Earlimart Mentor Tormentor ½ ITUNES MYSPACE Meticulously constructed folk rock for the discerning loner Aaron Espinoza has spent years as that other singer/songwriter in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood, next to his pal and mentor Elliott Smith. And maybe Smith’s shadow overwhelmed Earlimart’s last couple of albums, on which too-crafty experimentation sabotaged awesomely lonely songs. But on Mentor Tormentor, bassist Ariana Murray steps up to provide sonic stability (as cosongwriter and coproducer) and even takes an Aimee Mann–style stab at lead vocals

on “Happy Alone.” Still, Espinoza is a solitary soul, capping the wispy, whispered verses of “Nevermind the Phonecalls” with a reminder: “No one likes to be alone / But comin’ down’s better on your own.” PETER GASTON

Envy on the Coast Lucy Gray ITUNES MYSPACE Youthful melodrama, arranged for maximum sonic impact

At first glance, these eager Long Island newcomers seem like just another forgettable mainstream emo act, complete with Castro-style military caps and ridiculously overwrought song titles. Thankfully, on this

rousing debut, they break away from the Warped Tour pack with heady prog-rock arrangements and weighty lyrics that aren’t exclusively about singer Ryan Hunter’s last evil girlfriend. Throughout, he gets deep about death, religion, and A&R guys, but the real star here is lead guitarist Brian Byrne, whose space-metal riffs and effects-pedal bombast truly send these songs skyward. TREVOR KELLEY

Galactic
From the Corner
to the Block ½
ITUNES MYSPACE
Avoiding the jam-band ghetto
with the help of crafty MCs

The after-party
didn’t lead to the
hotel lobby.

For their sixth album, New Orleans jazz-funk quintet Galactic solicited a bevy of guest rappers: On “What You Need,” Lyrics Born plays a boisterous street bootlegger, while Mr. Lif (“And I’m Out”) and Gift of Gab (“The Corner”) portray black men haunted by random violence and police sweeps. Galactic complement these inspired contributions—as well as others from New Orleans native Juvenile, Digable Planets’ Ladybug Mecca, and the Coup’s Boots Riley—with chunky wah-wah guitars, chugging rhythms, and beats so tightly action-packed that they could be the soundtrack to a sleek Hollywood crime frolic. MOSI REEVES

the Lights On” adopts a loping reggae beat that honors the Police. LINDSEY THOMAS

’80s Lady
Former country-rock stylists artfully ransack VH1 Classic
Gliss

Love the Virgins ½ ITUNES MYSPACE Billy Corgan’s favorite new band actually deserves the hype

These Los Angelenos approach their hometown’s timeless decadence with a bummed-out but exhilarating rigor: Digitized romantic obsession (“I Want You”), swaggering degradation (“Innocent Eyes”), country-rock erotica (“Falling to Pieces”), and suburban Anglophilia (“Off to Bed,” which drives the Cure’s popcraft down My Bloody Valentine’s distortion freeway) are all adorned with a curtain of stylish guitar fuzz. Singer Martin Klingman, like the deeply textured music he creates with multi-instrumentalists David Reiss and Victoria Cecilia, voices everything with hot immediacy and sharp detail. Gliss sound wrecked—but awesomely so. JAMES HUNTER

Ben Harper Lifeline ITUNES MYSPACE Tasteful, uplifting guitar mastery—John Mayer, take notes

After last year’s Both Sides of the Gun, an ambitious double album split into snappy blues and pensive, symphonic soul, Ben Harper eases into a more fluid, evenly paced groove on his eighth LP. Recorded in Paris in a week with his band, the Innocent Criminals, Lifeline is a commanding, unjammy take on gospel-influenced rock, featuring his most spiritual singing since 2004’s Grammy-winning collaboration with the Blind Boys of Alabama. But his finest moment comes on the instrumental “Paris Sunrise #7,” which starts with a sparse ripple of slide guitar and builds into a lush visual sonnet. STACEY ANDERSON

Rilo Kiley
Under the
Blacklight
ITUNES MYSPACE

Rilo Kiley singer Jenny Lewis covered the Traveling Wilburys’ wizened 1988 sing-along “Handle With Care” on her solo debut last year, and she wasn’t kidding. Under the Blacklight lets us know just how not kidding she was. Clearly, “I love the ’80s” means many things to many people, and these Los Angeles indie rockers gone major are too wily to settle for cheeky synth-pop pastiche. Instead, with

producers Jason Lader and Mike Elizondo (the Dr. Dre/Eminem studio hand who helped retool Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine), Rilo Kiley uncover a trove of sounds from the dated production trends that Reagan-era boomers clung to against

They’re too wily to
settle for cheeky
synth-pop pastiche.
the new-wave undertow.

Witty, versatile guitarist Blake Sennett lifts a riff from Billy Joel’s “A Matter of Trust” for “Silver Lining,” then rides an icy groove midway between late-disco Stones and early solo Robert Plant on “The

Moneymaker.” Lewis’ wordplay smartly unspools over the course of a song—with “Breakin’ Up,” she creates a “Since U Been Gone” for grown-ups, and on “ 15,” narrates an Internet jailbait vignette without melodrama or moralizing. The former child actress heartily gives herself over to a variety of roles, whether shimmering in the synthetic amber of mid-’80s Fleetwood Mac on “Dreamworld” or breaking off a white-girl sing-rap (shades of Blondie’s “Rapture”) on “Dejalo.” And the pained catch in her throat remains so surefire a heart-grabber that she could probably sing “We Built This City” and make you believe it. KEITH HARRIS

Grand National A Drink & a Quick Decision ½ ITUNES MYSPACE Slick U.K. duo get too comfy with mellow melancholy

Like a lot of smooth, low-key electro, this London group’s second studio album is pleasant but rather uneventful. They’ve obviously studied their ’80s influences, and the songs are full of fastidious detail: “By the Time I Get Home There Won’t Be Much of a Place for Me,” with its infectious synth groove and distant, chiming piano chords, offers a particularly good likeness of Thomas Dolby. And as a change of pace from all the keyboard pop, “Going to Switch

The Howling Hex XI ITUNES Former boogie-punk marauder now a generic jam dude

Neil Michael Hagerty made his name beating the shit out of rock’n’roll conventions with Pussy Galore and Royal Trux, but lately, he’s been settling into the uncomplicated, clock-punching role of a bar-band frontman. Everything about XI, his latest with the Howling Hex, feels almost shockingly conventional, down to the older-dudes-rockin’-out collage in the CD package. That may be because Hagerty too often lets his bandmates lead the charge through guitar-and-sax blues-rock workouts (like “Live Wire” and “Save/Spend”) that never veer anywhere near weird enough. JOSH MODELL

Imperial Teen The Hair the TV the Baby and the Band ITUNES MYSPACE Veteran California scamps get more excitable by the minute

Most girls and girly boys, including these teens at heart, eventually grow out of their catty phase. And on this foursome’s fourth collection of infectious indie pop (their first since 2002’s On), they downplay the sly smirking of the past. On “Everything,” they profess their

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