his homosexuality (a subject broached more often by the metal community than by Brooks’ songs).

Del Rey’s second full-length album (on which she writes every song) is called “Born to Die” and was followed by an extended version called “Born to Die: The Paradise Edition.” On the album, Lana Del Rey’s voice is hauntingly soulful, capable of making the listener depressed and elated at the same time. Compared to Azealia Banks, Ellie Goulding, Sky Ferreira and one of my personal favorites, Marina and the Diamonds, Del Rey falls within an elite group of women with intense vocals, offbeat reputations and a lot to say. As with these artists, Del Rey’s music is very malleable in terms of remixing, and multiple house artists have utilized her vocals and melodies in their music. On their own, her songs can tend to sound alike, but Del Rey attempts (often successfully) to remedy this by mixing in disparate singing styles, even turning to pseudo-rap in some cases.
The songs on “Born to Die” highlight Del Rey’s signature breathy vocals while making keen observations about American culture and expressing the singer’s own opinions about our social conventions. I enjoyed the album — especially the transcendental videos, which are more like melancholy musical vignettes. However, some of the lyrics definitely reflect a sense of forced commentary and outdated societal qualms. Lines like “Money is the reason we exist/Everybody knows that it’s a fact/Kiss kiss”, can’t help but come off as clichés rather than as intimate sentiments.

These days, bands getting back together to relive the glory days is nothing special. But it takes a certain kind of group to reunite and create vital music. In most cases, you have older bands solidly recreating their past (see: Mission of Burma); it's rarer to see artists with the ability to top what they did the first time around (see: Swans). Judging the dialog around the post-break Dinosaur Jr. records, J, Lou, and Murph are straddling the line between the two: On Beyond and Farm, outside small modernist details, they sounded very much like they did in the pre-Green Mind SST years. I Bet on Sky's title offers a hint that they've gone in a slightly different direction for album three (it's worth noting they've now matched their output of the first 80s run). The shift's easy to explain: I Bet on Sky feels like the material that emerged after Barlow was fired: 1991's underrated Green Mind, 1993's alt-rock crossover Where You Been, and the most commercially successful album, 1994's Without a Sound.

Unlike many of their alternative brethren, this album’s name speaks for itself. Instead of making the typical pitfall of hiring a renowned producer to “refine” their sophomore record, they brought original engineer Jesse Gander who coaxed them to “make this one a little more cruising down the highway, and a little less doing crystal meth on New Year’s.” We’ll give them that live at the dive sensation, just with a little more foreplay. The expert slow rising gait of “Continuous Thunder” is shocking considering it’s two dudes recording only one guitar, one drum kit and two respective vocalizers. No overdubs or double tracking, in the words of Jack White that’s “cheating.” King channels a lower register Colin Meloy taming a ten thousand decibel Titus Andronicus axe to grind. His power chords resonate with higher than expected fidelity as he recalls: “You took my hand/From the cold glistened rain/Dressed with the knives/Arm in arm with me/Singing out loud yeah yeah yeah/Like continuous thunder.” In a broken 4/4 snare beat the proverbial thunder rolls on drilling to devilish depths until the guitar careens out of control; melding into curiously sullen fireworks.

Sleigh Bells take one of the most confident and surefooted steps forward a band could take for a follow-up album, eschewing the storied sophomore pitfalls in favor of a sharper, fuller sound. Indulge me this Breaking Bad analogy: All of the sound splicing and genre alchemy that occurred on Treats was like trailer park meth, Jesse Pinkman’s chipotle blend or whatever, cobbled together to get the job done. Reign Of Terror is some pure Walter White designer meth, smoked on neon nights with hazy comedowns. The chemistry of the music is more advanced, its molecular structure more tailored for addiction, but essentially it hits the lungs the same way Sleigh Bells always have.

