Menagerie

Image: Kenneth Rougeau

These Old Shoes - Deer Tick

Oh he's goooood, I'll give him that. Still, I suspect our protagonist is just a cheap bastard, trying to obscure the fact that, in his typical cheap bastard fashion, he bought a bargain seat on a shady, fly-by-night (ha!) airline. "Darlin'", he drawls to his sweetheart, "you don't know what I suffered just to get to you." It's an impressive tall tale consisting of:

• A plane crash (two-hour delay on tarmac/napped)
• Train hopping (first stopover in Chicago/grabbed Quizno's sub in terminal)
• Car breakdown (second stopover in Denver/browsed in-flight magazine)
• Hoofing it the rest of the way (waited hour and a half for shuttle bus/too stingy to spring for cab).
  

But for the days when Alex Chilton crooned, I don't care how much money I gotta spend/Got to back to my baby again.

From War Elephant (iTunes, eMusic), Myspace

Mirror Blanket - Raccoo-oo-ooon

A confession: My attraction to this band is in no small part due to its name. RACCOO-OO-OOON! Racccccccoooooonnnnn!! Racoo-ooo-ooo-ooo-oon!!! Racoo ... erm, sorry. But seriously, the band could play Bulgarian polka or Norweigian death metal and I'd still howl its name at the noonday sun. Raccoo-oo-ooon doesn't. Play polka or metal, I mean. These guys howl plenty, though. And in the interest of full disclosure: This psych-art-noise stuff is a bit of a slog, a tad challenging, not for everyone, etc., etc. But if you're game, there's fun in its improvisational jitter, jerk and shudder, its tin can hammer and hazard lights. There's the sense that anything could happen, and it does sorta. Raccoo-oooo-oooooon!

From Behold Secret Kingdom (Night People), Website

I Wrote Your Name on a Kite - We Are Wolves

You may not realize it from their sharkskin slick synth lines or astringent yelps, but these wolves are really hopeless romantics. I wish I could walk to the pyramids with you, Alex Ortiz sings milk soft in "So Nice, So Cold" on We Are Wolves' new album. If anything could top the ridiculous charm of such a dream date, it might be I wrote your name on a kite. I WROTE YOUR NAME ON A KITE! Swoon and sigh, right? It's sweet and sly-sexy and a little ambiguous--a line like that could go down a dozen different avenues. Men take note: A line like that (and the pyramid one) will work.

From Total Magique (Amazon, eMusic), Myspace