SOUND BITES

Usually, as spring gives way to summer album releases dry up. In 2015, however, it didn't really feel like the case. Sure, there were less albums released than in the spring but pretty much every week in June and July saw something worthwhile hit the shelves. Plus, there are a couple from July 10th, which is the date all new releases shifted from Tuesdays to Fridays. This batch of nominees also represents a nice cross section of new and emerging bands, established acts and long dormant bands breaking long silences. Our third set of Song of the Year Nominees are:

  As influential as Refused was to turn-of-the-century punk, a case can be made for Failure being just as influential on hard rock of the same era.  The Nurse Who Loved Me  was famously covered by A Perfect Circle in 2003, while moderate U.S. hits  Saturday Savior  and  Stuck On You  bear seeds of what bands such as Staind and Deftones would later use to inhabit the dark corners of nu-metal (you know, the slow, morose stuff far removed from yelping rappers). Their third album, 1996's  Fantastic Planet , counted all three of those songs among its fourteen (plus three segués) while filling out the remainder of its 68 minutes with one hidden gem after another. There's the thunderous, melodic darkness of  Smoking Umbrellas  and  Dirty Blue Balloons , the nimble fury of  Pillowhead  and  Leo , and the sprawling bombast of closing pair  Heliotropic  and  Daylight . Put simply,  Fantastic Planet  is ...