"I'm gonna own you, I'm gonna bring you to your knees..." - Kelly Dollrot, "Because I'm Awesome" Gulp. "Because I'm Awesome" is Little Stephen's "Coolest Song In The World." But, it's not my favorite here. That would be "Brand New Key," the sexiest single song since Julie London's "Cry Me A River;" Maria Muldaur's "I'm A Woman;" and Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Were Made For Walking." I mean: "I've got a brand new pair of roller skates; you've got a brand new key..." Lots of Roy Orbison "Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrs." The top ten reasons the Dollyrots Are Awesome: Because - 1. They got a really cool name. 2.There's a demented looking jackalope in a gas mask on the cover of their CD. 3.They're a traditional three piece, like Buddy Holly and The Crickets, minus the late Nicky Sullivan. 4. One of the guys in the band has a t-shirt that, I think, says: "Hurt guys blow things up!" Yeah and I still love the ending of "Rock 'N' Roll High School," too. 5.They sound like the B-52s on the title song, even though they've got just one female member and she don't got no beehive. 6. Their "Best Friend's (Are) Hot;" they know "...Desperate S.O.S.," Watch (Them) Go" 'cause they got this "Crush" "Nobody Wants" and would never "Turn You Down" on "Your Tummy Tum Tum."There are two videos on here, one from SXSW 2006 and they've "Kissed,...and "Killed"...before. 7.Because "Brand New Key" might even work on a blind date. 8. Because they are awesome and sometimes you just shouldn't accept any substitutes for just that. Awesome! 9. Because they're on Joan Jett's Blackheart Records and therefore already have a hint of immortality. I once interviewed Joan Jett when she was sleeping on a friend's floor between gigs in Madison, WI. She not only loves "Rock 'N' Roll." It loves her. 10.Because of "17," which Patti Smith said in a 1974 Milwaukee Bugle American interview she "remembered being." Bonus from their incredible band notes on the website: They have a pet rat named Sniffy and Kelly Dollyrot (Ogden) likes to get carsick reading and if you send her your address and a favorite book (really)...well, don't do it you don't want the Dollyrots knocking on your door next tour, looking for a floor and a shower." [www.thedollyrots.com]

Glos is Keeley Davis, his sister Maura, and Cornbread Compton - all indie rock staples who bring the legacy of their former bands (Engine Down, Denali) with them. Keeley and Cornbread are the heart of the album, and their heart can be heard in each of the musical dreamscapes created on this record. The inclusion of Maura's beautiful voice is just enough to push the record foward and add a certain almost creepiness to the music that could easily be the soundtrack to a slowly building - yet somehwat creepy - movie. The only problem here is that much of the record sounds like things we have heard before from these partiuclar musicians. This criticsim hinges not on the quality of the music (it's enjoyable as ever), but more on the lack of departure from previous work. [www.myspace.com]

Very few soundtracks stand well on there own, and unfortunately this isn't really one of them. While this record may appeal to the ultimate 300 fanboy, unfortunately, I'm not into derivative-sounding apocalyptic scores and homoerotic dudes running around violently in a ridiculous historically-inspired yarn. All you get here on this disc is pseudo-demonic monk chants, oversized sounding percussion, and overdone strings... and every song on here sounds like this. Avoid at all costs (unless you're into that kinda thing). [www.warnerbrosrecords.com]

Yikes. This record, sad to say, is a trainwreck. It comes down to bad songs recorded badly. There is a neat guitar lick to open with, and the last song is passable, but the rest of the album is really an unfortunate way to promote a band that sounds like they're probably fun live. The single slow song doesn't fit and is easily the worst song on the record. I could go on about the songwriting, but the real crime is that they spent money on a record that is sloppily recorded- the drums sound single-mic'ed. Again, they sound like they have live potential, so I hope that they find a producer who can help them promote themselves in a favorable way. [www.theinevitablebacklash.com]

When the much-beloved Cibo Matto broke up in 2001, band mate Yuka Honda reportedly explained that, “We felt the need to move to the next step… Things just need to grow out of things sometimes." For main-Cibo, Miho Hatori, this impulse to change appears to be on prominent display: after all, she did name her first proper solo record, Ecdysis---which is the process of casting off a shell or skin by insects, snakes, or crustaceans, but thankfully for Cibo Matto fans, Hatori didn’t shed too much of her style. Ms. Hatori has allowed the world to peer into the hidden world of her daydreams and obsessions---from insects to androids, ecological degradation to Amazon warriors, and to the nature of change itself. All this is woven around beautifully subtle and exotic beats and her famously child-like, and simultaneously sexy voice. All these songs are just as good and could easily have been featured on Cibo Matto’s first record, “Viva! La Woman”. But for all of Ecdysis’ daydreamy-subject matter, it still carries an air of seriousness. Ecdysis never gets flat-out wacky, unlike either Cibo Matto records. There are no “Beef Jerky”, “Know Your Chicken” or “Sci-Fi Wasabi” to break the record up and prevent it from being suitable listening for chi-chi hair salons and spas. It was that very sonic versatility which made Ms. Hatori and Cibo Matto so interesting in the first place. Hopefully Ms. Hatori hasn’t shed that element forever. [www.mihohatori.com]

