Oakland, CA’s, Grand Lake ambitiously strive for greatness on their record Blood Sea Dream, which is woven with deep lyrical content, jangly guitar, haunting piano, and even a string section to form a beautifully chaotic yet relatable sound. Amidst the troubling subject matter, the band’s music stirs with an Arcade Fire-esque urgency. Yet it also ranges stylistically as they subscribe to the loud/ quiet/ loud approach of Pixies. Blood Sea Dream is replete for some very strange reason with equine references, including a horse head dressed in a collared shirt for the cover’s art, but there is no solvency as to why. Their enigmatic musings about horses and personal problems makes for great music nonetheless.

“Spark” is a jamming little number that builds and crescendos in fine indie form, while “Our Divorce” swaggers melancholically in a bluesy roots rock fashion and “Oedipus Hex (Hwy 1 North)” reminisces the guitar work of Frank Black. “Riderless Horse,” on the other hand, is more like a spoken-word poem, overshadowing the music as the guitar and orchestral work simply provide a backup.

Grand Lake have a sublime grandiosity, and if you like your music to have darker undertones and complexities a la Future Islands, or the schizophrenia of bands like Q and Not U, or, even still, the folkie/ indie orchestral workings of Local Natives, then you should find something enjoyable in their music. Even more impressive is the broad range of diversity and the fact that Blood Sea Dream is the band’s debut album, proving Grand Lake are more than just an understudy to Arcade Fire like so many of their contemporaries. By Peter Viele

Grass Widow have spent their time laying down fortification and foundation for the onslaught of flowing vocals and more-than-adequate instrumentals that characterize the presence of this all-female San Francisco band. Ramparts are the jam. The name of the band derives, in one of many ways, from a 17th-century term describing women whose husbands are out to sea. And some other derivations that aren’t so clearly defined.

Grass Widow taps their lyrical content into the self-reflection and completing self-necessities a woman must have felt in this lonely position. This is a wonderful concept for a name and stage presence, one where the woman is characterized as the object, returning no emotion and staring blankly above the audience. We have all seen this female musician who shudders into the shadows at the notion of a stage persona. On the polar opposite is the female ringleader leading the crowd into spastic frenzies and winding knee-drops as she screams to the gods — think Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Deerhoof, Peaches, or Madonna.

With all-female groups, it can become a struggling dynamic with restricting roles like the stern bassist, violin beauty, or coy drummer. Grass Widow don't play that. They just crush all norms associated with “girl rock” and opt instead to manifest the sound of a band founded on ritual ramparts as strong as any religious literary guide or individual work ethic of a singular pop icon. I hope the devotion personified in Past Times doesn't lead our Grass Widow into the career-ending arms of a Tokyo heart attack.

Past Times sounds like a martyr's inner sanctum of self-introspection. There is solitude and outrage coupled with a nice dose of calm. You could match this group alongside the chronicled literati from which they've derived a path, or, at the very least, allow them to develop a doctorate program in Applied Feminist Theory for a Contemporary Musician and just see how it plays out. Best guess? Let’s say they become the first of their kind to play a show where every member of the band looks the crowd in the eyes, or better yet does whatever they please without regret. By Will Tunstall

Break out the grotesque skeleton posters, all-black clothing, and Flying V guitars, because it’s time to get head-banging with Hellsent’s death-metal epic of the year! Wait a minute… you mean Hellsent isn’t some Satan-worshipping hard rock band? No throat-stretching vocal growls and triple-guitar shred solos? No long curly hair and tight leather pants? Nope — how about one of the grimiest, hardest-hitting hip-hop records in years, come along to instead decimate boom-box speakers and destroy conventional economic theory?

Yes, Hellsent is actually a Southside Chicago native out to call complete bullshit on the corporate rap game — and not in a nice, clean positive way. False Profit is the MC’s second album, and it positively quakes with Marxist anger, especially on the throbbing sonar blast of a title track, the Mobb Deep-reminiscent “Sun God,” and the brutally honest mission statement “Backstab.” A brief moment of reflective brevity appears on “Insanity,” which charts Hellsent’s tough hip-hop journey, but even there, producer Max’s classic-rock chorus laments the fact that rap has “Kicked the right ones out/ And let the wrong ones in.”

“Number 9” has an intimidating swagger and slow delivery that does recall the Dirty South contemporaries Hellsent should hate, while “The Water Dragon’s” buzzing instrumentals almost sound club-ready. But the eerie flute sample and jazzy beat of “For The City” quickly erases those hiccups, and “Radio Inactivity’s” vicious attacks make the mainstream seem downright toxic. At the end of the day, tracks like “Silver Dollar,” all bleeping synth beats, old-school scratches, and ferocious broadsides against the unseen evils of capitalism, find Hellsent at his strongest. God help the materialistic MC that comes up against this Chicago firebrand in a freestyle battle, because this is one underground rapper who could make the big boys wet their pants and rethink their “get money” gospel. By Nick McGregor

Frustration. That word encompasses my feelings about critiquing There Will Be No Miracles Here by Frontier(s). The album title blatantly informs potential listeners that this album is not innovative. It sonically has nothing new to offer, like the 500th sandspur you’ve stepped on. The dull pain doesn’t elicit any emotion other than frustration. Then there’s the band name, Frontier(s). A name like that could only be lived up to if you learned how to perform mind-bending guitar solos while using your penis as a pick. Thus, we have a conflict of titles. One suggests mediocrity, the other, face-melting ingenuity.

Frontier(s) is the latest project from ex-Elliot frontman Chris Higdon. Now Elliot is considered the father of the emo rock genre… well, the father who doesn’t want anything to do with his whiny, feminine son. Despite Higdon’s unwillingness to own up to his role in creating one of the crappiest subgenres of rock in history, he seems happy to reproduce that old Elliot sound with his new band. In case you’re wondering what a band dangling over the precipice of emo sounds like, think Relationship Of Command by At The Drive-In, then take out Omar’s inspirational axe-slinging, Cedric’s incomprehensible screamed soliloquies, and generally the band’s badass-ness. You now have Frontier(s).

“Von Veneer” and “Bones” are There Will Be No Miracles Here’s standout tracks. Both offer the listener catchier riffs and shout-tastic choruses, but continue to lack any sort of actual spark. In the end, Frontier(s) does its brand of music well. But why would anyone in the year 2010 get anything out of Frontier(s)’ brand of rock? By Alex Lemonde-Gray