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Shearwater are often considered “underappreciated,” but they’re just properly appreciated by an understandably modest, devoted fanbase. Though their handsomely recorded albums and Jonathan Meiburg’s former membership in Okkervil River put them in the context of NPR darlings and amphitheater headliners, they’re still a tough sell: Often compared to Talk Talk at their most commercially forbidding, they’re not populist like Okkervil or the National, their theatricality doesn’t appeal to a specific brand of geekdom like the Decemberists or Andrew Bird, and their artiness is too pretty and studied to be edgy. Even when trying to describe what makes something like Rook‘s “The Snow Leopard” a staggering listen, you’re left with chin-stroking explanations, like how a trumpet’s fanfare finally breaks the tension of John Congleton’s immaculate production, but it lasts three seconds and takes four minutes to get there.

On Animal Joy too many changes are afoot to think Meiburg isn’t chafed by the situation: They’ve peripherally moved from one indie titan (Matador) to another (Sub Pop) and from one revered indie producer (John Congleton) to another (Danny Reisch). But more notably, take a look at the unusually plainspoken title: Animal Joy proves they are still a naturalistically minded band, but in dropping the more arcane conceptual gambits of their self-described “trilogy” of Palo Santo, Rook, and The Golden Archipelago and speaking in layman’s terms both emotionally and sonically, they’re taking their best shot at meeting new listeners halfway.

They come racing out of the gate to do so on “Animal Life”– Meiburg’s amped-up choirboy vocals have always been suited for grand, sweeping gestures and yet he’s never delivered something so overtly pop. To put it in his preferred orinthological terms, it’s a peacock moment for sure, pure 1980s corporate rock because it somehow sounds expensive, striving to honor ambition itself as intrinsically good– it could be a Florence and the Machine song, NBC could use it to soundtrack their commercials for the Summer Olympics, but they throw in enough fussy chord changes and dissonant fringe to keep things from getting too cozy.  There’s a similar release-the-hounds rush to “You As You Were”, a sonic and poetic ramble culminating in Meiburg’s desire to “Go back to the East/ Where it’s all so civilized/ Where I was born to the life/ But I am leaving the life.” Whether it’s meant as a candid admission from a touring musician or a nod to the desk jockey that longs to mount a wild steed, it feels like a mission statement; Animal Joy doesn’t so much stand for carnality but for the thrill in upsetting the equilibrium between domesticated repression and desire for primitive abandon.

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Even way back in 2005, otherwise known as the year that every other riff-happy power trio (see: Wolfmother, Black Mountain, etc.) decided to release their debut, there was something aboutHeartless Bastards. Maybe it was Erika Wennerstrom’s immense pipes or the equally mighty instrumentation she and her bandmates backed it with, or perhaps it was the simple, compelling tales she spun in that dulcet voice of hers, but something about the group’s 2005 debut Stairs and Elevators marked the trio as quite extraordinary. In 2006, however, the band released a less than stellar second outing – the rather dull, overlong All This Time – which was followed by a shakeup in the band’s lineup andThe Mountain, the band’s overwrought third effort steeped in plaintive guitar strums and pedal-steel slides that highlighted a captivating, though previously unheard of, apprehension in Wennerstrom’s voice and songwriting. It moved past nearly everything the band had done so well to that point.

Arrow picks up where that record left off and, while not exactly attempting to meet the band’s early catalog halfway, manages to serve as the most comprehensive and compelling Heartless Bastards release to date. From the start of opener “Marathon”, Wennerstrom sings persistently of “the long way home”, working that impossibly raw voice of hers for all its power as she stretches each syllable to its limit. Where The Mountain found Wennerstrom in the depths of heartbreak, a breakup album in every sense, Arrow catches her and her bandmates on the upswing, singing often of reliving your youth (on the winsome folksy number “Skin and Bone”) and life after love (“Parted Ways”) with renewed fervor. They sound like they’re having a trip along the way too, blasting their way through the well-traveled annals of classic rock as they jam in the respective keys of Sabbath (Arrow‘s mighty closer ”Down in the Canyon”) and T. Rex (“Got To Have Rock And Roll”).