Sub Pop Records strikes again with the Handsome Furs latest album, Plague Park. And, no, they don’t strike out; they hit a solid ground-rule double. Handsome Furs, a duo from Montreal, are earnest melancholic melody makers. Look no further than their tune, “Handsome Furs Hate This City,” as proof. Look to “What We Had,” as further proof. Need even more proof? Half of the duo, Dan Boeckner, is formerly of Wolf Parade and listeners can hear it....and dig it! [www.handsomefurs.com]

Listen to All Smiles Ten Readings of a Warning and you’ll be, well...all smiles. After Grandaddy broke up, guitarist Jim Fairchild set up shop in Chicago and worked on some low-key indie-folk tunes, doing most all the instruments and recording vocals. With the help of Joe Plummer of Modest Mouse, Janet Weiss of the now defunct Sleater-Kinney, and Solon Bixler of Great Northern, he’s compiled a worthy effort and the result is chock full of classy tunes. “Pile of Burning Leaves” is a quiet smoldering tune and “Of Course It’s Not Up To Me” has a strong emotional core of simple piano and vocals with instrumentation that makes its self known as the song story grows. Perhaps they’ll be some strong sales, (particularly since they’ve been touring with indie favs Menomena) and that’ll, well, make Fairchild and the gang all smiles. [www.myspace.com]

Throw in a few parts of the Rapture and just about any other dance punk band and you get the Chinese Stars. With a sound that's not very subversive or experimental, they seem an odd fit for Skin Graft Records. It sounds as if the band is mellowing out on this one, which is not a good thing for a band like this. [www.thechinesestars.com]

Created in Los Angeles, Great Northern would be better suited to, yes, the great northern landscapes of America. Their sound has a Pacific Northwest feel to it, with its lovely melodies, densely layered and with rich and contrasting shades of instrumentation. If their music was a photograph it'd be a shot of a fishing village that's since run out of fish and is now a hamlet of artisans and craftspeople. There's a farmer's market going on in the town square and in the gazebo there's a band playing songs that make people want to dance with those near them. There's a warmth there, a kind of communal love and the band plays at twilight and it's good. It's all good. [www.greatnorthernmusic.com]

Moving on from their original Cherry Valence roots, guitarists Cheetie Kumar, and Paul Siler teamed up with Craig Tilley, Scott Nurkin, and Davi Mueller to form Birds of Avalon. The band recently signed to Volcom, and although they've been sharing the stage with some of their more well known rock and roll peers like Ted Leo, Mudhoney, and Fucking Champs for some time now, they finally unleashed their debut album Bazaar Bazaar on an unsuspecting public this Summer. This album is straight on, full force, no nonsense, blue jeans, apple pie, rock-n-roll - well, with a little Brit psychedelic rock is thrown in there to make your ears stand up and take notice. So, turn it up, man, roll down the windows to your beat up pick up truck, and fly like a bird. They'll make you want to. [www.birdsofavalon.com]

If Arcade Fire were a girl in your high school class, they would have been the drama chick all of the nerds were after before she realized she could get the cool kids to chase her around too. But on Neon Bible, Arcade Fire has proved that they are less affected by popularity than your average fickle high schooler. It's everything that most albums in the digital music era are not -- sophisticated, ambitious, coherent and enjoyable. It's bigger than the sum of its parts and you won't appreciate the weight of it until you sit down and listen to the whole thing through at once. But if you're pressed for time and you have to pick and choose, "Keep the Car Running" is the best place to start. This track combines the free-spirited sounds the band perfected on earlier releases into a haunting three-minute package. So don't be turned off by all of your friends who recently anointed Arcade Fire as their "new favorite band." If you really must know -- they really are all that and a bag of chips. [www.arcadefire.com ]

