Teith – Humboldt Park
★★★★
Migration Media
Besides featuring Pelican guitarist Trevor de Brauw as a member, Teith's other most notable fact may be that it's got a debut LP under its belt with a gestation period that has surpassed the lifespan of the band itself. But in this one impressive work, entire lifetimes are lived through sound. Of the five already expansive, unhurried tracks, two are extended, multi-movement epics: the sky-spreading "Friends of Italian Opera" and the dizzying "Table of Tourettes," which rises from sludge pit to a 10-story tower of rock swagger. The wide, mostly instrumental palette spans the noisier frequencies of indie rock but carries the magnitude and movement of seismic post-rock ("This Buffalo Wings Café Is a Wi Fi Hotspot" and "Don't Obfuscate Me"). The only regret of this large, textured and astonishingly melodic record is that it's a remnant of what could've been. – Bao Le-Huu
Pissed Jeans – Honeys
★★★★
Sub Pop Records
With yet another nutcracker, Philadelphia's Pissed Jeans are looking pretty indomitable in their blitz for the noise-rock crown. Though less unrelentingly dense as they were on ravaging predecessor King of Jeans, they remain on the edge of sanity and control, bludgeoning instead with more atmospheric seething. Even with cleaner production, it's still plenty dirty with distortion, squall and thud. But the lodestars here are force and clarity. And their sound continues to scrape with the frustrating friction of everyday life, putting it under a magnifying lens with a focus so absolute that – be it the subject or narrator – something's about to go up in flames, goddammit. – BLH
Warm Soda – Someone for You
★★★★
Castle Face Records
When Warm Soda released "Reaction" in 2012, they teased us with an angsty power-pop gem leveraging the signature gravelly vocals of Oakland's Matthew Melton that have been sorely missed since Bare Wires disbanded. But Someone for You turns any initial interest in this garage rocker's re-emergence from intrigue to gratitude. With fun songs that appropriately, given the band's name, made me yearn for summer beach trips, you'd have to be a complete misanthrope to avoid the easy enjoyment that tracks like "Jeanie Loves Pop," "Strange as It Seems" and "Violent Blue" deliver. Although I'd consider "Sour Grapes" a throwaway, more aggressively arranged songs like "Star Gazer" left me visibly pumped and eager for more. – Ashley Belanger
