We say goodbye to May with a pretty jam-packed edition of Indie Basement. We’ve got new albums from Beak> (surprise!), King Hannah, Richard Hawley, +/- {Plus/Minus}, former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, Crowded House, and Habibi plus a new box set edition of Sloan‘s debut album, Smeared.

Over in Notable Releases, Andrew reviews a few things that could’ve ended up here, including the first album from Idaho in 13 years, plus the latest from Arooj Aftab, Bat For Lashes and more.

Speaking of Beak>, I interviewed all them (Geoff Barrow, Billy Fuller and Will Young) about the new album, the lack of good basslines today, and lots more.

Head below for this week.

ALBUM OF THE WEEK #1: Beak> – >>>> (Invada / Temporary Residence Ltd)
Geoff Barrow, Billy Fuller and Will Young drop their Beakiest record yet, an awesome, groovy, mind-melting trip. If you’re into that sort of thing

Beak>, the trio of drummer Geoff Barrow (Portishead), bassist Billy Fuller (Robert Plant’s Sensational Space Shifters) and keyboardist/guitarist Will Young (Moon Gangs), surprised most of us on Tuesday by dropping their fourth album entirely unannounced. That’s a treat in itself, but >>>> is easily the group’s best record yet which A) plays great as a seamless album experience, yet B) has plenty of standout cuts, and C) sports what will surely be my Album Cover of the Year when December comes. (That’s Barrow’s dog and band mascot Alfie, who passed on during the making of the album. RIP, Alf.) This trio have had a very distinctive style since day one — a murky, rhythmic mix from a wide variety of ’70s head music — but they have never sounded more in the zone than here. While the group wouldn’t be Beak> without Barrow’s drumming and vocals, and Young’s woozy synths and arpeggiated guitar-work, it’s Fuller’s amazing bass lines that lift this one to the top of the heap. There’s a fungal, peat moss vibe to what they do (Fuller says Beak> sound like “we were coming out of the ground”) that carries across the variety of sounds found on >>>>, be it folk (“Hungry Are We”), Can-style grooves (“The Seal,” “Ah Yeh”), doomy prog (“Windmill Hill”) or claustrophobic synthwave (“Secrets”). Then there’s awesome closer “Cellophane” that starts off as a bad trip and ends in near-metal acid rock freakout. What they do is not for everyone, but if your brain is wired this way, put on some good headphones and get ready for Beak> to crack your egg.

For more on the album and other subjects (Portishead, Steve Albini, more), read our interview with Barrow, Fuller and Young.

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ALBUM OF THE WEEK #2: King Hannah – Big Swimmer (City Slang)
Hannah Merrick and Craig Whittle have made a different kind of King Hannah record this time, but that’s not a bad thing

If you were a fan of Liverpool duo King Hannah’s previous two records, you might be confused when you first hit play or double check to make sure you didn’t put on some other album by mistake. The atmospheric production heard on I’m Not Sorry, I Was Just Being Me and Tell Me Your Mind and I’ll Tell You Mine is nowhere to be heard, at least on Big Swimmer’s first minute; instead we hear Hannah Merrick’s crystal clear voice, effects-free and close to the mic, whispering in your ear alongside a gently strummed acoustic guitar. It is beautiful but may not be what you were expecting. King Hannah head into more familiar territory as the song, Big Swimmer‘s title track, progresses and Craig Whittle’s purposefully ragged guitar playing comes in, but it’s still unlike anything they’ve done before, and that’s not even taking into account the harmony vocals by Sharon Van Etten. But it also highlights King Hannah’s real strength: Merrick’s songs and voice.

Seriously, what a voice. Having given us plenty of “smoky” and “sultry” previously, Big Swimmer makes it clear she doesn’t need gallons of reverb to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand at attention. Merrick’s voice is so clear — there are points here she could pass for Karen Carpenter — as she sings about not giving up despite insurmountable odds and an uncertain tomorrow. “Do you carry on swimming or / Do you jump out and grab your towel?” Hannah’s choice is clear as she and Craig dive into uncharted waters.

