With a band name like Delta Spirit, one might prepare themselves for some solid blues rock. But Delta Spirit is not a blues band; instead, this indie-roots quartet from San Diego, CA, seems to have dug its own stereotypical hole, although the band’s sophomore full-length History From Below shows promise for rescue. The album launches out of the gates with “911”, a snappy, upbeat hybrid that finds singer Matt Vasquez crooning out a solid Southern twang for someone from California as he sings about the pervasive fear of a modern Black Plague: the faltering economy. “When Black Tuesday comes it’ll be a hit/ Right out of the air and into the pit.” Harmonized humming during the chorus completes “911’s” old-school feel, while fingerpicked guitar, droning background tones, and digitally altered vocals create the truly unique and emotional ballad “Ransom Man.” This is the first song on History From Below on which Delta Spirit finds itself musically and lyrically — but unfortunately it’s also the fifth track of eleven. “Kiss me on the cheek and I’ll be gone/ Please do not leave flowers on my lawn/ Twenty-sixty from a funeral band/ Well I am your ransom man,” Vasquez taunts.

“Devil Knows Your Dead” presents one of Delta Spirit’s strong points — multi-instrumentalism and the use of obscure noisemakers. Known to use trash can lids for percussion, the band enjoys making different choices, and this song of spiritual musings features an interesting mix of sounds from guitars, vocals, percussion, and organ, all weaved together in an uncommon pattern. A few bad apples did find their way onto History From Below; driving bass propels the run-of-the-mill “Bushwick Blues,” while Vasquez offers some uninspiring lyrics about love: “So maybe I’m a fool for feeling you/ But the way we kiss at night I thought you knew/ Because my love is strong and my heart is weak/ After all.” If I were even half so dry, I’d ask my girlfriend to dump me.

History From Below suffers from an identity crisis. You can distinctly hear the California indie flavor on some songs more than others, but a roots music influence keeps creeping in, poking its uncertain head into the mix. There’s a lack of continuity on History From Below — straight indie rock, remixed roots standards, and bastard hybrids trip over each other. Based on standout tracks like “St. Francis,” “Ransom Man,” and “Devil Knows Your Dead,” Delta Spirit should completely embrace its ties to roots music and consistently write music fit for the band’s name. By Alex Lemonde-Gray

You can fight it with all of your might, but you will be dragged kicking and screaming from your secluded coastal or rural comfort zone and forced into a black Brooklyn dungeon of echoing spooks and an unnamed fetish by New York duo Von Haze. The seven-minute-plus appendages and orifices compiling the band’s debut EP are slow, grimy organs and a female voice brewing in a cauldron and spewing onto the cold brick floor of your prison. There are pounding drums somewhere in the void, but they’re only hitting sporadically, doing battle with the fog of wails and grit of organ stifling your ears 

As a captive in a deep, dark well, surprises will come in all forms. Von Haze walks the listener through an unpredictable series of such, first sucking away every ounce of energy in proximity with long drones, then bubbling into rays of sunshine sprinkling through holes in the walls. These moments arise as a saving grace on “Sad Girls,” a song title in complete disagreement with its content of fast-paced delight. Von Haze recorded this album yards from Lake Michigan, and their work funnels that Detroit groan into a late-night apparition. Von Haze is a careening fall and a lifting hand, where singer Katherine Kin bellows a soft, terrifying whisper of times long gone to tear you down, so that the drums and guitar of Travis Caine can snap you from the poisonous trance like an anecdote for Kin’s venom. By William Port Whales

Forward-thinking mixologists like WHY?, Atmosphere, and P.O.S. have been intertwining alternative hip-hop and indie psych-folk for years now, but the subgenre has yet to explode on the mainstream. That’s surprising, especially given the ever-tightening relationship between indie rock and electro experimentation these days. But few folk-hop artists are more skilled than Connecticut MC/ hip-hop entrepreneur Ceschi, who started left-field label Fake Four Inc. a few years back and dropped his dark, brooding album The One Man Band Broke Up last week.

While most psychedelic hip-hop deals with decidedly downcast themes, Ceschi and German producer DJ Scientist take things a step further on The One Man Band Broke Up, charting the excruciating demise of a fictional musician named Julius and The Bearded Saviour. The opening title track is a sinister mission statement that combines weepy horns and Ceschi’s throat-stretching, serious-as-hell lyrics, while “Half Mast” is just as sad-eyed, only with more tongue-twisting melancholia. But “No New York” highlights the front end of the record, with mournful riffs and deep bass blasts soundtracking a warped tale about live-show excess and an excellent guest spot from Astronautalis.

After that, Ceschi turns the weirdness up, going soft on tender ballads like “Lament For Captain Julius” and “Swallowed Salt,” evoking The Beach Boys on eerie pop juxtaposition “Bridge,” and even throwing down an odd Western ditty on “For My Disappointing Hip Hop Heroes.” But the straight rap bangers still deliver: “Hangman” spits more fire than a blowtorch, “Bad Jokes” is an organic, early ‘90s reminisce, and “Long Live The Short Lived” is an unlikely six-minute hit, thanks to a straightforward, heart-tugging verse from Sole. Throughout The One Man Band Broke Up, DJ Scientist’s cinematic creations keep the concept record rooted in left field, but for all his experimentation, Ceschi is a supremely talented MC who clearly has his finger on a fresh, new pulse of alternative hip-hop. In that case, here’s to many more semi-autobiographical musical dissolutions to come from this Connecticut dark horse. By Nick McGregor

Oxford, UK, group Foals return with their second full-length release, Total Life Forever, in impeccable form, transforming their sound by stripping back the layers of guitar work they so carefully created on their first album, Antidotes. That record sounded rollickingly agitated and mathematical, and thankfully Foals have traded that in for a cooler and more mature sound that still maintains a danceable style. While the angular, Minus The Bear-sounding guitar work is restrained, Total Life Forever finds a subdued groove that is engaging enough to keep fans connected to the group.

There are similarities closer to mid-‘80s dance-pop on Total Life Forever, rather than the dance-punk Foals previously recorded. “Blue Blood,” “Miami,”  “Total Life Forever,” and “Black Gold” groove unabashedly in the style of Talking Heads, Hot Chip, or Yeasayer, while “This Orient,” “After Glow,” and “Alabaster” coldly reflect Bloc Party and the falsetto vocal work by My Morning Jacket and Arcade Fire. The only downfall of Total Life Forever is a lack of cohesion from the first half of the album to the second. It almost sounds like two different albums, with the first few tracks bringing promising, joyful, and funky beats, while the last few are a major buzz-kill. It’s not that the closing tracks are bad — just melancholic, leaving the listener wanting some redemptive refrain to the upbeat beginning. Foals simply have a problem with the mixing, and had the tracks been arranged with more tact, this could have been a great album instead of just a good one. Try playing it on shuffle. By Peter Viele