Roof legend Theodore Bikel. Klezmer melodies waft over Socalled’s MPC beats, evoking New York’s Second Avenue district, a.k.a. “ Yiddish Broadway,” West Coast turntablism, and old-school funk. Weirdest of all, he closes with an electro-house remix of “Let’s Get Wet” that’s as crunchy as a Justice stomper. The result is a smorgasbord of sounds both ancient and appealingly bohemian. MOSI REEVES

narratives of self-destruction.
Greasers, beware: Now the
’50s really are over.
STACEY K. ANDERSON

Votolato knows his muse lies at the bottom of a highball glass. His fifth and most graceful album nurtures the hushed, wispy harmonies of 2006’s Makers (yep, named after the whiskey) in somber tales of nights spent drinking alone, missing his family, and staving off the weariness that descends long before last call. And while his career has been a march through genres, from the prickly punk of his old band Waxwing to yuppie-scolding Phil Ochs folk (2003’s Suicide Medicine), it’s in these hoarse lamentations that he sounds the most at home. STACEY K. ANDERSON

This hoodie is
illegal in some
areas of England.

Straylight Run The Needles the Space ½ ITUNES MYSPACE Give their regards to Amityville, the long emo good-bye is over

As the only band who might show up at this summer’s Warped Tour with a glockenspiel, this Long Island–based troupe is obviously more sophisticated than your average emo act. But in the past, they’ve struggled to find a balance between co-song-writer John Nolan’s dramatic piano pop and his sister Michelle’s sultry balladeering. Here, however, the siblings gel perfectly and even expand their group’s melancholic sound with tunes such as “Still Alone,” a brassy, theatrical romp that ditches the basements of Nassau County for the flashy footlights of Broadway. TREVOR KELLEY

The Mary Timony Band The Shapes We Make ½ ITUNES MYSPACE Role model for indie ladies looks for illumination herself For the past 15 years, Mary Timony has been an inspiration to teenage girls, and she’s still committed to the cause. The pro-choice “Pause/Off” (“Paws off, Supreme Court misters / Don’t mess around with me and my sisters”) brings to mind the height of ’90s fem rock. Elsewhere, she pieces together hit-and-miss indie prog, as melodies are sent off wandering through unorthodox key modulations in a vain search for memorable choruses. Timony helped erase the novelty status of female guitarists years back, but now she’s struggling to find her own coherent sound. LINDSEY THOMAS

Velvet Revolver Libertad ½ ITUNES MYSPACE For brand-name hard rock, it doesn’t get any better—sadly

This supergroup, featuring former Stone Temple Pilot Scott Weiland and three ex–Guns N’ Roses members, isn’t a band from which major revelations are expected, and you won’t find any here. But Libertad does improve slightly on the mostly hookless choogling of the band’s 2004 debut, Contraband, with songs that are punchier and a bit more memorable. Opener “Let It Roll” is a respectable two-minute blast of Zeppelin bravado, and the single “She Builds Quick Machines” sounds like it was constructed from the better parts of GNR’s “Rocket Queen” and STP’s “Sex Type Thing.” Still, their cover of ELO’s “Can’t Get It out of My Head” is probably the only track that will actually get stuck in your head. LANE BROWN

White Rabbits Fort Nightly ITUNES MYSPACE Six guys from Missouri blow into Brooklyn, freak out

Anxiety surges through these bright, brittle pop tunes with the force of a raging headache. Amid the flighty pianos, chattering guitars, and twitchy percussion on their debut album, the Rabbits’ eager, near-shrill singing (by Steve Patterson and Greg Roberts) sounds like an early warning sign of full-bore hysteria. Lines such as “I don’t think I can make it upstairs to find a bed” evoke a feeling of helpless confusion that’s hard to shake long after the music’s over. JON YOUNG

Still Grimy?

Feisty East Ender goes overboard with guest list

Dizzee Rascal
Maths & English ½
ITUNES MYSPACE
as-percussion opener “World
Outside,” perhaps his best-
sounding track to date.

The rest feels scattered. There’s a summer song (“Da Feelin’”), a dance song (“Flex”), an industry song (“Hard Back [Industry]”), a shoe song (“Bubbles”), an Arctic Monkeys song (“Temptation”), and a song where Lily Allen acts rude over secondhand reggae

There’s a summer
song, a dance song,
an industry song, a
shoe song...

TOM + BARRY/COUR TES Y XL RECORDS

Tiger Army Music From Regions Beyond ITUNES MYSPACE Selling out their sleeve-tattoo roots—is nothing sacred?

Tiger Army practically invented modern American psycho-billy—that rousing, darkly romantic amalgam of punk and rockabilly—but their fourth album is a schizophrenic inversion of everything that made the genre fun. Instead of breakneck strumming, the Los Angeles trio two-steps into pinched new wave (“As the Cold Rain Falls”). Instead of acrobatic howling, singer Nick 13 adopts suave bilingual crooning (“Hechizo De Amor”). And instead of spiraling feedback and surf-rock swoons, we get the audibly neutered, crossover radio hit “Forever Fades Away,” with its stadium-rock reverb, indifferent staccato guitar, and feebly warbled

Rocky Votolato The Brag & Cuss ITUNES MYSPACE Sometimes drinking at home actually can be productive

In the tradition of any good country troubadour, Rocky

Wooden Wand James & the Quiet ITUNES MYSPACE Underground eccentric attempts normalcy, fails

On James Jackson Toth’s (allegedly) final album under the Wooden Wand moniker, the New York singer/songwriter mewls that he’s been a “busy honeybee in a bucket of tar” (and considering that he’s recorded 20-plus records with the freak-folk collective the Vanishing Voice already this century, that’s a lot of goop). But here he cleans up his act and tries to go straight, offering sparse, lethargic guitar strum abetted by Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo (who produces) and drummer Steve Shelley. But instead of incorporating the Youth’s arty, accessible noise pop, Toth simply filches Devendra Banhart’s weedy croon, then turns around and sings, “We Must Also Love the Thieves.” ANDY BETA

London rapper/producer Dizzee Rascal went from upstart Boy in da Corner to Showtime sensation over the course of his first two albums, carrying the standard for the bellicose, breakbeat-based U.K. grime scene. Now, on new single “Sirens,” he promises to “take it back to that old-school, storytelling shit.” Slower and more predictable than its predecessors, Maths & English may have you waiting for the school bell to ring.

But not before a few compelling lessons. With metallic distortion, “Sirens” breathlessly recounts a panicked flight from the police. “Pussy’ole” goes older school, reshaping the Lyn Collins sample behind Rob Base’s 1988 “It Takes Two” into a sharp, fast-paced dis. Dizzee’s production palette is broader, too, as on knives-

(“Wanna Be”). Texas rappers UGK appear on poseur-bashing “Where’s da G’s,” but Maths & English shies away from their legendary double-time intensity. “They’re out to get me,” Dizzee spits on “Paranoid,” actually rhyming “insane” and “brain.” The insipid chorus of “Suck My Dick” might explain everything: “I don’t give a shit who likes it,” he claims. Class dismissed. MARC HOGAN