Putting “Big Swimmer” at the start of the album was a smart move, as the rest of the songs are definitely more the King Hannah we knew before — even if it’s all more direct, and less reliant on atmosphere. Even on the bluesy “The Mattress,” with its loping trip-hoppy beat and smoldering solos, Merrick’s voice feels more at the center than ever. This batch of songs are more varied too, including a few talky, vignettes set in US cities: the breezy but feedback-laden “New York, Let’s Do Nothing,” the menacing Philly-set “Milk Boy [I Love You]”), and the dreamlike “Somewhere Near El Paso” that grows into a guitar maelstrom. All three play like the thoughtful, well-observed journal entries of profane and banal tour anecdotes that they are. Most of Big Swimmer was inspired by what Merrick saw touring the world in 2022.

Big Swimmer‘s most memorable moments come near the end of the album. “Davey Says” is a nostalgic ode to the ’90s and the closest King Hannah have come to a pop yet (in a ’90s garage rock way), and Sharon Van Etten shows up again on the album’s smokiest moment, the slow waltz “This Wasn’t Intentional” (which is a response to Paul Mescal film Aftersun). The album finishes on an intimate high, “John Prine on the Radio,” a warm celebration of low key Sundays at home, with Merrick and Whittle harmonizing these sweet lines: “The chicken’s been in the oven now since quarter to five / I hope it hasn’t dried out, I hope I haven’t ruined your night / But John Prine on the radio makes me feel alright.” King Hannah and Big Swimmer have much the same effect.

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Richard Hawley – In This City They Call You Love (BMG)
Another gorgeous album of classic early rock n’ roll balladry from Sheffield’s finest guitarist/crooners

“I’ve made three albums where I had the title before I’d even begun to record, where I had an agenda,” Richard Hawley says of his ninth album. “One was Truelove’s Gutter. Another was Standing At The Sky’s Edge when I wanted to turn everything up and make the music a lot more aggressive, and then this one.” Hawley adds he wanted this one “to be multi-coloured in a way…focusing on the voice and what voices can do together. I deliberately only played a handful of guitar solos to keep it focused on voices, the song and space.”

That said, In This City They Call You Love is Richard Hawley doing what he does best and what he does better than almost anyone else currently in a well-traveled genre: vintage-style early rock n’ roll, heavy on the balladry, with just a little country and a whole lot of croon. The titular “This Town” is, of course, Sheffield, the UK industrial city where Hawley was born, raised and still lives and is a constant source of inspiration. (He turned many of his songs into the Sheffield-set musical, Standing at The Sky’s Edge.) He writes the kind of technicolor romantic songs, steeped in strings and vibrato guitar and featuring titles like “Here That Lonesome Whistle Blow” and “Tis Night” that are perfect for his well-worn baritone. There may be less solos, but his guitarwork remains as exquisite as does every other element on this album. Hawley is pure class, and In This City They Call You Love is another wonderful addition to his catalogue and his home town.

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Sloan – Smeared Deluxe Box Set (Murderecords)
Underwhelmed? No way! Sloan’s box set reissue of their 1992 debut album is fantastic.

When Canadian alt-rock greats Sloan started releasing deluxe edition box sets of their albums, they skipped their debut album and went straight to 1994’s Twice Removed, a record that was a flop at the time but is now regarded as one of the best Canadian albums of the ’90s. They then went chronologically, with boxes for 1996’s One Chord to Another and 1998’s Navy Blues. I knew their debut, Smeared, was not their favorite and assumed 1999’s Between the Bridges would be next but, surprise, here we are with a Smeared box set which they announced this week and was available to buy immediately.

“I had a dismissive attitude toward this album for years,” says bassist Chris Murphy. “After we made Twice Removed and One Chord to Another, Smeared seemed like it was already late to the grunge/shoegaze party. Bands were still trying to keep this party going (if you follow my metaphor) and in 1993 I feel like was already time to go home… from the party. Am I overexplaining this? Perhaps I am. Looking back, I am much more fond of the record. It was a miracle that this got made in a guy’s (Terry Pulliam’s) bedroom in Halifax and was remixed by a guy (Dave Ogilvie) at a studio in LA. These Smeared years 1991-1993 were the most exciting years of my life.”

