Another new one from ARMS and presumably the band’s upcoming Summer Skills. No harmonicas, but plenty of huge harmonies and cymbal crashes. (Props to WLFY for getting to it first)

Summer forever. Confused by the lack of Four Loko in this video, though.

Previously: New Music: Your Youth – “Diamond”

After my lengthy screed about Warpaint and sexism, this belated review should probably talk about how hot this record is. I thought it was, at first, but further listens reveal The Fool is closer to a suspense film — a revenge thriller that ends with a twist. Take “Undertow,” the album’s lead single and my favorite song of the year: “Your brown eyes are my blue skies,” it begins, arguably 2010′s sweetest line to a lover — but things go south quickly. “You breathe in the deepest part of the water,” the song continues. “What’s a matter / you hurt yourself? / open your eyes and there was someone else.” That someone, of course, is our protagonist, keeping a fearsome hold on a would-be runaway. There’s sex in there, yes, but hiding behind obsession. “Baby,” an acoustic track that abandons the album’s shadowy post-punk, plays like a murder ballad: the line “Don’t you call anybody else baby / because I’m your baby still,” feels like a threat, not a lament.

So The Fool is about holding onto something — or the memories of something. As the album comes to a close, ”Majesty” suddenly goes past tense: “I adored your face,” then: “I wanted you by my side / the perfect match,” a line you can imagine arriving as flames engulf the house and a killer’s finally revealed. “You could’ve been my king.” The album’s title, then, becomes clear. But perhaps our heroine’s paranoid fever-dreaming is just that: final track “Lissie’s Heart Murmur” puts her would-be majesty in the protagonist role: “I went looking, went searching under the water / sinking and searching / [??] pulled me under,” a callback to “Undertow” and a pursuit that seems suddenly less one-sided. (I can’t tell, thanks to a vocal effect, if that missing word’s a he, a she or something else.) Then again, perhaps the hunt is our protagonist trawling for a body. Several of Warpaint’s members take on lead vocal duties throughout the album, further muddying the narrative waters.

It’s dark, ambiguous stuff, a narrative that rewards attention. It’s enveloped by music as equally menacing and mystifying: distressed vocals are blurred by echoes and reverb-filtered harmonies, while guitar melodies peel out with sinister leisure. The songs are just unfocused and unpredictable enough, a gorgeous building demolished and only halfway rebuilt. (Producer Tom Biller, I’m sure, deserves credit for the widescreen sonics.) Drummer Stella Mozgawa is the band’s anchor, her steady hits keeping the the untethered emotions of songs such as “Undertow” from leaving the rails entirely. It’s not quite pop; it’s not quite anything, completely. Except excellent.

Warpaint – “Undertow” (single edit): mp3

(The Fool is out now on Rough Trade)

Tonight, at 7 p.m. (10 p.m. Eastern), I’ll be interviewing Ravens & Chimes in the first episode of my new Yowie show, Rawkblog Live. The band will be playing some songs via webcam, you can webcam in yourself to ask questions/rant, there’ll be a kitten, it’ll be great. Set up an account on Yowie or log on with Facebook and come hang out with us.

Update: Watch the interview and the band’s performances of new songs “Past Lives” and “Carousel” on Yowie. Thanks for tuning in! Next week: ARMS.

Ravens & Chimes – “Division St.”: mp3 (from the band’s forthcoming Holiday Life)

Previously: Ravens & Chimes finish recording sophomore album

Darlings – Big Girl from Daniel Carbone on Vimeo.

The latest from New York’s Darlings, featuring skewed camera angles, greasy hair and enough garage rock to kill the second guitarist.

Previously: First Look: Darlings – Yeah I Know

See, folks, this is why you don’t make your album of the year list in November. Summer Fiction’s debut is due this week, and given that dude e-mailed me about it himself, your favorite bloggers have not received promo copies. So forget the rankings for a minute, and open your heart to a sublime set of indie-pop. Summer Fiction, thank God, plays soft, hi-fi songs that could only have come from a bedroom and too many late nights. Like his noisier peers in Bikini, Swimsuit, Tennis, Best Coast, Sand Panda, whatever, Summer Fiction frontman Bill Ricchini is a beach nerd — “Kids in Catalina” is the kind of surf-ballad that Animal Collective might record if they ever play guitars again, while “Carry On” ponders swaying palm trees over xylophone hits. But the music’s more along the lines of fellow California dreamers the Thrills, all sweet melodies and thoughtful, pristine arrangements rather than fuzzbox grit. The album’s best moment is “By the Sea,” a piano-laden ballad that recalls XO-era Elliott Smith and Reinhold Messner-era Ben Folds Five, two references you might remember. Let’s not forget about this one, either.

Summer Fiction – “Chandeliers”: mp3

Stream the album in full and buy it after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Memoryhouse – “Heirloom” from Jamie Harley on Vimeo.

Jamie Harley is so hot right now. The director, who’s worked with How to Dress Well, Memoryhouse and others, is one of the foremost practitioners of the Polaroid aesthetic pervading indie rock this year; full of quick cuts and double exposures, his video for Memoryhouse’s “Heirloom” plays like Breathless as rebooted by Gorilla Vs. Bear. It’s pretty beautiful stuff, especially when laid against the stormy chords of this terrific brand-new Memoryhouse b-side. (The Line of Best Fit via Dead as Digital)

(Memoryhouse’s Caregiver 7″ is out now on Suicide Squeeze)

Mighty Clouds, which is to say, Betty and Fred from Saturday Looks Good To Me’s new band, go all OFWGKTA on this SLGTM classic. I hope this video makes Snacks the cat cry.