The simple math on Reign Of Terror is still there, actually less convoluted than before. The sheen around the album comes from Miller and Krauss collaborating more closely and honing in on their respective strengths: metal guitar and dream pop vocals. They’re not just throwing hooks and loops to the wall to see what sticks; the two are primarily writing songs and adding hooks and loops for color. Even on their lead single “Born To Lose”, there’s more of a verse/chorus/verse structure than anything on Treats, and Krauss’ bedroom vocals aren’t just another texture to a club hit. They are now essential to the song, as are Miller’s multi-tracked guitar lines, straight from any ’80s metal songbook, as is the halting drum track, which is only a few wubs and wobbles away from a dubstep beat. They’ve made the leap from “project” to “band” while compromising very little of their original sound.

Love starts with lust. It keeps us awake at night, drives us to drinking and thinking too much and listening to sad songs. We pursue the accompaniment of another because our hearts tell us to. The presence of certain individuals—their appearances, their personalities, their smells—triggers endorphins in our brains. It’s the most human of feelings; it intoxicates us when we encounter it, and we yearn for it when we’re without it.
These are the things you think about when you listen to Koi No Yokan, an album teeming in romantic sensuousness and melancholia. Since 2000’s White Pony, the Deftones have shown an affinity for such topics. Frontman Chino Moreno hits saccharine high note after high note as he details the skin-on-skin moments when lovers are at their most fervent. If things aren’t passionate, or if there’s turmoil, he screams his fuzzy scream, exorcising anxiety through torrents of vocal aggression. Despite his occasional catharsis, Moreno remains optimistic. He’s in it for the skin-on-skin; he believes in romance. And that’s why Koi No Yokan (Japanese for “love’s premonition”) is such a sexy, meditative record.

On “Romantic Dreams”, Moreno states his infatuation plainly: “I’m hypnotized by your name / I wish this night would never end.” The warm guitar tones percolate in powerful waves. Koi No Yokan sees the Deftones fully embracing the shoegazer elements that were only experimented with on past albums. And not only have they embraced these aural textures, but they’ve mastered them. “Entombed” is an impressionistic track framed by bright keyboards and a pattering drum machine. Halfway through the song, the instrumentation drops out and we’re left with the noise of a solitary guitar. It dwells, kindling, floating in a pool of buttery feedback.

It seems the Deftones are getting soft—in a good way. This is a band that sprung from the nu-metal movement of the mid-‘90s. Bonecrushing singles such as “My Own Summer (Shove It)” were played on alt-rock radio alongside the likes of Limp Bizkit and Korn. But even then, upon hearing those early singles, one could tell that the Deftones weren’t like their brethren. They actually cared about how their songs felt and what the lyrics meant. Now, they understand this more than ever, and if that means eschewing the pummeling power chords that earned them Platinum certifications, then so be it.

But that’s not to say the Deftones have completely lost the ability to pummel. Opener “Swerve City” sways between delicate jangles (during verses) and dominating groove metal (during the chorus). “Leathers”, the album’s lead single, is a raging anthem about speaking your mind at all costs (“Come forth, confess/ Extend your tongue”). The loud songs are great, but when Koi No Yokan gets quiet and contemplative, it becomes truly striking. Why can’t the ambient guitar intros of “Tempest” and “Rosemary” be infinite? Why can’t Moreno’s blissful tenor be omnipresent? The fleetingness brings you back the album. You remember the slow songs, the open spaces, and the introspection they encourage.

And that’s why Koi No Yokan is ultimately a record about love. Moreno emotes, “I wish this night would never end”, and then the listener recalls a time he or she shared that romantic sentiment. Music succeeds by throwing itself into the listener’s arena; we can form connections to the words and sounds. It becomes ours. Moreno told Consequence of Sound’s Sami Jarroush that the band wrote Koi No Yokan on its own time, at home on boom boxes (past material was written spontaneously in the studio). This approach suits the Deftones. The songs have more personal bite and emotional density. They have a soul.