Born out of the early-’90s Halifax indie scene, Sloan shocked their contemporaries by signing with major label DGC where their smart, shoegazy brand of alt-rock fit right in on the label’s roster that also included Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Hole, Weezer, and Teenage Fanclub. Made for a mere $1100 (Canadian) and given extra oomph in its mix by Skinny Puppy’s Dave Ogilvie, Smeared is extremely 1992 and it might as well have that year stamped on the cover in that scribbly font that MTV used at the time. As locked to the era as it may be, the songs hold up very well. It opens with one of Sloan’s signature songs, Chris Murphy’s “Underwhelmed” which might be the best song about grammar not to be made for Saturday morning kids TV, and keeps the hit rate high with gauzy, grungy rippers like “I Am the Cancer” (another Murphy earworm), drummer Andrew Scott’s “500 Up,” and guitarist Patrick Pentland’s “Sugartune.”

This box set is in some ways the most interesting of the four Sloan have released, as it doubles as an origin story, covering the band’s formation and everything leading up to Smeared. The album of demos and outtakes includes songs going back to 1990 that already hint at the band’s ’60s pop inclinations that would bloom on their next two records. There’s also a live album, recorded at McGill University in Montreal in June of 1993, that features lots of songs that would end up on Twice Removed. There’s also a 7″ featuring two live songs recorded at The Grawood, Dalhousie in 1992 including an early, grungy version of “Autobiography” (which would appear on One Chord to Another in very different form; there’s actually been a version of “Autobiography” on every Sloan box set so far) and “Easily Fooled,” which none of the band remembers ever playing, including Pentland who wrote and sings it. There’s also a 44-page book with an oral history of the time along with rare photos and memorabilia. Sloan put a lot of love into these box sets.

Along with the Smeared box, Sloan also reissued their debut EP, Peppermint, which was released on their own Murderecords in 1992 and makes its vinyl debut here. You can grab the EP and Smeared box set from Sloan’s store.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XathlGp_ZvQ

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+/- {Plus/Minus} – Further Afield (Ernest Jennings Record Co)
First record in 10 years from these NYC indie rock vets is a real corker!

NYC indie rock vets +/- {Plus/Minus} have been together since 2001 and James Baluyut has another decade on top of that with Versus, but on their first album in 10 years they sound like a band of 20-somethings, full of youthful spark and wild creativity. Take opening song “Borrowed Time,” a song that is actually about getting older but is the kind of hyper-jangle indie rock that could’ve been out on their old label Teenbeat Records in 1995.  The rest of Further Afield is just as memorable: the “ooooh”-filled  “Gondolier” is laid-back and very dreamy; “Driving Aimlessly” leans toward danceable synthpop; “Calling Off the Rescue” could almost be the Moody Blues (not a criticism); and “The Pull from Both Sides” flies on gossamer wings of shoegazey guitars and glitchy electronics. Some of the pep in their step comes via drummer Chris Deaner, who is one of the best to do it (and played for Kelly Clarkson in the mid-’00s), but everyone here sounds energized and at the top of their game. Bands who are trying to come back after a decade — this is how you do it.

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Crowded House – Gravity Stairs (Lester Records)
Nearly 40 years since their debut Neil Finn and co are still making timeless, magical pop

New Zealand pop royalty Crowded House returned after more than a decade in 2021 with Dreamers Are Waiting, an album which showed they still had the stuff, as founding members Neil Finn and Nick Seymour welcomed Neil’s kids Elroy and Liam and longtime collaborator/producer Mitchell Froom officially into the fold. In the three years since, with a few tours now under their belts, Crowded House are back and really, really sounding like themselves on Gravity Stairs. “Teenage Summer” has that signature mix of acoustic and electric guitars, winning melody. and a big, grab-you-by-the-shoulders chorus that is instantly, undeniably Crowded House. It might be their best song since the ’90s and there are more where that came from: “The Howl,” “Oh Hi,” “Black Water, White Circle” and “Blurry Grass” are all memorable and terrific and infused with their kiwi je ne sais quoi. While he gets some help on songs from Liam and Elroy, as well as his brother and former bandmate Tim Finn, the lion’s share of these earworms are credited to Neil alone who, at 66, has not lost one ounce of his magic touch. Gravity Stairs is as inspiring as it is a pleasure to listen to.

