Four dainty English schoolboys from Oxford sat on a wall. Four dainty English schoolboys started a band. Four dainty English schoolboys took half a decade to create a single album, and they named it Beachcomber’s Windowsill? What is this, a weak romantic novel about betrayal and sand fetishes? Nope, it’s the debut album from Stornoway.

Composed of two Brits and two Saffas, Stornoway made a name for itself in the college indie-music scene in and around Oxford over the last few years. Band founders Brian Briggs (singer/guitarist) and Jon Ouin (guitarist/keyboardist) met as students at Oxford, and the two proud PhD recipients discovered similar musical interests and started experimenting. Along with brothers Oliver and Robert Steadman on drums and bass/guitar, respectively, Briggs and Ouin started dabbling in the pop, nu-folk, and indie genres. Signed to esteemed label 4AD, Stornoway is like a quieter, sweeter, acoustic version of labelmate The National, minus the frontman with the gargantuan voice.

Stornoway suffers from issues you commonly associate with new bands. The eclectic mix of instruments heard on Beachcomber’s Windowsill at times seems burdensome. The band tries to evoke a more complex sound using diverse tools, yet lacks the musical prowess to truly pull it off. Stornoway’s lyrics are also less than spectacular. Despite the band members’ collective intellect, they're incapable of even faking deep emotion. On “Zorbing,” the first single off Beachcomber’s Windowsill, the boys compare romance to an obscure sport created in New Zealand. Sure, sports and romance comparisons can work, but this sport involves zipping yourself into a giant inflatable ball and rolling down a hill.

Despite the band’s shortcomings, Beachcomber’s Windowsill has moments of intrigue. “On The Rocks” is an ethereal tune tied together by a speedy, near-dancehall beat. The chorus on “Boats And Trains” is so catchy you’ll be singing it the rest of the day: “And the moment’s hesitation/ Your silent invocation/ But you shielded me from your glow/ Like a moth against your window.” Paired with a proper producer, Stornoway could make a solid album, but until then, it’s just romantic novels I guess. By Alex Lemonde-Gray

Esteemed Bay Area punk-rock label Fat Wreck Chords has been on a roll lately, releasing compilations of some of their most popular longtime bands. The most recent comes from Mad Caddies, who pushed the envelope in their own way by incorporating ska, reggae, country, and even Dixieland jazz into their wildly variegated sound. Of course, some may disagree that the need for a greatest hits compilation even exists after only six full-length albums, but Mad Caddies flipped the script by approaching Consentual Selections much differently.

Instead of exerting control, the band let their rabidly faithful fans vote online to decide what 22 tracks would make up Consentual Selections — hence the album’s slightly misspelled yet totally appropriate name. Just to spice things up, Mad Caddies added two new songs into the mix, the previously unreleased “Save Us” and “Why Must I Wait,” from their upcoming album. In addition, the album includes track-by-track commentary and a killer photo montage that will immediately transport you back to the rough-and-tumble ‘90s when punk rock ruled the world.

For all those perks, it’s the Mad Caddies’ boisterous music that’s the biggest hook. The jaunty rockabilly rhythm section of “Leavin’” presages the current popularity of countrified folk-punk, while jazzier numbers like “Weird Beard” and “Tired Bones” could fit right in alongside avant-garde acts like DeVotchKa and Gogol Bordello. That’s what makes the recent trend of Fat Wreck compilations so alluring — what we’ve generically called “punk rock” for so long really has tons of cool elements comprising the entire foundation. Big ups to Fat Mike and the crew for making us realize what we’ve been missing all along. By Nick McGregor

Nostalgia can be an endearing platform for music, particularly when it strikes an emotional chord from a cherished bygone era with memories of glorious youth. Unfortunately for Tom Morello and Boots Riley, the duo that make up Street Sweeper Social Club, recalling the same formula as 1993-era Rage Against The Machine — a once-cool band that evoked anger towards the government and was subsequently swept up by frat boys and football jocks as pre-game, pre-nerd-bashing amp music — doesn’t offer a nostalgic sound that drums up positive vibes for most music aficionados.

On The Ghetto Blaster EP, the singsong, bouncy style of Bootsy’s delivery sounds dated, while his lyricism sounds contrived at best. The wonky wobble of Morello’s guitar work, while extremely technical and impressive, sounds exactly the same as his earlier Rage efforts. To make matters worse, two of the songs on this short EP, “Momma Said Knock You Out” and “Paper Planes,” are cheeky covers that do the original versions no justice.

Morello remarked on their blend of tunes, “It’s revolutionary party jams,” while Riley added, “This is a time when the working class is being fleeced left and right. More families will be homeless and more people will be jobless. They’ll need something to listen to on their iPods while storming Wall Street.” Clearly, their publicist didn’t notice the contradiction in that collective statement about their music, making it simply ironic.

Party jams for people storming Wall Street? Nonsense — The Ghetto Blaster EP is more like party jams for frat boys storming the quad. SSSC is a far-flung departure from the original intent of Rage Against The Machine’s formidable and intelligently crafted lyrical onslaught by Zack de la Rocha, yet the attempt to tap the same demographic is evident. Listeners will find similar sounds, but won’t find the content and passion that made Rage great before the jocks got a hold of it. This time SSSC is aiming right for them. By Peter Viele

I’m In You does I‘m In You, 2010: how do you begin to summarize this collective of buffoonish savants touting a self-titled debut album? With a name like I’m In You, one expects metal or crass punk — staying up all night in your mom’s basement drinking Mountain Dew. Yet imagination almost ruins the cake. Surprise! I’m In You is only off of their game for one-seventh of this album. For the other six songs, this Brooklyn-based band shapes rhythmic undulations with savvy shifts in tempo and chirping teenage girls. Album opener “Heart Explorer” shoves a hit of something softly upbeat down your throat before giving way to melodic intonations. Like the flight of a precious bumblebee, there’s a rhythm to the spastic tempo of I’m In You.

A pyramid link of pulsating throbs chaperones your soft spots, whilst illuminating belly tickles whispering the password… Go go go... Fill me up, I’m empty again. Let’s move on. “I expand like a snake ’til there’s nothing inside me but air.” Ahhh, this is a contemplative piece… wait, what was that? The lyrical endeavors of I’m In You reach for words and phrases that sound pretty edgy off the tongue, but give them a rewind and you’ll find they make, well, little sense. Like that token friend who loves to talk without regard for effective communication or enlightening conversation, so long as the words coming out have three-plus syllables and are plucked for everyday use only after thumbing through a thesaurus.

Good intentions. This album is like a deep-sea creature that I want to love but is too slimy and carries a bit of a staunch persona. The collective weight of I’m In You could be 220 pounds, since the group sounds like a gathering of tall, gaunt Russian boys grasping in the dark. And Russia is quite hot right now I hear. By Will Tunstall