Dark Red 

"Tara" 

Beehive Recording Company

The principals — guitar, drums, vocals and an impressive deck of pedals (particularly delay) — create a poignant, head-swimming ambience ("She's Laughing At Me"). Dark Red's dazzle is subtle (here, at least; the band's a feedback firestorm on stage), the beats stay steady, adding shakers on "Tara," while the guitar kicks into roughhouse riffing halfway through, content to strum and slide alongside a bass-boomy low end and echo-heavy vocals. Nice.

House Phone 

"Crayons" 

b/w 

Passalacqua 

"Dead Fish Eyes" 

— featuring Doc Waffles 

New Fortune

On "Crayons," the guitars and organs roar and chime, going from purr to fervor to a shimmering crescendo, culminating in House Phone's slow dance. On the flip, antiquarian and literary rapper Doc Waffles joins Mister and Blaksmith of dynamic hip-hop duo Passalacqua. The three bite at those in the audience or in weekday rat races. Waffles' zingy if unpredictable poetics dovetail nicely with Passalacqa's oddball rhymes. 

Sros Lords 

"Evil Spawn" 

b/w "The End" 

Urinal Cake 

Thundering drums, fuzz-caked guitars and creep-along organs support vocals that chant repetitively. These doomed punks are gonna save your soul, just before the world ends ("The End"). "Evil Spawn" retains the ominous sci-fi aesthetic wonderfully and features the cringe-happy line "Evil spawn will bite my dick off." —Jeff Milo

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