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Bernard Butler – Good Grief (355 Recordings)
Former Suede guitarist releases his first solo album in 25 years

Bernard Butler is best known as a an ace collaborator, whether it was with Brett Anderson in Suede and The Tears, the two LPs he made with David McAlmont, or his recent album with Jessie Buckley. He’s no slouch on his own, though, it’s just that he hasn’t done it in a while. Twenty-five years to be exact. “For a good while, I was scarred, and I was scared,” Butler says of what led him to his second-ever solo album. “I was happily distracted and joyously involved with so much music. I realized just being there was more than I had ever hoped for. I gave a lot to other people but realized that my story was defined by what I was, rather than what I am. I set myself a modest commercial goal, an expectant creative one: Perform to 10 people without being bottled, then find 11 the next night. Thus began the undoing of my own embarrassment. I would write as I thought and sing as I wrote until the bottles fly. And so the songs arrived.” Butler’s voice has deepened since 1999′ s Friends and Lovers which actually works to his benefit, bringing some husky gravitas to these windswept, orchestral rock songs that largely eschew guitar heroics. (One of them, “Pretty D,” is at least partly about Brett Anderson.) Don’t wait so long for the next one!

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Buffalo Tom – Jump Rope (Scrawny Records)
Subdued album of campfire Americana from these Boston alt-rock vets

Once given the nicknames Dinosaur Jr Jr thanks to a similar love of raging guitars, being located in the New England area and having J Mascis produce their first two albums, Buffalo Tom aren’t really known for making a lot of noise these days. “Most of this new Buffalo Tom album Jump Rope was written during the pandemic years,” singer/guitarist Bill Janovitz told us. “Chris [Colbourn, bass] and I would send out songs we had written and, as usual, they were recorded mostly with acoustic guitars. When we were finally safe to be back in a rehearsal room together, we had decided to work on the songs with a quiet and acoustic foundation, with the intention of making a record that more or less stayed in that vibe.” On Jump Rope, their 10th album (and first in six years), they let that campfire Americana that has always been part of their sound come to the fore. What the record may lack in raging guitar heroics, Janovitz and Colbourn make up for with solid memorable songs and 30 years of playing together. “As with most things in Buffalo Tom,” Janovitz adds, “we have a chemistry and a natural sound that emerges no matter how we try to manipulate it.”

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Habibi – Dreamachine (Kill Rock Stars)
Now based in Los Angeles, Habibi inject disco into their garage rock sound

“There’s always a desire for transcendence in our music,” says Habibi cofounder Rahill Jamalifard on the band’s first album in four years and first for Kill Rock Stars. “A desire to go beyond our limitations. Whether it’s spiritual or physical or emotional, it feels like this album really embodies that search for something more.” Made with producer Tyler Love and longtime collaborator Jay Heiselmann, Dreamachine is definitely new territory for the band which once called NYC home but are now based in L.A. The late-’00s girl group garage rock vibes are still present, but a funkier sound rides overtop. It’s not that far off from what Rahil did on her terrific solo album from last year, with a disco rhythm section powering many of these songs, alongside the gleam of Bowie’s Berlin era as a finishing coat of paint. It’s a sleek retrofit that works both with Habibi’s new West Coast digs and their established sound.

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Indie Basement: 20 Favorite Albums of the Year 2000 (Alphabetical Order)

The Aislers Set – The Last Match (Slumberland)

Maybe the greatest Slumberland Records band ever, and certainly one of the most underrated American bands of the millenium era, San Francisco's The Aislers Set sounded like a head-on collision between an Austin-Healey carrying members of Belle & Sebastian, The Pastels and The Jesus & Mary Chain, and a 1965 Volkswagen Beetle driven by Phil Spector with Roger McGuinn and Brian Wilson in the back seat. Don't worry, no one was hurt, everyone became friends and formed a band. In actuality, The Aislers set were led by Amy Linton, who had been in the noisier Henry's Dress in the mid-'90s and who wrote wonderful shambolic mid-fi pop that mixed reverb-y guitar squalls with spun sugar. The Last Match was their peak, featuring one memorable song after another and timeless, charmingly messy production.