Tooth & Nail's own Sullivan return with sophomore effort Cover Your Eyes, which sees them improve on last year's Hey, I'm A Ghost in almost every way. The biggest change, however, is in the vocals and lyrics of frontman Brooks Paschal. On their debut, his vocals were often flighty and high-pitched to a point where they became difficult to listen to, but on Eyes Paschal has clearly learned more about himself as a vocalist. He sings most of the album's songs in the middle of his range where his voice can truly shine, and lyrically, he's less cryptic and allows the listener in much more than anything on Ghost. The band has solidified musically as well, with a slight shift towards a more pop/rock influenced sound. All in all, Sullivan has produced a successful follow up which should help them earn some notice as people cover their eyes and open their ears. [www.sullivancares.com]

When news of collaboration between Björk and Timbaland first surfaced over a year ago, one could, when pressing one’s ears to the surface of the snooty art music underground, almost hear the sudden shortness of breath. Less excitement than fear—fear that one of the avant-garde's most beloved musical icons might be turning into a funnily accented Beyoncé—this energy eventually grew from worry to anticipation, and before you knew it, internet message boards were abuzz with questions aiming to unwrap the mystery surrounding the project: Would this be a (gasp) hip hop record, or something even more offensive to decent taste? Björk’s best-selling album yet? Her most accessible? A return to the danceability of Debut and Post? The product of two massively talented musicians coming together and creating new sounds? The answer, as it turns out, is that Volta, Björk’s sixth solo album, is hardly marked by Timbaland’s presence. This is a Björk record in every way: Extreme, unexpected, frustrating, difficult, and colorful. At times, Volta almost feels like a frenzied collage of elements from her past records, updated and tailored to fit a new theme and image. It combines the energetic, quirky pop of Debut and Post (“Innocence”), the bombastic beats of Homogenic (“Declare Independence,” “Wanderlust”), the introspective whisper-songs of Vespertine (“I See Who You Are,” “Pneumonia,” “My Juvenile”), the earthy grit of Medulla (“Earth Intruders”) and the haunting brass of Drawing Restraint 9 (“The Dull Flame of Desire,” “Vertebrae by Vertebrae”). Other times, Volta simply feels like a quilt of half-stories, sewn together from random noises and tattered bits of old songs, never fully forming a tangible concept. As an entire album, however, listened to start-to-finish, Volta becomes something else entirely. “Wanderlust,” in which Björk joyously wails about “relentlessly craving” to travel and leave her origins behind, becomes the emblem for an album about worldly and personal awareness, a musical map of Bjork’s past, present, and future. Interludes between tracks (fog horns, creaking boats, lapping ocean waves) unify songs and transform Volta into a mysterious, hour-long journey in a leaky houseboat across a diverse seascape of sounds, arriving somewhere predictably Björkish: The unpredictable. [www.bjork.com]

While the hype-o-meter nearly combusted in a haze of smoke and fire after the Arctic Monkeys debut shattered many time-honored English sales records (and was somehow named one of the top five British releases ever by one source), it failed to make the same dent in America largely due to justifiable skepticism. Well, anyone who listened to Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not learned that although no one deserves such a level of buzz, it was a pretty good record from a young band with loads of potential. Somehow Arctic Monkeys made it through without struggling for five years to write a follow-up or having anyone die (although bassist Andy Nicholson was replaced). They’ve returned with an album that is immensely tighter and more polished than their debut, combining the funky mathematical rhythms of Franz Ferdinand, the street sense of The Strokes and the snarl of The Clash. There’s even some gentle atmospheric soul (“Only Ones Who Know”) that they execute like a far more veteran ensemble that knows when to let up on the pedal, as well as perfectly crafted Brit-pop (“Do Me A Favour”) that demonstrates what a tremendous talent singer Alex Turner is. The instrumental interplay has grown leaps and bounds, as each track seems to bend and turn in an array of directions (even though only two songs clear four minutes), often shifting tempo and structure in completely unexpected ways. For such a young band to make this kind of progress after receiving the level of adulation they did makes it very likely they’ll hold up just fine under the musical microscope. I can’t wait to hear what they do next. [ww.arcticmonkeys.com]

