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Imagine this: John Lennon has been reincarnated. His new birth name is Kevin Parker, a co-founding member of Australian trio Tame Impala. This band is the closest thing to how The Beatles would sound if they had been cryogenically frozen for the past thirty years and had decided to modernize their chops upon thawing out. And yes, that’s a compliment. Though the music is recorded in a similar fashion as the fab four’s later, more expansive albums, Innerspeaker doesn’t seem derivative in the slightest. It is fresh and stunningly original considering the obviousness of their influences, which is a welcome rarity given the infinite number of bands claiming identical inspirations. Innerspeaker employs the same slew of guitar fuzz embraced by bands such as The Secret Machines, The White Stripes, The Black Keys, etc. But here it sounds warmer, or, at the very least, less manufactured; one can only assume that Tame Impala were picky about their tube amps and analog distortion choices. Then, there’s the songwriting. Starting with one of the most infectious bass-lines in recent memory, the band immediately grabs your attention with “It Is Not Meant to Be.” Coming later in the album, “The Bold Arrow of Time” has such a classic-sounding riff, it’s a surprise this track wasn’t originally recorded by Cream in their heyday. Read full review at inyourspeakers.com

Tame Impala – Solitude Is Bliss

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As with his shtick of staying in the back of The Raconteurs’ press photos, Jack White allegedly plays a background role in The Dead Weather as he returns to his original instrument, the drums. Really though it seems a lot more like everybody’s playing everything. And let’s be honest, who else could possibly be responsible for the soon-to-be-classic line, “All the white girls trip when I sing at Sunday service”? The Dead Weather are a supergroup in every sense of the term, excepting that label’s implication of laziness. Alison Mosshart (The Kills) took the lion’s share of vocal duties on the debut but on this LP it is often impossible to tell who’s singing. In addition to vocals, Mosshart splits guitar work with Jacks White and Lawrence (The Raconteurs). Lastly we have Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age) on damn near everything, but mostly bass and synth. Most similar to The Kills, The Dead Weather kicks out dirty, grungy, Detroit Rock City throwback jams that should make veterans like MC5 or Iggy & the Stooges stand and salute. Sea of Cowards should quell any doubts of this group’s verity. Read full review at inyourspeakers.com

The Dead Weather – The Difference Between Us

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What’s that? You feel rotten? Down in the dumps? You feel like life is caving in all around you? You don’t know where to turn? Well my buddy, my chum, my pal… I don’t blame you. But hey now, there are steps you can take toward a sunnier, happier life, and one of them is to listen to this music—these toy pianos, ukuleles, steel drums, glockenspiels, accordions, strings and more; these sugary-sweet melodies, these upbeat poly-rhythms, these playful staccato patterns and floating acoustical musings. You can, and you will, smile. You’ll smile wide; ear-to-ear, goofy-looking, shit-eating grins, that’s what you’ll have. On his latest album Japanese multi-instrumentalist Shugo Tokumaru flexes his songwriting muscles to the max, creating an endlessly fun, gloriously upbeat and optimistic album of which you won’t understand a word. Take “Lahaha,” and “Rum Hee”—a one-two punch that represents the musical equivalent of laughter itself. To listen to Port Entropy is to know Shugo Tokumaru as the sweet, sensitive, effortlessly jubilant young man he likely is. He wants you to feel better, look outside at the gorgeous spring weather, go swimming, eat an ice cream cone, and above all love your life, because it is beautiful. Read full album review at inyourspeakers.com

Shugo Tokumaru – Rum Hee

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Every promise of 2007’s excellent Tears of the Valedictorian is fulfilled in spades on Paul’s Tomb. Carey Mercer’s beguiling vocal vamping reaches previously undiscovered decibels. Mercer and Ryan Beattie’s dueling guitar lines reach heroic levels of arena-sized excesses, all while sounding their most accessible and engaging. Frog Eyes walk that razor-thin line between schizoid prog-pop exuberance and structurally sound songwriting, often stretching their compositions beyond the six-minute mark. Paul’s Tomb largely picks up right where the last half of Tears left off, with Mercer hitting those impossible falsettos and sea-captain slurs of deep baritone in the inverted vectorscope of his vocal range, his voice weaving its way in and out of sprawling arrangements that made up side-B of that album. Recorded in the same studio as Tears with only limited equipment changes, Paul’s Tomb roars out of the gate with what is easily the album’s strongest track. The first introduction we have to Mercer’s legion of musical voices within the sliding pitch scale comes about ten seconds after some fuzzed out preliminary guitar work on “A Flower in a Glove”. Mercer’s thundering screech is followed closely by a bass drum kick that claps like a starting pistol, signaling the start of an Iditarod of 21st century attention spans. Read full review at inyourspeakers.com

Frog Eyes – A Flower In A Glove

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