Dan Auerbach
Keep it Hid

(Nonesuch)

Detroit has given us many hard-rocking but idiosyncratic bands. Add to that list this mid-’70s trio of brothers, who recorded seven songs in 1975 and then split over Columbia A&R man Clive Davis’s insistence that they change their name to something more commercial. Those songs are compiled on this CD, which is sufficiently wonderful to compensate for its brevity. Most often suggesting an American Eddie & the Hot Rods—born in metal à la KISS and Blue Öyster Cult instead of pub-rock, but anticipating punk just as surely as The Dictators—Death pack a surprising amount of variety into their sound, but the most crucial aspects are their minor-key brooding, alienated lyrics, frequently hurtling speed and concisely wailing guitar interjections. “Freakin Out” would fit nicely on the Ramones’ first album, not recorded until a year later. (Steve)

Matt Ward is one of those characters who does things in such an understated manner that it’s easy to forget just how jaw-droppingly talented he is. M. Ward’s seventh album, Hold Time, was written and recorded during his whirlwind 2008, which found him appearing on record, on stages and on televisions alongside Zooey Deschanel as She & Him. These are basic biographical facts but are also key to Hold Time: While the record is very much a part of the M. Ward continuum, he’s clearly more adept with pop hooks than ever before, which only makes his songs—already super-comfortable and warm—all the more lasting and effective. “Never Had Nobody Like You” features Ms. Deschanel and could’ve been on their album, with its hand-claps and big beats; she pitches in on another song as well. But the bigtime guest-vocalist is Lucinda Williams, who appears on the cover of “Oh Lonesome Me,” which’ll kinda leave you in a state of just—wow. On that and the title track especially, Ward and his many friends seem to hold time in their hands, and the world outside just settles into a peaceful pause. (M.L. Thrope)

The lushest of the neo-shoegaze bands follows up 2006’s magnificent Citrus—my favorite album of the decade—with an even more beautiful effort. That doesn’t mean it’s better, granted—they haven’t topped Citrus—but it’s no disappointment to me. Pitchfork’s reviewer complained that it’s much slower and quieter; I’d say a little, not a lot, and dream-pop lovers will just say, “What’s wrong with that?” The usual references return: the chord progressions, vocal harmonies, gentle guitar arpeggios and melody of “Layers” scream (okay, murmur) Cocteau Twins, while the pensively thrumming “Glacially” could be a Cure song, etc. A lovely album that encourages repeated listening. (Steve)

For those who found last year’s Vetiver offering, Thing of the Past, a bit underwhelming—in part because a songwriter of Andy Cabic’s talent should be focused on writing new ones rather than rehashing other songwriters’ pasts—Tight Knit represents a most welcome return to the present. If we once knew Cabic mostly because he was buddies with Devendra Banhart, the ten originals on Tight Knit prove he belongs in the upper echelons of the folk-rock world. Devendra isn’t here, but several other recurring names from Cabic’s (ahem) tight-knit circle of comrades and friends are, such as Espers’ Otto Hauser and Kevin “Currituck Co.” Barker. It’s that loose but close familiarity that qualifies Cabic’s songs: “Through the Front Door” and “Rolling Sea” are the kind of tunes you’d swear you’ve heard (but you haven’t), while “Down from Above” and “At Forest Edge” are glowing embers, so becalming as to be almost heartbreaking. Welcome back to now, dude. (M.L. Thrope)

Dark and jarring but not dance-floor averse, the Brooklyn/Chicago trio These Are Powers make their debut for the respected Dead Oceans label. If you’re one of the many who’ve been pummeled (and liked it!) by TAP’s chaotically compelling live gigs, then All Aboard Future is your train and we suggest you get on it (not under it). While the monkey-see, monkey-repeat Internet (you know who you are, Internet) tends to hurl knee-jerk genre-markers like “No Wave” and “postpunk” at These Are Powers, All Aboard Future is too slippery to be pinned down like that; the trio puts an electro-primitive stamp on industrial music, sometimes suggesting a less-smeary Gang Gang Dance exiled to a world that gets 10 minutes of sunshine a day (in the summer). Adventurous club DJ’s ought to be making “Easy Answers” into a left-field hit, though we’re partial to stormier excursions like “Light After Sound.” It’s worth noting the attention paid to All Aboard Future’s packaging—the band invited 11 artists and one writer to contribute work—in an age when music tends to live in a virtual state. (M.L. Thrope)

Skeleton, the second album from Los Angeles’s Abe Vigoda, was a frenetic, energetic dose of airy noise-punk. The band’s new EP, Reviver, doesn’t follow Skeleton so much as it departs from it—its five songs, including a reworking of Skeleton’s “Endless Sleeper,” slow the pace dramatically, opting for a more dramatic, textured approach. It’s a world-wearier band heard here, and while opener “Don’t Lie” is as upbeat as anything they’ve done, there’s a groundedness even there that suggests a conscious exploration of the parameters of their sound. This all comes to a head on their cover of Stevie Nicks’s “Wild Heart,” which builds slowly, exchanging dense, contemplative sections and blasts of jittery distortion. It’s a strong effort overall, and falls nicely in the tradition of game-changing EPs. (Toby Carroll)

Reading some of the advance press for this duo is hilarious, as writers try to come up with comparisons for music that is too original to admit obvious analogs (though some moments suggest Brian Eno, they are fleeting). On their fourth album together, Koen Holtkamp and Brendon Anderegg construct sonic landscapes that mix their anti-virtuoso/timbre-focused playing of musical instruments, field recordings and electronic treatments. Light and airy sounds sometimes stay that way but more often are layered via loops into dense interweavings of highly textured music in which long melodies can be heard by listeners with patience and focus. This, I think, is what the album title refers to: the most similar effect is achieved not in comparable electronic music, but in medieval choir works that have a theme buried in the longest notes. The results, while quite varied, always rise above mere ambience to extremely artistic evocations of piquant moods. (Steve)

This hard-to-categorize trio teams guitarist/vocalist Daniel Martin-McCormick (whose high-pitched yelping most recalls Yasuko O. of Melt-Banana) and bassist Jacob Long, both of former Dischord band Black Eyes, with drummer Damon Palermo. Post-punk, dub, African rhythms, psych-prog and free improvisation mingle in their percolating sound, which features funk/dub bass, tribal drumming, and piercingly trebly guitar. They achieve a tribal momentum suggesting a funkier Angels of Light, “Sufficiently Breakfast” on Je Suis France’s Afrikan Majik, or The Slits covering “Dark Star.” Recommended to everyone who likes any of the styles cited above, but especially to anyone who thinks that modern post-punk is just revivalism—because these guys do something very different and imaginative with it. (Steve)