Indiana isn’t exactly known as a musical hotbed, yet stars like Michael Jackson, John Mellencamp, Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael, Axl Rose, David Lee Roth, and Shannon Hoon all called the Hoosier State home. That has absolutely nothing to do with The Sorely Trying Days, a hardcore punk trio from Kokomo, IN, a municipality hailed by Forbes Magazine in 2008 as the third-fastest dying city in the United States. Unlike those aforementioned international icons, The STDs still live in Indiana, perhaps explaining the ferocious energy they display on debut album Survival Mode, which traffics in the best kind of straightforward, heavy, DIY American music.

When Survival Mode kicks off with double-time drumbeats and curling guitar lines on “Everybody’s Bitch,” the first thing that comes to mind is country-rockers like Lucero. But that impression quickly disappears when twin brothers Adam and Alex Jones (on vocals/guitars and drums, respectively) and bassist John Rinehart start screaming from their guts. “In Control” boasts the best hardcore combination known to man: thunderously melodic guitar riffs and downtrodden lyrics like “I don’t know why I do it/I can’t stop the confusion/I feel raped by defeat,” all backed by a Black Sabbath-like time change that staggers and lurches right into the next crust-punk song, “About The Good Times.” Here The STDs lament the current economic recession over pummeling guitar and bass, with a group-chanted line of “I hate this shit!” standing out as perhaps the most joyous moment on Survival Mode.

Yet the album’s dissatisfaction comes across in brutally effective fashion — the title track features a Fugazi-like disjointed melody and fire-breathing lyrics that Ian MacKaye himself would be proud of. “The Music Has Stopped” boasts a strutting bluesiness that reveals The STDs’ debt to ‘70s rock, but I found speedy instrumentals “Destroyed In Seconds” and “Red Turned Green” a bit out of place. Sure, the technical crunch is impressive — particularly on the prog-meets-speed-punk bite of “It Always Takes A Lot” — but the band’s allure clearly rests in their energetically shouted vocals. It’s impressive to see a young band wrap their 21st-century discontent in traditional American hardcore clothes, because, let’s face it, very few artists still choose this self-flagellating musical path. If The Sorely Trying Days keep it up, they might just revive Kokomo with blood, sweat, and punk-rock tears. By Nick McGregor

As embarrassing as it is, I’m glad I finally got turned on to blue-collar Midwestern balladeer Jason Molina, via his band Magnolia Electric Co.’s latest release, Josephine. Yes, I’m a little late: Molina recorded for several years under the moniker Songs: Ohia, before changing that group’s name to its present incarnation in 2003. And where Molina’s early work focused on alt-country/indie folk mash-ups in the vein of shadowy crooner Will Oldham, the Magnolia material delved into dense heartland rock á la Neil Young, with guitar noodling and atonal singing aplenty. In the process, Molina charmed and perplexed enough fans to compile a five-disc box set dubbed Sojourner, released to hearty critical acclaim in 2008.

Yet in 2009, Molina and Magnolia Electric Co. have returned to their brooding folk roots, and appropriately so: bass player Evan Farrell died in late 2007, adding heart-wrenching beauty to this year’s Josephine. Opener “O! Grace” hearkens back to the Great American Songbook’s 1970s entry, with smooth-jazz saxophone, straightforward piano, and haltingly hopeful lyrics laying the album’s groundwork. Other standouts include ‘50s crooner “The Rock Of Ages,” creepy B3 organ-driven number “Little Sad Eyes,” and the title track’s shambling remembrances.

Downbeat folk makes an appearance on “Shenandoah,” before the most obvious Neil Young moment occurs on “The Handing Down” and “The Falling Sky,” both of which could easily earn a place on Young’s classic 1970 album After The Gold Rush. The dusty and sparse “Whip-Poor-Will” pays tribute to Molina’s down-home pedigree via beautiful pedal steel guitar, but the finest moments on Josephine come when the full band contributes backing vocals, as on “Hope Dies Last” and far-too-short closer “Arrow In The Gale.” Yes, the band is still reeling from Farrell’s death, but with the ever-contemplative Molina at the helm, tragedy has once again inspired yet another splendid album from Magnolia Electric Co. –NM

Weighty expectations can often doom a burgeoning indie rock band, but Scottish septet Broken Records don’t seem to mind that their debut album Until The Earth Begins To Part follows closely in the 2009 footsteps of fellow Scotsmen We Were Promised Jetpacks, Twilight Sad, and Frightened Rabbit. Instead, Broken Records have taken their “Scottish Arcade Fire” comparisons in stride, injecting their symphonic rock with heavy helpings of string arrangements and melodramatic balladry.

That cumbersome combination falls flat on album opener “Nearly Home,” but the jagged violins, bleating horns, and galloping drumbeats of “If The News Makes You Sad, Don’t Watch It” allow frontman Jamie Sutherland to let his pipes jump from basso profundo to falsetto with ease. The song ends in a weepy mish-mash of overblown instrumentation, but it serves as the perfect introduction to the piano-driven title track, which soars and glides like Coldplay deep into a night of whiskey and a drunken brogue.

“A Promise” plods through three minutes of tickling keys, before a folksy fiddle and Sutherland’s grunting exhortations save the day. But at the mid-point of Until The Earth Begins To Part, it becomes clear that Broken Records aren’t going to break their bombastic mold. The best track on the album is also coincidentally the most pretentious — “If Eilert Loevborg Wrote A Song It Would Sound Like This” originates from the perspective of a character out of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s 1890 classic Hedda Gobbler, but its dreamy accordion and European strings breathe life into an otherwise stale subject. Perhaps that’s what Broken Records set out to do: turn preening indie-rock extravagance into compelling fare. Mission (almost) accomplished. –NM

Otherwise known as Sean Sullivan (of indie popsters Sam Champion), Sean Bones has recently harvested his independently grown patches of Brooklyn mold to create a symbiotic relationship with classic naturalist influences like Peter Tosh and Jamaican fable Countryman. Bones slaps energy and devotion into dancehall chills, steel percussion, flutes, and a wide range of stylistic approaches found on his debut album Rings, the likes of which are rarely found in an up-and-coming artist. Even the zi-zi-zi reggaetone drilling, which I know you find relentlessly annoying on a surf trip anywhere south of Florida, works its way smoothly into hazy single “Smoke Rings.”

Yet Sean Bones has created an easy listen via difficult techniques on Rings. The most unlikely of collaborators — contemporary jazz chanteuse Norah Jones — contributes to final track “Turn Them,” a hopeful little guitar-and-organ ditty that was spawned from a musical relationship formed over Jones and Bones’ work on Jamaican-shot indie film Wah Do Dem, a sort of modern-day The Harder They Come adaptation. Their easy-breezy intertwined vocals represent the mellow summer feel of Rings well. By Will Tunstall