Black Lips – Arabia Mountain
In the single “Modern Art,” bassist for the Black Lips, Jared Swilley, sings over a fuzzed out guitar: “K-hole at the Dalí/Seeing the unknown/Well it might have been a molly/’Cause my mind’s being blown. Two things are clear about this band: 1) These hooligans quaff enough drugs that make Charlie Sheen look like he’s been huffing Elmer’s glue out of a brown bag. 2) Its music sounds just like they are: debauched, offensive and slightly criminal, all of which translates into its most recent vinyl pressing.

Famed for its notorious stage antics, such as making out with each other, flinging piss and whipping out their peters as well as their (legally questionable) lifestyle choices, the boys have cleaned up their act for its latest release, Arabia Mountain, on Vice Records. Well, sort of. Read the full review on Seattle PI

Sarah Jarosz – Follow me Down
No one should be surprised that acoustic multi-instrumentalist Sarah Jarosz can pick clean and fast. Jarosz’s first album showcased her ability to take on folk, country, and bluegrass music head on as well as cover rock songs with creative gusto. Jarosz does the same on her latest album, but she has expanded her musical palette and does much more. Follow Me Down, which will be released shortly before her 20th birthday, reveals Jarosz’ considerable growth as singer, songwriter, and player. Her talent at performing everything from slow airs to somewhat avant-garde compositions while keeping the music consistently interesting suggests she is wise beyond her years. Read the full review on Pop Matters

The Japanese Popstars – Controlling Your Allegiance
The best dance songs are those that manage to navigate the pitfalls of the genre. It’s easy to throw a bass beat underneath any old track and put it on in a club; it’s another thing entirely to get away with the same trick on an album. This isn’t an issue for the Japanese Popstars, though. On Controlling Your Allegiance, they don’t limit themselves with repetitive rhythms. Instead, each song crafts a different tone through varied instrumentation, multiple vocalists, and a high-level intensity that will get people moving. Read the full review Consequence of Sound

Devin Townsend Project – Deconstruction

Devin Townsend is most famous for Strapping Young Lad, but said band was dissolved way back in ’06. Since, he’s embarked on many endeavors. Deconstruction is the last in a four-album series which began with 2009′s Ki. There’s lots of craziness, with influences ranging from black metal to industrial metal and even a little carnival waltz in one song.

Check this out if you like Fear Factory, Dimmu Borgir, and Dream Theater

STAFF RECOMMENDED

Origin – Entity
In the tech-death world, Origin are certainly a household name. Coming off the heels of their acclaimed 2008 release Antithesis, we are now getting Entity, yet another excellent album. Keep in mind, though, that this is not light stuff. If you like your lyrics discernible, time signatures straightforward, and guitars in standard tuning, this isn’t for you.

Check this out if you like Necrophagist, Brain Drill, and Decrepit Birth

Turbid North – Orogeny

 Alaska never exactly been a haven for metal bands. However, Turbid North, a fresh band out of the tiny city of North Pole, could be spearheading something. With a sound somewhere in between groove thrash, and proggy NWOAHM bands, expect to see these young eskimos gain some ground in the wake of their sophomore release.

Check this out if you like DevilDriver, Evile, and Slayer

Brett Dennen – Lover Boy
Eschewing the pointed social commentary of memorable earlier songs like “Ain’t No Reason,” “There Is So Much More” and the zeitgeist-capturing “I Ask When,” Dennen opts to embed a broader humanistic message —“This album is about having fun and letting go,” he writes in his brief liner notes — in sprung rhythms resolving into cascading chorus payoffs. The most immediately sticky tracks are the three sequenced together near the top of the record, on which Dennen gets an assist from co-producer Martin Terefe (who’s done memorable work with Ron Sexsmith, another articulate, single-minded romantic). A pugilistically punchy groove and a guileless “nah-nah-nah” chorus provide “Comeback Kid” with its yin and yang; the balmy, string-laden “Frozen in Slow Motion” evokes the late-morning sun breaking through the marine layer at Paradise Cove; and the handclap-powered falsetto chorus of “Sydney (I’ll Come Running)” trampolines upward from the body of the track in irresistible fashion. Read the full review on Paste Magazine