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Mux Mool‘s 2010 debut full-length, Skulltaste, held the promise of a whatever-works adventurer who could excel in just about any direction he was pointed. It was easy to assume after the fact that if Brian Lindgren focused on just one of his strengths– Americanized French touch, fat-bottomed analog hip-hop, gauzy-yet-speaker-rattling downtempo ambient– he could produce the next phase of a defining sound with real mutation potential. Planet High School narrows his scope and draws a more specific target, streamlining those aforementioned touchstones into a blend of synthesized airiness and thick bass that sounds a bit like g-funk for planetariums. But as with his best tracks, the common thread that runs through each song is a sense of restless metamorphosis, the sense that there’s no use wearing out a good loop when there’s plenty of space to throw it around.

There’s a confident immediacy to the beats that initially drive them– whether agitatedly hopped-up (“Raw Gore”, “Cash for Gold”) or floating at cruising speed (“Ruin Everything”,“Palace Chalice”)– and Lindgren gives himself the space to jostle and upend their structures in freewheeling ways. There are so many rhythmic and melodic layers to each track that he often produces attention-getting dynamics just by fiddling with one of the elements, dropping in or pulling out a bassline’s notes to shift momentum without losing tempo, or pushing a deceptively simple drum break into supple polyrhythms. It’s not just about waiting for big drops or build-build-build-release catharsis; it’s about constructing a track that ricochets inside itself, splits, regroups, and counteracts itself several times in just a few bars without once losing grasp of its own forward movement. It’s undeniably danceable, but the pop-and-lock routines you could set to this might tear ACLs.

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When it comes to crafting a well-balanced partnership between minimal pop and disco harmonies, multi-talented musician Evan Voytashas the appropriate mix of synthesizers and beats at the ready. Not only does his music have grooves good enough to get you out of your seasonal depression, but the LA musician leans towards a carefree vibe that’s sure to keep his five-song EP, Feel Me, on repeat.

Long after Feel Me stops playing, the hooks will remain with you, and as an LA musician, he’s no stranger to warm vibes that insist on bringing a laid-back party feel. “You Don’t Even Know Where It’s At”, with its simple uptempo beat and Voytas’ dreamy vocals, already plays like a dance floor classic. His Prince-inspired vocals play a huge part in giving the music a certain breathy familiarity that insists you get up and shake it. Voytas’ appeal lies in his amalgamation of disco and R&B with a sophisticated, electronic pop edge. “Can’t Let Anybody Know Who You Are”, like the title suggests, contains mysterious subtleties as he further perfects his lush melodies over ’80s-inflected synths.

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Here’s an incomplete recap of the Twilight Sad‘s self-reported listening syllabus leading up to their third album, No One Can Ever Know: Cabaret Voltaire, Magazine, Autechre, Public Image Ltd., Nine Inch Nails. In other words, a group that has to this point been either compared to shoegazers or other Scottish acts (Aereogramme, Mogwai) was looking to completely overhaul its sound. That’s a good thing– while their debut Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters was the work of a powerful and fully realized band, its follow-up Forget the Night Ahead suggested it wasn’t a particularly versatile one. Whether it was a result of familiarity or just its suffocated production, the torrential downpour of Andy MacFarlane’s guitars and James Graham’s heavily accented howl didn’t have the same impact.

Now here’s a nearly complete list of who No One Can Ever Know actually sounds like: The Twilight Sad. That’s also a good thing. No One Can Ever Know is kind of a failure as a total sonic rebranding, but it’s a strong transition for the band into something a little more form-fitting while carrying over their commitment to morose atmosphere and Graham’s handsome vocals, deeply entrenched characteristics that just so happen to be their strengths.

Still, that they brought in Andrew Weatherall to produce is proof enough that they meant business. The mention of Weatherall’s name most instantly brings to mind his work on Primal Scream’s Screamadelica and Fuck Buttons’ Tarot Sport, two records whose wildly bright timbres and celebratory attitudes exist somewhere way the fuck on the other side of the world from where the Twilight Sad set up shop. That’s still the case if song titles like “Kill It in the Morning” and “Dead City” are any indication of what’s to come, and they sure are. It’s tough to pinpoint the exact contributions, but whether Weatherall was meant as a spiritual adviser or a contributor is a moot point– the Twilight Sad intended for this to be a frigid, militant, and rhythmic record, and they got it.

