December Mega-Roundup.

Making up for lost time with a mega-roundup with twice the albums!

Latvian Radio-Give in to the Night. Patrick Westoo & friends continue to deliver the goods on their seventh album, and it's more of the upbeat, buoyant pop they're known for. Combining new wave and power pop, the standouts here are the breezy "21st Century Shakedown" (complete with horns), the danceable title track, and the almost jangly "She's Back to Kill Again".

iTunes



Goodman-The Era of Buckets. It's been over 2 1/2 years since we last heard from Michael Goodman, but it was worth the wait. His latest collection of tuneful and insistent indie pop is another keeper, with the highlights being the opener "Don't", "Watch Your Mouth" (both reminiscent of AC Newman's work in The New Pornographers), and the heavy power pop of "Shallow (Completely Shallow)".

iTunes



Fallon Cush-Stranger Things Have Happened. Fallon Cush (a/k/a Australia's Steve Smith) is another returnee to these pages as he continues to mine a consistent career threading the needle between indie rock and alt-country, or as I've said before, Teenage Fanclub meets the Gary Louris-led Jayhawks. "Sleep Her Away" might be the quintessential Fallon Cush song with its sweet chorus, and "The Key" finds the alt-country side of things emphasized a bit more. Also of note are the lovely acoustic guitar ballad "Yaraman" and the Band-esque "Tempo over Time".

iTunes



Slumberjet-World of Sound. After a 9-year hiatus from their first collaboration, Barry O'Brien & Duncan Matiland team up again as Slumberjet. Both have had fine solo careers (with Maitland's Lullabies for the 21st Century clocking in at #2 on my 2010 year-end list), and here the whole is even better than the sum of the parts with tracks such as the Beatlesque "Round x 2", the infectious and rocking "(Theme from) Our Street", the could-have-been-an-80s-hit-with-its-synths "Across the Divide" and the McCartney-influenced "The Big Snow". A welcome return and a year-end list contender for me.

iTunes



Saul Glennon-North on Broadway. Saul Glennon is not a solo artist, but rather the name of an Ohio band derived from a Batman comic which riffed on the whole "Paul is Dead" rumor with Saul standing in for Paul and Glennon for Lennon. With that kind of background story, you won't be surprised to see the band draws from 60s and 70s British rock and pop and North on Broadway is a love letter to the area of Cleveland in which they grew up during the 70s. It's also one of the more pleasant surprises I've come across this year with one catchy guitar pop tune after another. From the Todd Rundgren-esque "Hello '76" to the Merseyside sounds of "Meet Me at Morgana" (with shout-outs to McDonald's and the old "special orders don't upset us" Burger King theme) to the whimsy of "Cause I was 15" it works as well as a concept album as it does a collection of cool tunes.

iTunes



The Inside Passenger (Cliff Hillis)-The Inside Passenger. The Inside Passenger is the alter-ego of the great Cliff Hillis, and this short (12 minutes and change) EP is a departure for him, hence the different name. Instead of the pristine power pop he's know for, Hillis has branched out into a more atmospheric sound which he compares to the likes of Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, Elliott Smith, Sparklehorse and Nick Drake. While this aren't his usual toe-tappers, songs like "Truth Be Told", "Listen to Your Mother" and "If I Swam the Seven Seas" see Hillis's melodic gifts put to use in the context of some beautiful, haunting music. Listen for yourself below.

iTunes

Late May Roundup.

Bryan Estepa & The Tempe Two-Every Little Thing. A new Bryan Estepa record is invariably one of the highlights of the music year and with his new release 2016 is no exception to that rule. This time around Estepa is backed by "Tempe Two" but Every Little Thing is of a piece with his previous records: fine melodic pop/rock that owes as much to power pop as it does to Brian Wilson-styled California pop and roots rock/Americana (Australiana?). So whether it's the catchy first single "Object of My Disaffection" or the mid-tempo opening track "Think of You" or the lovely ballad "Sooner of Later", Estepa's ear for melody is always there. Speaking of Wilson, "Don't Hurry Baby" owes its title to a play on words of one of Wilson's most famous songs but is also an enjoyable pop song in its own right. Easily one of the year's best (again).

iTunes



Fallon Cush-Bee in Your Bonnet. Fallon Cush has been on my year-end lists three times since 2011, but somehow I never managed to write a single word about them. That ends today with the latest full-length from Australian Steve Smith, who uses the Fallon Cush moniker. For those unfamiliar with his previous release, Smith's sound here is Teenage Fanclub meets the Gary Louris-led Jayhawks. Leadoff track "There's a Dark Side to That Moon" is a wonderful example of this, roots rock with a pop sensibility. "Less Your Near" and the rocking "Kings Ransom" are standouts, as is "Dorothy", a moody mid-tempo rocker that would sound at home on the new Jayhawks record. While I'd recommend you seek out the previous Fallon Cush releases, this one is clearly Smith's best and the place to start.

iTunes



Joe Giddings-Better from Here. Now that you've heard today's Australian roots pop/rockers, it's time for some good old-fashioned American-style power pop and California's Joe Giddings is here to provide it for you. Giddings has been around for the better part of a couple of decades now, originally with Star Collector and with an early-2000s Not Lame album as The JTG Explosion under his belt, and lately he's been recording covers galore for the Theme Music group on Facebook. It was his covers on some recent tribute albums that caught my attention, and when I recognized his name in the new releases on Bandcamp, I jumped all over this straight-ahead power pop collection of original tunes. There's something cheeky about having your leadoff track be a rocker titled "Rock 'n' Roll" and the cheek continues with "Irrelevant", capturing the state of the independent musician trying to get by in an unfashionable genre in 2016 ("Cause 15 likes on Facebook can't be wrong") to a great melody. The title track, "Born Apart" and "Brand New Day" are also tracks that deserve rotation in whatever playlist you're currently working up. Power pop at its most pure.

Bandcamp