"I was the Duke of Earl, but it couldn't last/ I was the pony express, but I ran out of gas." This is the first thing Hamilton Leithauser sighs on the Walkmen's new album, Heaven. It is a distinctly un-rock'n'roll sentiment. In fact, it sounds like the sort of thing your grandpa might say. Ten years ago, the Walkmen were a magnetic, messy young rock band, and they did all the things we expect young rock bands to do: swung in unexpectedly on friends, drunk-dialed exes, pleaded pathetically that things would get better with zero evidence that they would. But over the course of their last two albums, they began receding gracefully into sepia tone: Both You & Me and Lisbon felt like more breezy postcards from abroad than seething dispatches from here. Heaven, their gloriously pretty sixth studio record, marks the moment they shuffle off into that 4x6-sized sunset forever. The title they've chosen says it all: Look where they ended up! We all know that's not where rock bands go.
Heaven, as Talking Heads famously defined it, "is a place where nothing ever happens." For most sentient people, that sounds like the definition of hell, which Byrne's lyrics admitted: "It's hard to imagine how nothing at all/ Could be so exciting/ Could be so much fun." Similarly, it might not thrill longtime Walkmen fans to picture the band as a bunch of rumpled, beaming dads slotting recording time in between play dates. But on Heaven, they've made a bewildered, giddy paean to their own happiness. Heaven feels infectiously drunk on its own good fortune and kicks out a barstool for you to drink alongside it.
It helps that Hamilton Leithauser, with his oddly aristocratic presence, remains a magnetic frontman even when he's basically taking a song to make goo-goo noises at his one-year-old daughter (the lovely if borderline-saccharine "Song for Leigh"). There was always something airily entitled in Leithauser's on-record persona; he was the rich kid who didn't have to do his homework, because he knew you'd do it if he asked. That this kid had feelings too was a fundamental dramatic premise of the Walkmen. To hear this former kid now ruminating on big-picture stuff, like the statistical improbability of lasting love ("Love Is Luck") or the emptiness of perfection ("We Can't Be Beat") is to hear the band's purview expand quietly. On "Southern Heart", he even plays a pleasantly tired cuckold, like the Leonard Cohen of "Famous Blue Raincoat": "Tell me again how you loved all the men you were after," he mutters.
Some longtime fans might not like their Walkmen like this. They were great, after all, at being sexily unstable. But this retro-yearning tendency has been there since the beginning if you looked for it. So to hear them ease out of sturm-und-drang and into something resembling durable adulthood is to witness a great rock band evolve along a logical path. In what may be a tacit acknowledgement of this shift, Heaven glows with nostalgic pre-rock'n'roll sounds: "Jerry Jr.'s Tune" is one-and-a-half moonlit minutes of classic doo-wop; "No One Ever Sleeps" has a faint mariachi-sounding horn section; "Love Is Luck" is a sparkling calypso song. "Heartbreaker" echoes the chords, melody and rhythm of "Be My Baby".
All of the Walkmen's albums have been recorded with meticulous, stone-cutting care; by now, listening to them is like entering a room where you can tap your foot in corners to test its resonance. "We Can't Be Beat", one of a few songs on Heaven rounded out with harmonies from Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold, eases into a full-band march after about two minutes of wry, twinkling acoustic guitar. On "Line By Line", Leithauser croons tenderly over a single rippling guitar until a string section gradually soaks in at the song's edges. The beery, cock-eyed "No One Ever Sleeps" transforms the Walkmen into a schmaltzy gypsy band serenading the outdoor tables at a white-tablecloth restaurant.
This group has always been able to carve out dramatic gestures like this, and even at this end of the spectrum-- far beyond personal explosions and exclamation-pointed delivery-- they continue to craft music of wry vitality. It may be that they can no longer convincingly deliver tortured, existential desperation, and if so, that's just as well. With Heaven, they've turned out a record that finds a thousand affecting variations on contented hum.

Really wanted to like that Baroness more. Really did...

Looking through your list, I'm surprised Jeff the Brotherhood didn't make it.

7.
Torche - Harmonicraft