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Royal Baths’ return is a thoroughly twisted exercise in free reign. Feeling stifled among the garage rock scene of San Francisco, the group found a new and fitting home in New York. The inspired ’60s psych rock is still there on Better Luck Next Life, but this time around, Royal Baths is giving us a taste of darkness. Though an average listener may not identify with striking deals with the devil or daydreaming of murder, it’s hard to deny Royal Baths are having a damn good time. As they declare: “This wicked world is such a ball.”

There’s an unsettling haze that inches along withBetter Luck Next Life, due in part to vocal duties shared among the off-kilter pairing of Jeremy Cox and Jigmae Baer. You’ll certainly believe Baer is filled with hatred for his “Darling Divine”, but his warbling tenor seems disinterested, delivering vocal punches in a distinctly creep drawl that’s meant to be unnaturally sharp. It’s in Royal Bath’s willingness to embrace what is often not normal that they create a bluesy garage rock distinctly their own. There’s nothing inviting about the sputtering of guitar, screaming in feedback, that leads “Black Sheep,” but it’s hard to escape the haunting vocal exchanges that prelude an unexpected blistering breakdown. Similarly, the sexually driven “Faster, Harder” opens deceptively slow, with a lazy bass line and drums that breakneck into a chaotic ending.

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The institution of classic rock– and all the FM-radio stations, VH1 specials, and “Disco Sucks” rallies it has propagated– is built upon a certain they-don’t-make-’em-like-they-used-to purism. But the genre’s most esteemed icons have ultimately survived because they’ve occasionally been willing to break down rock’s rigidity to absorb decidedly non-rock influences, be it the Stones flirting with reggae and disco on Black and Blue, Paul McCartney trying his hand at new wave on McCartney II, or Neil Young’s infamous synth-pop odyssey Trans. None of these may count as those artists’ definitive works but, given that rock’n'roll itself began as an unholy union of blues, jazz, folk, and country, these sorts of sacreligious stylistic detours and genre experiments were arguably truer to the music’s original spirit than anything that tried to milk fresh inspiration from the I, IV, and V chords.

Jennifer Herrema‘s first band, Royal Trux, understood this all too well, as she and partner Neil Hagerty broke down and reassembled their 1970s blues-rock foundation into all sorts of distorted shapes over the course of a tangled, tangential 10-album discography. But since that band dissolved in 2001, Herrema has been following a more linear path with her post-Trux outfit RTX, who, with each successive record, have been gradually refining and polishing themselves into the last hair-metal band standing– a stance so antithetical to prevailing indie-rock mores, it’s practically avant garde. If Royal Trux were about deconstructing rock mythology, RTX aggressively reasserted it, from the cover-art drawings of Herrema that look like they were cribbed from some daydreaming high-school student’s notepad, to giving their studio albums titles such as JJ Got Live RaTX that suggest they’re some long-lost concert bootleg, to the intra-band references (RTX being an acronym that first appeared in the 1990 Royal Trux track “RTX-USA”) that casts Herrema’s entire oeuvre as some sort of secret-society code waiting to be deciphered.

The narrative gets even more convoluted with the arrival of Black Bananas, which boasts the same personnel as RTX; copped its name from an RTX song lyric; and whose debut album title, Rad Times Xpress IV, makes a smidgen of sense only if seen as the fourth RTX effort. (It also includes a song titled, confusingly enough, “RTX Go-Go”.) And RTX’s penchant for straight-up sleazy rock’n'roll carried through to the new band’s first public offering last fall, a faithful cover of the Stones’ “Before They Make Me Run”, complete with an uncannily Neil Hagerty-like guest vocal from Kurt Vile that actually makes the song sound more like Royal Trux than anything RTX ever attempted.

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Like a fine wine, Dr. Dog gets better with age. Since the band made a strong first impression with their live shows, each new album gets closer to that perfect debut that should have gotten them noticed in the first place. For their latest attempt, Be the Void, the Philadelphia quintet added a new drummer and “electronics-percussionist-guitarist” Dimitri Manos (who, incidentally, worked with the band on 2005′sEasy Beat), and the results show. It’s their tightest and simultaneously most experimental release, incorporating Afrobeat elements and intensifying the psychedelia that used to meander somewhat aimlessly through the band’s earlier material. Despite these efforts, Be the Void still suffers from lyrical paucity and by-the-book throwbacks. Dr. Dog may keep getting better, but until the band fixes these continual sticking points, they’ll forever be stuck in “That Old Black Hole”.

