Feel free to chalk it up to the fact that I’m a Seattle native, but I’m telling you right now that this is your new favorite band. Hailing from the aforementioned city, the Fleet Foxes set the city’s famous music scene ablaze in buzz over the past several months and, in the process, landed themselves a nice deal with local stalwart Sub Pop. But, unlike so many buzz bands that come onto the scene like a comet and whose debuts end up a bit flaccid, the Sun Giant EP ranks up there as one of the best debuts of 2008. Frontman Robin Pecknold (a name you should get used to hearing) and the rest of the Fleet Foxes reach into the same well that My Morning Jacket and Band of Horses have, the reverb friendly reinvention of CSNY, the Band and more, but end up bringing an entirely more artistic and beautiful creation to bare. (There’s much less frat-rock to be found in Sun Giant than either their previously mentioned peers, thankfully.) Perhaps the word “rural” or “organic” sums it up best. Woodsy, clean and swimmingly haunting, Sun Giant is supposedly a “tour only” EP and will likely be in limited release, so don’t miss out on it. Simply wonderful. (Grant)

Do you like your riffs searing, your guitar solos chunky, your lyrics abstruse but perfectly rhymed and your vocals dotted with reaching falsetto? If so, you’re probably already a fan of Pavement and its erstwhile frontman Stephen Malkmus’s work with the Jicks – and you are in for quite a treat with the latter collective’s latest and weirdest effort, their first featuring terrific new drummer Janet Weiss (of Sleater-Kinney). Though his songs are longer and the production a little slicker, Real Emotional Trash nevertheless deals in classic Malkmisms: killer solos (say what you will, the man can shred), meandering song structures replete with breakdowns and impossible last-minute reprises and infectious passages you’ll find yourself humming at awkward times. Malky’s tongue is still often in cheek, but here you know he’s having a good time – unlike with 2006’s more-straightforward Face the Truth – and he and his Jicks invite you along for the fun. Don’t hesitate – join in! (Anna)

North West England’s experimental electronica duo Rob Brown and Sean Booth, a.k.a Autechre, have finally released their ninth album, Quaristice, the long-awaited follow-up to 2005’s Untilted and its digital percussive constructions. Upon first listen, I was struck by the sheer density and adventurousness of Autechre’s new offering. With a total running time of almost an hour and a half, Quaristice explores and expands on many ideas, from “IO” and its sinister rumbling voice enumerating cut-up sentences, to the atmospheric low rumbling aural construction of “Paralel Suns” and the hectic jungle rhythm and precise glitches of “Bnc Castl.” With Quaristice, Autechre have found a successful musical niche lodged between the repetitiveness of Chiastic Slide and the noisy samples of Tri Repetae and delivered an epic and complex album with a characteristic melancholic slant. (Morgane)

Expanding on the skeletal feel of their first record, Beach House’s Devotion pays attention to space and atmosphere in a way that’s hard to find in the context of orchestrated pop music. Vocalist/keyboardist Victoria Legrand loosely guides us through songs languid, nervous and pastoral, all piecing together into a drifty, reverb-seeped whole. Her off-kilter lyrics occasionally sift to the surface, only to melt back into the beautiful well of sound. Moments like the perfectly realized “You Came To Me” and a haunting cover of Daniel Johnson’s “Some Things Last A Long Time” are perfect examples of the evocative nature of the album, occupying a musical space much like a lucid dream, allowing your mind to wander not away from the music, but with the music. (Fred)

A fool-proof compilation from one of our premier local studios, Living Bridge features two discs of some of Brooklyn’s finest bands and performers, including Avey Tare of Animal Collective, Samara Lubelski, Deerhunter, Blood on the Wall, Black Dice, Tara Jane O’Neill, and many others. These are artists who’ve all recorded for Nicolas Vernhes’s Rare Book Room studio, and he’s put together a flawless anthology of 25 tracks, beautifully capturing the essence of Brooklyn’s indie scene over the past five years. Vernhes avoids the pitfalls of other disjointed and choppy compilations by providing the songs with expert segues, giving the record a free-flowing, seemless feel. (James)

If you like voices soaked in whisky and smoke and lyrics hatched in darkness by tortured souls, this team-up of Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli will be your favorite album of the year. They collaborate with an array of indie-rock fellow spirits including Joseph Arthur, Lanegan’s Queens of the Stone Age bandmate Troy Van Leeuwen, violinist Petra Haden, even (oddly) Brit diva Martina Topley-Bird. The only track Lanegan and Dulli aren’t both on is “I Was in Love with You,” which with its keyboard emphasis and strings suggests a grunge ELO or a stoned Radiohead. Throughout the disc, every sonic nook and cranny is filled with instruments, the dense production amplifying the sense of foreboding that courses through every track. (Steve)

Consider this a sort of musical game of telephone: a mid-’00s band looking back at the early ’90s bands that were extrapolating from mid-’70s forebears, with new accretions altering the sound while retaining its essence. Every 15 years or so, a new generation of kids weaned on their parents’ album collections comes to a realization of one of the great rock verities: a scruffy, skuzzy, scrabbling, shambolic two-guitar sound is inherently compelling and perfectly complements the dark thoughts of troubled youth. That each generation also embraces scruffy, skuzzy facial hair must not be coincidental; that each generation’s recording quality gets fuzzier could be indie signifying, or just smaller recording budgets as the moves further underground. This particular quartet has added speed to its repertoire since its debut album, so there are some uptempo changes of pace amid the many shuffling midtempo rambles. Anyone who likes Songs: Ohia/Magnolia Electric Company/Jason Molina will dig this disc. (Steve)

If you read any interview with Detroit fuzz heroes the Dirtbombs, it becomes apparent they hate it when people call them “garage rock.” This might have been a little hard-to-swallow when it came to their earlier work, but on We Have You Surrounded, the band’s fourth studio full-length, they’re really pushing the point. That’s not to say it doesn’t rock, ridiculously and irreverently, because it does. The songs, however, range dramatically from modern-day Nuggets jams to Europoppy tracks like “La Fin Du Monde,” the Fall-inspired “It’s Not Fun Until They See You Cry” and the free-form psych jam of “Race to the Bottom.” Combine that with killer cover versions of Dead Moon and Sparks, the Dirtbombs put their own stamp on it all, defying genre and attempting to show you, violently if necessary, that there’s more to Detroit than the Stooges and murder. (Fred)