I recently saw an old friend who’s pushing 30. He was rocking a Street Dogs shirt, so I asked if he had heard their new album yet. He looked at me like I was an idiot and replied, “I was waiting in line for that shit the night before it came out!” That statement right there exemplifies why punk rock continues to thrive at the grassroots level in our electro-obsessed 21st century, even as the genre has all but disappeared from mainstream popularity. But bands like Street Dogs, which is fronted by former Dropkick Murphy singer/ Gulf War veteran Mike McColgan, represent the gritty tip of the OG punk spear, all shouted sing-a-long choruses and working-class jams.

Opening single “Rattle And Roll” meshes McColgan’s Irish-punk roots with Street Dogs’ blistering speed, as the two-minute burner segues seamlessly into the blue-collar anthem “Up The Union.” Screeds like this that attack unchecked capitalism and Wall Street greed are popular enough right now, but the beauty of Street Dogs comes in their ability to bludgeon those fat cats while also celebrating the illustrious history of the working man. From there, Street Dogs hurtles through a handful of positivist blitzkriegs: the punk-never-dies barnburner “Punk Rock And Roll,” the equality-minded “The Shape Of Other Men,” and the media-skewering “Too Much Info” among others.

There are stumbles on Street Dogs, like the boilerplate reminisce of “Yesterday” and the standard issue “In Stereo.” But woozy Celtic party jams like “Bobby Powers” and “Harpo,” along with jagged hints of rockabilly on “Ghosts” and acoustic country on “10 Wood Rd.,” dredge up Street Dogs’ old-school cred in an instant. Street Dogs does blend together, with 18 songs barely totaling 40 minutes, but the frantic power running through the album is irresistible to true punk heads and young eager fans alike. Bonus: Street Dogs are currently opening for Sick Of It All on select East Coast dates. Now that’s an old-school match made in heaven. By Nick McGregor

Exile is a DJ from Los Angeles who specializes in breakbeat and hip-hop style electronica with a bit of chill and jazzy undertones. His real name is Aleksander Manfrediis, and as a white boy who grew up in the projects, he was exposed to hip-hop at an early age. He’s successfully produced hits for the likes of Mobb Deep, Jurassic 5, Snoop Dog, and Akon, and with DJs worth about a dime a dozen these days, it’s good to see someone with a little more history and scope to his work, along with the musical chops to back up the buttons being mashed. Exile takes on the moniker Exile Radio for this cornucopia of remixes strung together as the very full-length album AM/FM, which features a wide enough range of beats to get any party started.

AM/FM is crafted as somewhat of a concept album, with intravenous samplings of radio dials tuning in through scratchy dissonant voices linking each track to the next. And all of the tracks are remixes of just a few of Exile’s original songs. Artists invited to work their own magic on the songs include Take, Free The Robots, Samiyam, and Mike Gao to name a few. Some of the tracks also feature the lyrical stylings of aDaD, Blu, J. Mitchell, Co$$, and more. AM/FM primarily has a hip-hop feel to it, and each remix has enough of singularity to not sound too repetitive.

If you’re a fan of Guru’s Jazzmatazz series or Stones Throw Records-style work in the vein of DOOM, Madlib, and J Dilla, along with the current remix revolution of electro music, then you’ll definitely dig Exile Radio’s AM/FM. By Peter Viele

Listen to Cloudland Canyon when you are canoeing through a very soft jovial splutter of a creek, not while you’re barreling down some torrid chill-bitch rapid ravine drinking a cooler full of energy drinks. If the music industry was represented by an ecosystem — let’s say the ecosystem of a temperate tundra climate for reference — where grizzly bears and falcons were the punks and the amphetamine outlaws of country, or where the groundhog, mouse, and tortoise were the bland rock middleman, the determined emo kid, and the attractive but not-so-talented singer/songwriter, then you could respectively place Cloudland Canyon somewhere far removed from this system all together.

Instead, the band would probably be a goose or something just milling around by the pond with no real problems and a tendency to get pissed only if you insist. Fin Eaves coincidently sounds like an ecosystem (think “Grrrrrrrrrrrrrm”), and that can make for a quick sleep. And onomatopoeia like that is actually a good way to describe Fin Eaves — it’s not a great noise to make, but not necessarily a bad one either. A good ecosystem growl is nice every once in a while when you’re dozing off or full of pie, but when you want to party or cheer out of a slump then it’s the last thing you want to here from someone around you. Like so much neo-folk music, the environment in which you listen to Cloudland Canyon will best determine how much joy you derive from it. By Will Tunstall

Film School has been floating around since the 1990s. Why then, you might ask, have you never heard of them? Mediocrity would be the correct response. For those few who are familiar with Film School’s music, the reoccurring assessment is that the band lacks the unnamable something to push them over the edge into headliner-level popularity. On Fission, the band’s fourth album, Film School makes a concerted push toward mass appeal, propelled by bass player/backup vocalist Lorelei Plotczyck’s more active role.

Frontman/founder Greg Bertens is Film School’s guiding hand. Like a Catholic school nun armed with a ruler, Bertens raps the knuckles of his bandmates when they fall out of line — Bertens’ line, that is. Bertens’ control issues led to the essential death of Film School, only to be resurrected shortly afterward with a new lineup. In Plotczyck, Bertens found a beacon of creativity willing to work within the bonds of Bertensville. And on Fission, Plotczyck takes the co-lead. Album highlight “When I’m Yours” marches forward to the constant pumping drone of her bass. And her ethereal voice on the happy-go-lucky “Sunny Day” almost convinces listeners that this happy track fits amongst the other eleven angst-filled tunes. Album opener “Heart Full Of Pentagons” finds Bertens and Plotczyck audibly collaborating, creating a beautiful song that will surely leave you thinking you just heard Matt And Kim. Bertens’ soft-sad crone snuggly embraces Plotczyck’s vocal melodies like Tim Tams and coffee. “Waited” is a full-blown indie duet, with our noble duo exchanging lines like a couple in a hipster romantic comedy. “You just keep me waiting,” the two sing at each other with thinly veiled sexual tension. The song’s chorus has the same electro-punk craziness as Teenagers In Tokyo staple “Very Vampyr.”

Despite Film School’s revised sound, the band will probably remain the show-opener. Even with Plotczyck’s contributions, Film School sounds too much like too many other bands. Fission’s standout track, “When I’m Yours,” catchy as it may be, sounds like a cut from Silversun Pickups. Now that Bertens has found a musical partner, he needs to open his mind and approach songs with fresh creativity. A band this old only has but so much time left before being doomed to forever be the bridesmaid and never the bride. By Alex Lemonde-Gray