Vocalist/guitarist Scott McMicken sums up Dr. Dog’s sound on that first single when he sings, “I don’t rock the boat, but it’s always unsteady.” They haven’t done anything that hasn’t been done before, but the new members add welcome variety to Dr. Dog’s retro-mania. Drummer Eric Slick kicks off opener “Lonesome” with a thumping beat, anchoringBe the Void as much as he moves it forward, like a shark. Slick holds back on “Get Away” to let bassist/vocalist Toby Leaman whine about being “old and in shambles,” breaking into a gallop only when he sings, “the bottle is broken, the ghost has escaped.” Together with Manos’ percussion and Leaman’s bass on “Heavy Light”, Slick maintains polyrhythms similar to Afropop purveyors Givers and Vampire Weekend (McMicken’s voice even sounds a lot like Ezra Koenig’s).

The band’s aforementioned love of music from the 1960’s still comes across as strongly, if not more than ever, despite their newer sonic elements. No band can elude its obligatory “Beatles-esque” moment and ensuing critical finger-pointing forever, but “the members of Dr. Dog cheerfully acknowledge the debt they owe to classic rock,” according to an interview with The New York Times’ Kelefa Sanneh. Sure enough, Leaman howls like Macca on “Vampire” (and twangs like Dylan on “Big Girl”), and the sitar student becomes the master on “Turning the Century”. “Warrior Man” epitomizes ‘70s glam rock with its languid enunciations, organ blips, and meta-narrative about incongruous things like “ancient warrior clans,” being a “computer man,” and “hubcaps and soda cans.”

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Sharon Van Etten’s first proper album, Because I Was in Love, was nudged out into the world in 2009 despite the best efforts of a college boyfriend in Tennessee who had told her she was shit, hid her guitar, and shoved her back home to New Jersey. That album’s tracks, and those of the home recordings she also released that year, were sparse, Van Etten’s voice sometimes barely above a murmur, as if she were trying to figure out how to make music at the lowest functional volume. Her next record, 2010′s Epic, was almost more of an EP– just seven songs– but it was a leap forward in sound and spirit. Epic pulled in little bits of kickdrum and pedal steel and electric guitar, and ended with “Love More”, on which she proclaimed, over a doubled harmonium and wavering synth, “You chained me like a dog in our room/ …It made me love, it made me love, it made me love more.”

Van Etten first recorded “Love More” for WXPN and Weathervane Music’s Shaking Through web series, which captured the session on video. It was one of her first in-earnest collaborations with other musicians, and can almost see new synapses firing behind her eyes: this is what music can be, this is what I can be. It’s fitting that the same song grabbed the attention of the National‘s Aaron Dessner, who wound up producing Tramp, her first album for Jagjaguwar. The new tracks come from a year and a half of sessions wedged in whenever Dessner and Van Etten were both off tour. It includes appearances by Wye Oak‘s Jenn Wasner, Julianna Barwick, Dessner’s brother/bandmate Bryce, and other friends of the sort that apparently tend to “just drop by” when you’re a celebrated musician/producer with a studio in your Brooklyn garage. That Van Etten has been given the time and space and resources to feel out her path, unhurried by the tyrannous buzz cycle, is both a total luxury, and totally vital.

It’s the default assumption that a female songwriter, performing under her own name, is “confessional,” that she’s serving up some dark part of her soul for the world’s consumption. And maybe one day Van Etten will slip into the voices of strangers just as easily as she inhabits her own. But for now, confession is still very much the thing. “It’s self-therapy,” Van Etten has said to nearly every interviewer who has asked, and more and more that seems to refer to both the writing and the production of her songs; that she can draw out the words, bring them into a room with other human beings, and together with them lay something beautiful on tape is both transformative and redemptive.

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ARTIST: FIRST AID KIT
ALBUM: The Lion’s Roar
LABEL: Witchita

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