Tune-Yards – Whokill
w h o k i l l, Garbus’ second album as tUnE-yArDs, delivers on the promise of her 2009 debut, BiRd-BrAiNs. Unlike that album, which she recorded almost entirely on her own using a digital voice recorder and the sound editing program Audacity, w h o k i l l was mostly made in traditional studios in collaboration with bassist Nate Brenner, engineer Eli Crews, and a handful of other musicians. The music benefits from the increased professionalism, but Garbus has not abandoned her lo-fi aesthetic. As on BiRd-BrAiNs, Garbus layers sound to create a patchwork of contrasting textures. This time around, the greater clarity allows for more exaggerated dynamics. Read the full review on Pitchfork

The Ladybug Transistor – Clutching Stems
The Brooklyn indie-pop band is as poppy as ever, playing songs that putter along with twangy guitar, strict tempos, and little blooms of lush orchestration every half-minute or so. But Clutching Stems feels pinned between the open yearning of “Oh Cristina” (in which Olson quotes the titles of other well-known heartbreak songs) and “Caught Don’t Walk” (in which trumpets burst in periodically to push Olson into a higher register), and the more formalist retro-pop of “Breaking Up On The Beat” and “Fallen And Falling,” where the band seems to be trying to wrest control of a bad situation by caging it within a sturdy musical arrangement. Read the full review on AV Club

….and completely yours when you buy these albums!!!

  Free Incubus lithograph with your purchase of their dazzling new release             If Not Now, When? ($12.49).

Awesome Awolnation poster that is like, totally free with purchase of their latest release Megalithic Symphony ($7.99)

Joy Formidable‘s killer 5 -track EP, Roarities, is one hundred percent free when you buy their new album The Big Roar ($10.99)

Get a CD of Bonus tracks by Gomez entitled Thoughts + Plans for zero dollars with purchase of  A New Tide ($13.97)

Don’t miss out on your free 7 – inch by Owl City called Alligator Sky when you purchase their new release All Things Bright and Beautiful ($12.96)

And last but certainly not least, you will receive a complimentary 7 -inch with bonus tracks “Belong” and “Phone Call” with your purchase of Washed Out‘s new album Within and Without!

~~**(((Don’t miss out on your chance to get things                                         without paying for them!)))**~~

Handsome Furs – Sound Kapital
Opener “When I Get Back” has Boeckner returning to his native land a changed man, for better or for worse, as Perry’s left hand punches out deep grooves and her right hits an almost bubbly synth melody. “Memories of the Future” sees Boeckner disparaging the nostalgia that, arguably, drives this entire project and its wanderlust—“I throw my hands to the sky / I let my memories go.” The track proves that he and Perry can turn a forward-looking outlook into just as much of a jam as a backward-looking one. “Serve the People” could be an indictment of Russian oligarchs and American corporatists alike, and it will get fists in the air in both countries. Early single “What About Us” turns the record’s most club-ready and retro banger into a New Order-esque heart-on-sleeve coda, with Boeckner singing, “Let’s stay in this evil little world / Break my heart” over and over again to somehow comforting, ethereal results. Read the full review on Pop Matters

Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
More than any single Fucked Up record, David Comes to Life is thick with walls of noisy melody. It’s hard to get a handle on just how many guitar tracks are on a given song, and Shane Stoneback deserves a medal for mixing the sheer bulk of the sound into something so clear. But for all the shoegazey textures and blistering sonic assault, David Comes to Life is also direct and immediate. Hooks are piled on top of hooks, bursting through torrents of spacey noise (“I Was There”) and peppy rhythms (“The Recursive Girl”) alike. At points, the primal appeal of the blunt and effective riffing even brings to mind the bar-band rock of the Hold Steady. Read the full Review

Brian Eno & Rick Holland – Drums Between The Bells
A track on Drums Between The Bells like “cloud 4″, with Eno’s multilayered voice modulating between intonation and generous song to deliver gently optimistic, contemplative lyrics over legato organ lines and softly arpeggiated synths, finds itself speaking to Another Day on Earth and the semi-titular track “Just Another Day.” This cluster itself speaks to the instrumental (I dare not say ‘voiceless’) meditations “The Big Ship,” “Sombre Reptiles,” and “Another Green World” that nestle at the center of 1975′s Another Green World. It’s a testament to his maturity and prescience that Eno can maintain a conversation with his past achievements, giving an impression of a sustained meditation on an eclectic bundle of decades-long vibrating strings, and that he remains as happy creating “three-dimensional instantiations” of poetry as he is setting poetry to music, and finding time between to promulgate as many permutations as can be mustered or set in motion. Read the full review