SOUND BITES

It was all going so well. After years of toiling in relative anonymity before finally getting some overdue attention (thanks to a rapidly developing, highly charged live show, the howling single Weatherman and one of the flat-out best albums of 2012), Dead Sara were poised to break through. They signed a contract with Epic and saw their profile continue to rise in the form of bigger and bigger show bookings. When it was time to put their major label debut to tape, they had all the confidence in the world and a lot more playing experience and chemistry. That's the most notable change from the previous record to this one; the songs are fleshed out and tighter, incorporating tonal shifts and additional instrumentation. You'd never have dreamed you'd hear a saxophone bleating on a Dead Sara song until now, but there it is in the middle of white-hot rager L.A. City Slum . See also the sludgy breakdown that's punctuated with harmonica at the end of Mr. Mr . The band clearly...

On the lead single from her official debut album (following a pair of EPs and an album-length combo release), Courtney Barnett is keenly aware of her own hype and advises against heaping it on too heavily. "Put me on a pedestal and I'll only disappoint you", she warns, echoing a sentiment Alex Turner conveyed on Arctic Monkeys' debut nearly a decade ago ("anticipation has a habit of setting you up for disappointment"). Tellingly, the single is titled Pedestrian at Best , which acts as a metaphoric electric fence designed to keep naysayers in check; as if to say, "no one's more critical of me than I am". No one gets this defensive without pressure, and Barnett has it; after collecting high praise in her native Australia, she's been steadily picking up momentum worldwide. Like it or not, she's been pegged in many circles as the blessed/cursed "next big thing", something shiny and new to be adored for six months while critics a...

It's not entirely fair that good art often comes from bad situations. Whether due to a flaw in our human nature that makes us revel in the pain of others, or a reflection of our society wherein suffering is easier to identify with than happiness, the sad stories always seem to be the ones we take to heart. For Ben Gibbard, who built a career preaching to the heartbroken and confused, it's not all that surprising that some of his most inspired and affecting work in years has followed divorce. When last we heard from Death Cab For Cutie, it was four years ago and much was made of Codes and Keys . More to the point, much was made of the uptick in positive vibes and lesser focus on the guitar-driven indie rock sound that had endeared them to so many. Of course, we were happy that Gibbard had found love and married, and it wasn't necessarily a bad look for the band, but the lack of melancholy coupled with the lack of guitars marked Codes and Keys as a drastic shift in sound a...

When a traditionally underground band draws commercial appeal for the first time, it often acts as a crucial checkpoint for fans and critics alike, an invisible line in the sand that got crossed when stations in Mesa, Arizona started spinning their single. In most cases, willingly or not, the band's career becomes something to be judged not as a whole but in "pre-fame" and "post-fame" sections. Inevitably, as the band's output wanes in quality and passes its best-before date, people sit around pondering what might have become of them if they hadn't been saddled with the fame? The foremost band that comes to mind in this context, for me anyway, is Nirvana; it's hard to imagine a world where Smells Like Teen Spirit never happened, but we do it anyway. We like to tell ourselves that Kurt Cobain may have never ended his life, that Nirvana would have kept making edgy, interesting records to this day. We ponder whether The White Stripes might still be t...

  In a curious twist of fate, JEFF The Brotherhood's eighth album was delayed by two weeks on account of the band being dropped by Warner Bros. What's curious about it is that the record was finished and ready to go; most of the work was done save for a little promotional consideration. Listening to the record, I have to wonder what made Warner lose hope; it's as if they got a cut on their hand and chose to amputate rather than buy some antiseptic.  Wasted on the Dream  is packed with thick riffs and fist pumping rhythms, just like fans are used to. There are even a few radio-ready singles here;  Coat Check Girl  sounds like the kind of sugary concession tune a band writes after being told by their label to do something catchy (but I'm not sneering at it, because it works as advertised). Then, there's the crunchy/sweet  In My Dreams , featuring a refreshing guest vocal by Best Coast's Bethany Cosentino, which could have easily gone top ten if this were 1995...

After Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party brought their angular riffs and post-punk energy to the mainstream about a decade ago, insatiable fans went looking for like-minded bands. That, along with sharpened songcraft and a major record deal, helped The Cribs break through with third record Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever , albeit to a lesser degree in North America. They've quietly explored their sonic horizons since (or, in the case of the hard-nosed, Steve Albini produced In the Belly of the Brazen Bull , not so quietly), and with sixth album For All My Sisters it's starting to come back around.  That said, there's a softer and more mature core to these songs, an expected result of the Jarman brothers all being in their thirties now. Not to say that the songs are dull; lead single Burning for No One has just the right amount of fire, while Mr. Wrong and City Storms (the latter of which pairs Ryan's elastic vocals with a Manics-inspired me...

  As the towering, captivating frontman for Arcade Fire, Win Butler casts a large shadow. However, there's something to be said for younger brother Will who, as the guy who has earned his living in the background and thrashing around gleefully during live shows, proves to be a formidable contributor to his group if his debut solo record is any indication. Though I hesitate to call an 8-track, 27-minute collection an "album" (as it's being marketed and priced as),  Policy  has no shortage of ideas.  In fact, the thing that defines the record may be the thing that hinders it, and that's its scattershot approach. Songs wildly hop genres from one song to the next, from the raucous Arcade Fire boogie of  Take My Side  to the icy new wave pulse of  Anna  to the earnest piano ballad  Finish What I Started  to the speedy acoustic shuffle of  Son of God .  That's your A-side, and the B-side is no less eclectic, encompassing fuzzy, Clash...

If the new Joel Plaskett record (his eighth not counting his '90s output with Thrush Hermit but including those credited to Plaskett & The Emergency) feels a bit more cohesive than you're used to, that makes sense. After an experiment in time management for previous LP Scrappy Happiness (comprised of ten songs recorded and released digitally over a succession of ten weeks in 2012), the triplet-obsessed Three (three CDs containing three sets of three songs each) back in 2009, and the nostalgia trip of Ashtray Rock (though all songs were recorded during the same sessions, some songs dated back to the Thrush Hermit days), The Park Avenue Sobriety Test is, in a way, Plaskett's first conventional album in about a decade.  Accordingly, it has more flow and consistency of narrative; written squarely from a current point of view, the album deals predominantly with the scary proposition of approaching middle age (Plaskett turns 40 next month). While it does acknowledge...

As far as heavy music goes, you'd be hard pressed to find many bands (outside of Christian metal, I suppose) as simultaneously pummeling and positive as Cancer Bats. They've spent the better part of the last decade laying waste to mosh pits worldwide while extolling the benefits of PMA. There's catharsis within the storm of noise this band creates, and their discography provides medicine and menace in equal measure. If it feels like their fifth album is just more of the same, that's somewhat understandable; if we're being honest, the Bats have rarely ventured too far from the intersection of Sabbath and Madball since their inception. That's not to their detriment, however; it's not like they've copied and pasted their way to a career, and I applaud them for still drawing fresh water from the well. That said, there are subtle progressions afoot on Searching for Zero ; see the waltzing, brooding Beelzebub and the loose, sputtering punk rager Devil's ...

Noel Gallagher's second solo disc is aptly named, as the opening seconds and their none-too-subtle callback to Wonderwall will attest to; Riverman practically screams to be inserted into the Wonderwall/Boulevard of Broken Dreams mashup, but stands as a decent enough song on its own. Elsewhere, Gallagher displays a general tendency to recall his glory days through various lyrical and musical cues; it's even written in song titles like While the Song Remains the Same and You Know We Can't Go Back.  Chasing Yesterday does boast some strong songs, notably lead single In the Heat of the Moment , slow burner The Dying of the Light (which also features some of that Wonderwall vibe), and the thumping, majestic album closer Ballad of the Mighty I . Elsewhere, there are flashes of Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles ( The Girl With X-Ray Eyes ), nods to Stone Roses psych-soul ( The Right Stuff ) and ill-fated attempts at muscular rock ( The Mexican , an even more puzzling album inclusion...