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Launched by keyboardist Andrew McMahon when his alt-rock quintet Something Corporate went on hiatus in 2004, Jack's Mannequin isn't a throwaway side project.

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If Trent Reznor and Interpol had a baby, and then that baby had a baby with Brand New... well, that kid still wouldn't be caught dead at anything like the Hot Topic "Hope for the Hopeless" Tour. I mean, c'mon.

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On 2001's Rockin' the Suburbs, Ben Folds hit a career high, rendering melodic, detail-rich short stories peopled by, among others, a bored '80s girl sitting on a Peavey amp ("Zak and Sara") and a father confronting his son while dressed as a bird at his fast-food job ("Still Fighting It").

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From a plainspoken quartet, one of the year's best guitar records: Brendan Suppression obsessively repeats monosyllabic observations about TV and weekends and romantic blunders in a drinking-man's cadence unheard since the Screaming Blue Messiahs; and Eddy Current's crazed chords soar Byrds-like or surf Ventures- like out of melodic stomps that seem basic, but aren't.

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Sweden is loaded with rock bands trying to resuscitate the psychedelic sounds of the late '60s. So maybe it's unsurprising that the most internationally acclaimed such outfit would switch gears. On Dungen's fifth studio set, mastermind Gustav Ejstes downplays chaotic crunch for mellower, piano-led jams verging on jazz fusion.

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The problem with Bayside's seventh release is messaging: Frontman Anthony Raneri wants to empathize with his listeners, but his emotions are too rigidly guarded and judgmental. The unapologetic refrain of "No One Understands" does little to dull the song's self-indulgence, and on "Demons," Raneri deconstructs someone else's shortcomings to the point where you're sympathizing with his subject.