Don't Miss Upcoming Releases from The Great American Novel, Lost Romance, Sunday Guts, Sink Tapes

Attention, Please

Back in the summer of 2002, The New York Times asked then White House Chief of Staff Andy Card why we hadn't yet seen a big push for action against Iraq.

"You don't release new products in August," was his famous response.

That appears to be true in the music industry as well. After an August during which I had some trouble finding new things to write about, new release after new release started to drop; and it became hard to keep up. Diarrhea Planet, Superchunk, No Age, Crocodiles, Neko Case, Okkervil River,... ...even The Pixies. The world has new releases from MGMT and Arcade Fire to look forward to later this year.

I hope to get around to saying something about all of those; but first, I'd like to direct your attention to a few releases coming out in the next week or two from bands who may or may not get reviewed by Pitchfork or Rolling Stone. I've spent some time with each of these over the last several weeks; and, as big as this fall looks in terms of big name releases, I think it's also shaping up as a banner season for some up and comers.

The Great American Novel, :( (The Frown Album) (September 10th) -- Fun. Funny. Fast-paced. Concise. Layne Montgomery and his New York bandmates deliver a collection of power pop that rarely takes its foot off the gas.

The album ranges from the early Elvis Costello inspired opener "This Song Will Make You Love Me" to the pop punk of closer "Ubik." Beneath the upbeat arrangements, though, Montgomery sneers out lines like "sitting at home on Facebook / Just staring at your face," making you realize why -- as you bop around enjoying yourself -- this album isn't called :).

Lost Romance, The Light and The Dark EP (September 14th) -- Lost Romance, the brainchild of songwriter / guitarist Gerry Perlinski, have been at it since 2010. I got a chance to see them perform as part of the Tiny Giant Artist Collective's Summer Bummer back in June, and the New Brunswick trio's brand of guitar-heavy alternative rock makes for an exciting live show.

This four-song studio debut goes a long way toward capturing some of that energy. Taking Hüsker Dü-type wall of sound guitar and passing it through the filter of 1990s alternative rock, Lost Romance come up with a big sound that remains accessible. The best example of this is opener "Silver Bullet," which packs a big, rock and roll punch into its 2+ minute running time.

Sunday Guts, Leave It Go EP (September 17th) -- The Bethlehem, PA duo of Billy Kilgannon and Victor Berger IV produce pristine pop reminiscent of Beatles or Brian Wilson-inspired acts like The Smithereens or XTC / Dukes of Stratosphear.

The four-song Leave It Go EP features keys, synths, guitar, and a vocal style that come together extremely well on the collection's center piece "Edge of the Universe." Each of the tracks here, though, reveal that Kilgannon and Berger understand how to craft a pop song.

Sink Tapes, How You Mean (September 17th) -- This New Brunswick, NJ band melds the jangle of REM, the deadpan vocals of The Velvet Underground, and the alterna-pop of Tim-era Replacements to produce a contender for "CoolDad's Favorite Album of 2013 By a New Jersey Band."

Standout tracks "Super Happy" and "Your Mouth Is On My Mind" make me feel like the New Jersey indie pop tradition of bands like The Feelies and The Wrens is in safe hands. Together with this spring's Mattress Cowboys EP, How You Mean forms a collection as solid as almost anything else I've heard so far in 2013.



There you go. Four releases over the next two weeks that don't deserve to get lost in the deluge of post-August product launches.