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Hot Water Music, Exister

2012 | Label: Rise Records

05.24.12 Comeback albums are tricky, especially for a band as beloved as Hot Water Music. Wisely, on their eighth disc (and first new album in as many years), the band decided not to recreate the past but instead forge ahead. The songs on Exister expand the boundaries of their sound without sacrificing the visceral sing-alongs that endeared them to fans.

For the past decade co-frontman Chuck Ragan has had a successful career as a folk troubadour, which makes it even more satisfying to hear those whiskey-soaked pipes crack with emotion on roaring anthems like "Mainline" and "Paid in Full." The band's other guitarist/vocalist, Chris Wollard, crafts songs like "The Traps" that are more pop-inspired than anything the band has done before, though… more »

P.S. I Love You, Death Dreams

2012 | Label: Paper Bag Records / The Orchard

05.23.12 The Kingston, Ontario, duo P.S. I Love You sound versed less in musical theory than chaos theory. They major in a strain of volatile, dense noise-pop that sounds constantly on the verge of falling in on itself, and Death Dreams, their second full-length, finds them determinedly upping the freneticism. Drummer Benjamin Nelson appears to take his musical cue from Animal from the Muppets but the band's fulcrum is Paul Saulnier, who layers fuzzy thrash guitar, erratic organ blurts and semi-feral vocals into one reverb-laden noise-ball and fires it out of a canon with the volume knob cranked.

Augmenting the all-consuming air of fertile chaos is the fact that Saulnier is a wilfully obscurantist vocalist, hiccupping and swallowing his words until they… more »

Gossip, A Joyful Noise

2012 | Label: Columbia

05.22.12 At the beginning of the last decade, the Gossip were a garage band similar to pre-stardom White Stripes, if they were from Searcy, Arkansas, by way of Olympia, Washington, and led by an out, proud and queer fat advocate. Not anyone's recipe for mainstream success. Fast-forward to the present: Gossip have massive European hits behind them; they've recorded with Rick Rubin and Simian Mobile Disco alike, and on A Joyful Noise, the threesome team with Xenomania's Brian Higgins, the U.K. production whiz behind dance-pop hits from Girls Aloud, Sugababes, Danni Minogue, Pet Shop Boys and Cher. It's a journey that would defy all logic except for the fact that frontwoman Beth Ditto possesses an utterly arresting voice, one that conveys… more »

Apache Dropout, Apache Dropout (Deluxe Edition – eMusic Exclusive)

2012 | Label: Family Vineyard / SC Distribution

05.22.12 Apache Dropout's self-titled debut was one of 2011's most grievously overlooked albums. The Bloomington, Indiana, trio offered 11 songs with howling vocals and infectious hooks, and while they're often lumped in with other garage punks, their guitar-driven sound owes more to Nuggets than Black Flag. "Teenager," for example, is organ-driven bubblegum that laments the exquisite pain of adolescence. There's the bar-band choogling, John Sinclair-namedropping "God Bless You John Kugleberg," the brief, screaming blues "White Out Man" and the swampy, ominous tracks "It's a Nightmare," which ends with a cackling witch.

But this deluxe edition's major draw is the inclusion of nine live tracks, which do the band an incredible service. The harmonies have more bark, their guitars are louder and more… more »