O’Death Head Home ½ ITUNES MYSPACE Raucous urban hayseeds recharge down-home sounds This Brooklyn-based quintet’s punk-rock hoedown may sound like a kitschy joke. But vocalist Greg Jamie, who howls like Neil Young and hollers like Tom Waits, exudes an odd dignity and a restless intensity, and the band never lets up, from the hillbilly stomp of “Allie Mae Reynolds” to the banjos and brass of “Busted Old Church” to the high lonesome thunder of “Only Daughter.” Head Home’s wailing roar may not be authentic, but it’s a flat-out hoot. MACKENZIE WILSON

Jeff Buckley’s spaciness, Fiona Apple’s melodrama, and Freddie Mercury’s exhibitionism. He’s not just a spectacle, though: While “Push My Buttons” could be a Broadway showstopper, “Sailor’s March” simmers with concise, coiled tension. When Pagan murmurs, “You’re not an ordinary boy,” he’s clearly looking in the mirror. JON YOUNG

pathos on “Hey Mama,” a letter from jail that’s a rewrite of 2Pac’s “Dear Mama.” THOMAS GOLIANOPOULOS

Chase Pagan Oh, Musica! ½ ITUNES MYSPACE Florid songs ask the question: Crazy genius or just crazy?

Moaning, shrieking, and sighing with hardly a pause for breath, Chase Pagan seems trapped in a moment of ecstasy that should have been kept private. The thrilling, exhausting debut from this piano-pounding Arkansas native combines

Pastor Troy Tool Muziq ½ ITUNES MYSPACE Blustery, derivative songs have a less-than-sudden impact

Crunk is all about the payoff—blaring, riotous beats building to a chant-worthy chorus. Pastor Troy, the Atlanta rapper known for his 2002 Timbaland-assisted single “Are We Cuttin’,” only has half that equation down. Intense energy: Check. Memorable hooks: Not so much. “Hard for the Money” awkwardly contorts the Donna Summer original into a tired stripper ode. But Troy does possess a cutting wit—“How it feel not to have a thing / From ATL but you blame it on the hurricane?” he spits on “No Money.” And he does hint at (secondhand)

Pig Destroyer Phantom Limb ITUNES MYSPACE A frantic metal offensive, with punch lines galore

Virginia’s Pig Destroyer have been peddling high-octane, face-ripping, black-humor grindcore for a decade, and here they push their sound into an even fiercer realm. Guitarist Scott Hull’s sweaty juggernaut riffs practically slice your flesh, but this is also a lyrics band, with J.R. Hayes screaming bon mots like “Your legs look so sexy out of context” and “Got no use for psychiatry / I can talk to the voices in my head for free.” Phantom Limb is funny, sick, smart, and possibly the year’s best metal album. JOE GROSS

Pastor Troy:
Crunk commando

it may inspire you to bang your head—if only against a wall, out of frustration. TREVOR KELLEY

Powerspace The Kicks of Passion ½ ITUNES MYSPACE An unholy trinity—sins, tragedies, the unskinny bop?

Like Panic! At the Disco, this hyper Chicago foursome is being groomed as the next

teen-scream crossover from thriving indie Fueled by Ramen. Unlike their glitzy labelmates, however, Powerspace not only apply fluttering dance pop to their hook-heavy emo, but also add a shot of late-’80s hair-metal bravado. The combination has a flashy charm, but it also results in songs like “Dancing in the Future,” a disorienting rocker that changes tempos so often

Robbers on High Street Grand Animals ½ ITUNES MYSPACE Strokes/Walkmen pretenders expand their ambitions This New York band still use the

Sketch Artists
Britt Daniel,
the man with
X-ray eyes
Rock’s masters of minutiae keep us guessing

FROM TOP: SHANNON MCCOLLUM; AU TUMN DE WILDE/COUR TES Y NAS T Y LIT TLE MAN

Spoon
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
ITUNES MYSPACE

Here’s a short list of things Spoon frontman Britt Daniel has written wrenching songs about: chloroform, a promotional cassette, a metal detector, a fitted shirt, his former A&R rep. On Spoon’s sixth album, he adds a wonderful new junk-drawer item to this list with “My Little Japanese Cigarette Case,” which repeats the same three lines (“It’s just my Japanese cigarette case / Bring a mirror to my face / Let all my memories be gone”), mantralike, over a spare funk groove.

Daniel’s fixation on life’s minutiae is probably not a manifestation of a raging obsessive-compulsive disorder. Like characters in a Raymond Carver story, the damaged folk who populate Spoon

songs sweat the small stuff because
it’s the only way they know how to
cope with the big stuff.

Dysfunctional relationships and emotional detachment are recurrent themes, but Daniel is more a portraitist than a storyteller. Unhinged rocker “Don’t Make Me a Target” is full of remarkably vivid images (“He smells like the inside of closets upstairs / The kind where nobody goes”). The bright,

Post-punk snarls duel
with genial pop charms.

bouncy “The Underdog” paints lonely scenes fraught with tension and frustration, then couches them in buoyant horns and handclaps. The tug-of-war between bristly unavailability and candid confession mirrors a musical duel between post-punk snarls and genial pop charms. There’s no resolution, but the struggle itself is endlessly compelling. DAVID PEISNER