Shannon Wright Over the Sun (Quarterstick)
Wright built her rep on despairing lo-fi folk so unadorned that it made Cat Power sound like Mandy Moore. But here she pumps up her ragged muse via the thick-necked Chicago indie rock that PJ Harvey once pimped so brilliantly. The flatlined brutalism of Wright's singing delves even deeper into emotional black pools.
Head Automatica Decadence (Warner Bros.)
Dan the Automator foments alt-rock boom-bap behind the toasting of Glassjaw singer Daryl Palumbo and comes up with a fun reimagining of Sublime as Long Island loners. Palumbo sings about exotic lands like Hollywood and Brooklyn and complains about girls, while the Automator keeps the meter running till the break of dawn.
The Soviettes LP II (Adeline)
With not much to say and no particularly inventive way to say it, these adorable Minneapolis wannabes turn to writing ecstatically derivative, pogo-ready punk rock. Fourteen songs (11 under two minutes), girls on guitars, boy on drums, flipping their collective wig like X-Ray Spex with Midwestern smiles.
