Free Energy - "Electric Fever"

The first time I heard a Free Energy song I was laying on a couch that I spent a month sleeping on in Los Angeles. I immediately transcribed the lyrics and sent them to three of my friends. It was the middle of the night, the kind of thing you did when you were 26 and still felt like everything mattered some of the time. Of course, Free Energy were hopelessly and obviously derivative. They sounded like Thin Lizzy; they sounded like Bachman Turner Overdrive; they sounded like fun. On latest single, "Electric Fever", the band returns with the same post-modern pastiche of influences. The cowbell is a prominent and unironic motif. The question is, if stealing and cribbing influences is this joyful, is it still theft? Music was supposed to be fun, remember? If this bothers you, I suspect you probably don't get it, which is an irritating and circular way of saying, you should let this move you. Do as they say and, "turn it up". You should email your friends in the middle of the night; the lyrics aren't that hard to remember.

Beach House :: "Myth"

Beach House returns with a bullet in first release, "Myth" from coming May 15th LP, Bloom. It goes without saying that Teen Dream was one of the best records of 2010 and the band brings back their specific brand of heart-sick, echoing pop on "Myth", this time a downward progression with an elevating, made-for-television-montage final movement. The scope is a little bigger and a little cleaner, the same moment in the final act of "10-Mile Stereo" that brought you to the brink of something. The arrangement reverberates with real space, a place where someone can resolve chord progressions with this level of absolute satisfaction.

Mirror Talk :: "Choose Life"

A half-haunted and precious thing, Mirror Talk took to the backyard to bury their synthesizers and melodies. Heavy-handed metaphor though it may be, the first moments of the band's single, "Choose Life" are muffled and blurry before a cloud-clearing burst of sound, soaring synths and drubbing bass lines. The hook is very much reminiscent of Future Islands, a slice of fuzzy and slightly off-kilter keyboard orchestra. While the fuzz indicated a hidden self, the topical thrust is even more fatal. Underpinning the whole thing is a terrible interrogative lyric, "Is it true, love?" followed by the most mournful, "ohs" you'll hear this week. A long-form projection, "Choose Life" unfolds over nearly five minutes, ebbing and flowing between verse and chorus with a tidal certainty. The central question, whether "it" is true, is left parenthetically unknown. We are left to assume, yes, and the worst, our options to dig a hole or explode upwards.

Listen :: Mirror Talk - "Choose Life"

Scout :: "So Close"

If 1994 were still alive today it would be scratching lottery tickets, voting in the coming Presidential election and buying unfiltered Lucky Strikes to go with pornography and the ability to be drafted in the next terrifying World War. It would be a walking, talking, legal adult. But on Scout's "So Close", a song that could easily pass for an entry on the aforementioned calendar year's Reality Bites movie soundtrack, it feels like no time has passed at all. That year never got old, never thought hard thoughts or sent in, somewhat reluctantly, its Selective Service registration card. In fairness, Scout has been around awhile themselves, this long player, All Those Relays marks the first new material from the band since 2003. "So Close" is a glimmering slice of 90s girl-rock, like a darker version of Juliana Hatfield's "Spin The Bottle" with better production value. The most durable lyric on Scout's return, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass/I won't be looking back", a statement of relationship independence that couldn't be further from the band's methodology, rooted so solidly and enthusiastically in the past.

Maps & Atlases :: "Winter"

Setting guitars racing off to lead the melody is a good start for Maps & Atlases latest single, "Winter" from coming LP, Beware and Be Grateful. Proving something of a competition, the disparate parts of the arrangement flirt and flick off one another like little droplets of mercury. Backing vocals chase the lead guitar line, a tumbling and ebullient affair, the effect being a pebbled surface of so many notes bubbling to the surface at once. For a point of reference, think of Phoenix making a more organic and folk-driven slice of pop. All in all, it represents an architecture of elevation, a hopeful construction about the most dire of seasons.

Listen :: Maps & Atlases - "Winter"

Amanda Mair :: "Sense"

Amanda Mair represents a unique blend of precociousness and mercurial talent. After two fantastic one-off singles, "Doubt" and "House" where the Swede channeled Kate Bush and a blend of soaring, Gothic pop, Mair releases, "Sense" - still favoring one-word, five-letter titles - the first single from her upcoming self-titled, LP. On "Sense" the aesthetic values are freed from the rarefied and thin air of her previous work. This latest work represents a more organic and, at times, almost cute, Mair, perhaps appropriate for an artist that attracted the attention of the taste-making label Labrador last year at just 16 years old. If the melody feels a bit childish, even in places too precious, this is both natural and needed. Mair risked sounding a bit too old for herself last year, reduced down to something a bit more comprehensible for her debut record. Either way, "Sense" marks another impressive stroke of songwriting from the young talent and a harbinger of a great record to come.

Listen :: Amanda Mair - "Sense"
Listen :: Amanda Mair - "Doubt"
Listen :: Amanda Mair - "House"

PS I Love You :: "Sentimental Dishes"

The heirs to the Wolf Parade throne, PS I Love You prepare to release sophomore LP, Death Dreams with the rip-roaring "Sentimental Dishes". Wailing guitars set themselves against tweaking vocals, all colliding in one of the most fun, chant-along choruses of the year. The coda is a gigantic 80s hair-metal progression that PS I Love You have dragged, heels dug into the ground, out to the garage where they've fuzzed it up and turned it loose. The result is a scary good chorus and a breathless rock song, something to scream along with whether you thinking screaming is useful or not.