Let’s not kid ourselves about LCD Soundsystem. James Murphy and company are not an indie alternative band as some would lead you to believe, or even a production team utilizing studio gimmickry. They’re a tight assembly of musicians capable of astounding songwriting, which they’ve proven on their latest release, Sound of Silver. Clever lyrics such as “We are North Americans/And for those of you think we’re from England/We’re not,” from “North American Scum,” evoke the silliness from previous LCD releases, but there’s also a rare introspective side. Murphy sings about his inability to communicate during the rubber-y electronica of “Someone Great,” but in LCD fashion, it’s cryptic whom he is referencing as it contains the confusing line, “You’re smaller than my wife imagined.” On top of wonderful writing it might be worth it to add that Silver is probably the dance record of the year. The filthy funk of the last five minutes of “Us V Them” should be illegal, while “Get Innocuous!” starts the record off with a thumping keyboard groove that builds and builds until the beat explodes into action. Silver is filled start-to-finish with unavoidable hooks, flourishes and intricacies that will keep your heart beating and your energy flowing. What’s more, it’s a rare record that is completely approachable for music aficionados of any genre, making LCD the Moby of the early 21st Century (Murphy has no issue licensing his music, either). The album concludes with Murphy amusingly singing, “New York I love you, but you’re bringing me down.” While he might have his issues with his home city’s cleanliness and mayhem, if Sound of Silver brings you down, you might need to be checked for a pulse. [www.lcdsoundsystem.com]

If masculinity and machismo are what you're looking for, then look no further than Witches with Dicks. The Boston-based outfit's newest offering, Manual, is an all-out blitz of power chords and power moves. Once you light the fuse on the first track, "How to Cook for 40 Humans," you'll be on fire until the fade-out -- it's that good. The Witches draw heavily from their Beantown punk brethren like the Dropkick Murphys on this one. But they also prove they've got the skills to pay their own bills. "Your Job Does Not Rock Balls" is driven by a wicked backbeat that will make you feel like you're being shot out of cannon -- not to mention like throwing your computer out of your work station at your boss. And "How To Cook 40 Humans" is a classic, Sex Pistols-style rant against high-society. If you listen too hard to some of the lyrics, they might get you down a little bit. Fortunately, most of what is screamed is so unintelligible you won't be able to understand what they're saying anyway. So put up your rock fist, throw on your Doc Marten's, and pound a cold one. Punk is back and damn! it feels good. [www.witcheswithdicks.com]

Numbed from hours of driving, I mechanically insert the Countach CD that’s been sitting unnoticed on the passenger seat. The guitar grinds and the drums start thumping. Instinctively, my hand reaches out to turn up the volume as my foot presses down harder on the gas. Thank you, no frills middle-of-America rock; you’ve delivered again. It’s a long straight road ahead, and Minnesota’s never made this much sense. [www.countachrocks.com]

With the unveiling of their debut record, the members of Bay Area ensemble Kapakahi (the album's title gives broad translation to this Hawaiian phrase) have fashioned a lively, groove-oriented blend of reggae, ska and world music just right for stirring listeners to move and shake their way out of the dog days of summer. The album's charms are based around the cohesion of the group's instrumental abilities and the band's infectious energy; tracks like "Tipsy" and "Free" benefit from a driving pulse, the latter building on the momentum of a percussive opening passage. Though there is nothing terribly weighty or groundbreaking about the record and while several songs drag on past the point of being effective at times, Twisted, Bent & Confused is a naturally upbeat and pleasing effort which should appeal to fans of the aforementioned genres as well as those with a taste for spirited rhythm centric expression. [www.kapakahimusic.com]

Chasing Victory is a pretty safe band. This doesn't necessarily mean they're bad, as they actually play a pretty solid brand of hard hitting emo-core music, but save for a few minor tweaks (horns, for instance on "Wolves/(G.O.B vs Tony Wonder)"), Chasing Victory isn't going to knock anyone's socks off. That's too bad, because the band actually has a lot to say about staying true to yourself and the dangers of giving into over-indulgence. Had these messages been backed by a little more musical originality, it would be difficult to give Fiends anything other than a ringing endorsement. As it is, fans of the band or other bands in the genre will certainly get what they're looking for, but unfortunately not much more than that. [www.chasingvictory.com]

The lives of pop princesses are generally fairly short lived. By the nature of the gig, its more about partial nudity and shaking what your momma gave you over actual substance and talent. So as those things fade and the public gets tired of yet another copy of a copy of a copy, there's nothing for the pop princess to do but disappear for good. Unless, of course, this princess actually happens to have some talent. This seems to be the case with Mandy Moore. After four years, the singer returns with an album that is altogether different from anything she's ever done previously. Having already attempted to break herself from the expected mold via 2003's covers' album Coverage, Moore took her time to create what is easily the best work of her career with Wild Hope. With the help of such artists as Rachel Yamagata and indie duo The Weepies, Moore co-wrote every song on the album, which bounces effortlessly between upbeat indie-pop tunes (single "Extraordinary," "Nothing That You Are" and "Latest Mistake") and more subdued folk inspired tracks ("Most of Me," "Wild Hope" and "Gardenia," the beautiful album closer). The result is an honest record, that, in spite of a few cliched missteps, is an overall success. [www.mandymoore.com]