The Marvelous Darlings‘ single “I Dont Wanna Go To The Party” rocks for two minutes and thirty seconds in a rush of pure and I mean PURE punk pop abandon. Very favorable comparison to Ramones, Clash, Cheap Trick and The Knack. Full on power pop angst-bliss! I love it I love it.

The Marvelous Darlings
“I dont wanna go to the party” (mp3)
from “I Don’t Wanna Go To The Party”
(Deranged Records)

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Ah, sweet power pop. Here we have some well crafted guitar chord bashing and vocal hooks that owe as much to Nirvana as to Cheap Trick. Ultimate Fakebook made a lot of noise for a three piece band from Manhattan, Kansas operating during the darkest days of the music industry. Here’s another neglected gem. In 2009 I have found and posted a bunch of ‘em here. Have a surf around, it beats the heck outta the your local corporate poo radio station, I guarantee you that much. But wait, Dorothy, there’s a Manhattan in Kansas? Now we know.

Ultimate Fakebook
“Wrestling Leap Year” (mp3)
from “Open Up and Say Awesome”
(Initial Records)

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Utterly bratty kick-butt garage punk from Be My Doppleganger, outta Evansville, Indiana – a gritty, rockin’ four piece pop punk outfit with an affinity for Cheap Trick and The Descendents. “I Need a Ride” is an outburst of guitars, hormone fueled teen angst, and self deprecating humor. Gr8 fun!

Be My Doppelganger
“I Need a Ride” (mp3)
from “Protect 2: A Benefit for the National Association to Protect Children”
(Geykido Comet Records)

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Excellent, trashy indie rock with a waltz beat from North Carolina’s own Spider Bags. This recording sounds as unpretentious and natural as a few guys bursting into song at a bar, but it’s also meticulously arranged and well performed. I love the talky-singy approach here, and the lyrics are superb. It’s a perfect marriage of professionalism and reckless abandon. And the chorus is glorious.

Spider Bags
“Que viva el rocanroll” (mp3)
from “Goodbye Cruel World, Hello Crueler World”
(Birdman Records)

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A punk rock song about a kitteh? A cool dark feline, creepin’ thru the night? A sleek slinky tom on the scene? Well, yeah. Kid Chaos is all about fun, and they don’t like preaching with their punk rock – all of which you can gather from this ridiculous and entertaining tale of adventure and mayhem. Essence o’ 3rd wave “ska” horns, growling guitars and a breakneck Rancid-esque tempo, provide the purrfect romping ground for our rogue hero, “Lee Vee The Cat.” Superfan is all smitten like a kitten.

Kid Chaos
“Lee Vee The Cat” (mp3)
from “Love In The Time Of Scurvy”
(Beatville Records)

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On the subject of “Fools Want Noise” by Oh My God, I have to start by simply saying, they’re right. These lyrics are brilliant – kind of a “Satisfaction” updated for the Idiocracy. Celebrate the downward spiral into high decibel mindlessness? Or rage against it? Can we do both? This song is loud, fast and brash, but unlike the cultural Twinkie-filler it confronts in horror, this is actually very smart. And it rocks, too. Damn fine work.

Oh My God
“Fools Want Noise” (mp3)
from “Fools Want Noise”
(Split Red)

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I always find the music of Film School so warm and pleasant. The simplest little progression can sound glorious in the hands of such skilled and sensitive players. This is soothing, medicinal music, however dark and melancholic, and there’s a certain genius to hitting that blend just right. “p.s.” is a big yet understated composition, rendered with a minimal Velvet Underground style rhythm section ethic, exquisite droney guitars, and obsessively well informed keyboard and string parts, all gathered around and tending to a poetic and precarious lyric like doctors and nurses around a mysterious patient. Beautiful work.

Film School
“p.s.” (mp3)
from “Alwaysnever”
(Amazing Grease Records)

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Vic Chesnutt‘s craft is at such a high level, between lyrics and voice and accompaniment, that listening to his songs one can forget oneself and become entirely transported into the musical picture. “Chain” from his latest album, is a soft cinematic masterpiece, each instrument a character, conversing and dancing ethereally with the protagonist/singer, illuminating a scene far more nuanced and colorful that pop music is expected to be. Perhaps this is why Mr. Chesnutt’s reputation amongst pop stars is so well established – to list his famous admirers would be something of a cliché at this point – while his own fame among the general public is still relatively limited. The quality of this work is so self evident all I can suggest is, download it and have a listen. And if you’re wondering if the rest of the album, and indeed the rest of the output from this artist is as original and beautiful as this, this answer is yeah, it is.

Vic Chesnutt
“Chain” (mp3)
from “At the Cut”
(Constellation)

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In the best tradition of modern Americana, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada’s Ox delivers an unhurried, wide as the sky ode to futility. The guitar work here is stellar, shiny and stark, accompanying a delicate lyric that could fall down so easily in one misplaced word, but it never does. Gorgeous harmonies and a full, superb lead vocal, lift this from a simple lament to something far more glorious. I don’t often find myself in the mood these days, for sad country music, but when I do, it has to be this good.

Ox
“Burnout” (mp3)
from “Burnout”
(Weewerk)

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Song titles say a lot. Band names, too. So, if I find a song called “The Faint Smell of Moss” by a band called Dark Meat off an album called “Truce Opium,” I will immediately download it with a certain glee, hoping it lives up to those lovely words! And I wouldn’t waste your time, dears, if it didn’t. But indeed, a fertile scent of nature is invoked, a soothing narcotic bliss induced, through a sexy rhythm faithfully rendered by a band of real live psychedelic noir road animals from Athens, Georgia. It pleases me that such a band as this exists in 2009, sounding as they do, like an early Jefferson Airplane went off its scheduled course, arrived in the Himalayas with flowers in hair and bells on feet and had an orgy. Reverb-y guitars and glorious male-female vocal harmonies are carried aloft by superb rock drumming, an old school “invisible” bass player (one of my favorite kinds) and – stop the presses! – a lead melody played on that most misunderstood and maligned of wind instruments, the Recorder. These people are crazy. Genius work.

Dark Meat
“The Faint Smell of Moss” (mp3)
from “Truce Opium”
(Emergency Umbrella)

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