For you, gentle reader, I bring recommendations of rock…

• …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Worlds Apart

  They got my unpublished “Best Name in Rock” award back in 2004, and yeah, so I gave their prior album “Source Tags & Codes” about 2 minutes of attention back in 2003(?), and never listened to it again. Looks like I’m making another of my apologies to rock bands again… Worlds Apart rules in so many varied ways. They’ve got a sorta nerdy thing going on, but they bring the rock right along with it. Archaeology + sociology + rockology = AYWKUBTTOD?

• Death From Above 1979, You’re A Woman, I’m a Machine

  DFA 1979 is two Canadian guys with a synthesizer and a bass guitar. Now, normally, that is usually just spelled out D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R, but not this time, oh no! I think I described it to Najati as “dance-inspired noise rawk”, and I think that just about sums it up. Like 75% noise rawk, 25% ass-shakery. It’s all good.

• Sleater-Kinney, The Woods (Advance Copy)

  Yeah, so I got a copy of this via a lil’ birdie. The girls of Sleater-Kinney have asked very nicely for those folks who are currently dealing it over the intarweb to kindly cut it out. However, since my deed has already been done, and I have listened to it in its entirety — I’ll say this: It rules. In their letter to the pirates, they mentioned that the record “is a response to the deadening and watering down of music”, and I can’t agree more. It’s noisy, loud and far more thrashing as any of their previous records. We likes it very much.

• Sunday Nights – The Songs of Junior Kimbrough

  Junior Kimbrough is credited by Dan Auerbach of the Blakc Keys as “his first record purchase”, and he has created a number of contemporary blues classics that inspired many, from Iggy Pop (who appears on the album with The Stooges) to the White Stripes (not to mention the Black Keys). This various-artists tribute lines up like a hipster funeral wake for Kimbrough. Cat Power, Iggy Pop & The Stooges, Mark Lanegan, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, etc. Some really fantastic tracks on here, especially from The Stooges, Cat Power and The Black Keys.