Badly Drawn Boy – The Hour of the Bewilderbeast (Twisted Nerve / XL)

Are there too many songs on this, Badly Drawn Boy's debut album? Does Damon Gough, who is BDM for all intents and purposes, throw in two too many ideas into some songs? Does it seem like he's sabotaging himself on purpose occasionally? Is The Hour of the Bewilderbeast a wonderful, inventive psych-folk-pop record despite all those things? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Winner of the 2000 Mercury Prize, it remains Badly Drawn Boy's overstuffed crowning achievement.

Bertrand Burgalat – The Sssound Of Mmmusic (Tricatel)

By the end of the '90s, people may have been burnt out on on the whole '60s lounge thing and figured one retro-future French band was enough, but thankfully that never stopped the brilliant Bertrand Burgalat who straddled the line between lush bachelor pad nostalgia and the French Touch disco scene that was pushing things forward at the turn of the century. His debut album, The Sssound Of Mmmusic, is a fully realized sonic world; groovy and glitchy, playful and inviting, endlessly delightful.

Black Box Recorder – The Facts Of Life (Nude/Jetset)

After years playing in indie guitar bands The Servants and The Auteurs, Luke Haines hooked up with former Jesus & Mary Chain bassist John Moore and vocalist Sarah Nixey to make severely subversive synthpop as Black Box Recorder. Their music was so sleek, many listeners didn't really how messed up the lyrics were. Which was the point. On their gleefully twisted second album, The Facts of Life, they actually made it into the UK charts, with the slinky title track reaching #20 on the singles chart. That song had Nixey cooing relationship advice, like suggesting places teenage couples could get time alone such as "a disused coal mine." That's just one of the 11 delicious but deadly poison pop pills in this bottle.

Blonde Redhead – Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons (Touch and Go)

Let's hear it for Blonde Redhead, one of New York's great bands who were around for most of the '90s when there were not very many good bands in NYC. Made up of singer/guitarist Kazu Makino and identical twins Amedeo (guitar) and Simone Pace (drums), the trio's early records were closer to Sonic Youth, but by the late '90s a much wider range of sounds were incorporated into their sonic palette, including electronics, baroque film scores, classical music and shoegazy pop. Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons, certainly one of the greatest album titles of all time, was their second time working with Fugazi's Guy Picciotto as producer and where their sound really blossomed. There were still wild screamers like "Mother," but the stunning "In Particular," "This is Not" and "For the Damaged Coda" point to where they'd go on Misery is a Butterfly and 23.

Broadcast – The Noise Made by People (Warp)

After a number of EPs and an appearance on the Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery soundtrack, Broadcast released their full length debut, 2000's best album bar none as far as this writer is concerned. Utterly bewitching, The Noise Made People still sounds like pop transmitted from another dimension, detached from time and space. Every detail is considered, from the eerie synthesizers (part sci-fi, part Italian horror film), to the snap of the snare, the ambient sounds of electricity that hum lowly in most songs, and the artwork that seems to have been made from old computer punchcards. Trish Keenan's beguiling, mysterious voice seals the deal on perfect songs like "Echo's Answer" and "Come on Let's Go."

Cinerama – Disco Volante (Scopitones)

David Gedge put his cultishly loved indie band The Wedding Present on hold in the late '90s and started Cinerama with his then girlfriend, Sally Murrell. Their first album sounded like TWP gone acoustic with synths, but Gedge figured out Cinerama's raison d'être on 2000's Disco Volante: fierce indie rock by way of swinging '60s spy movies, complete with strings, flutes and marimba. Keeping his lyrical M.O. -- love, lust, jealousy and heartbreak -- Gedge reinvented his style, and made trad indie guitars kinda sexy; Disco Volante ties with The Wedding Present's Seamonsters (both were made with Steve Albini) for best record of his career.

The Clientele – Suburban Light (Pointy / Merge)

UK indie trio The Clientele have always been a rainy day kind of band, romanticizing British inclement weather in many songs and through their general air of wistful melodies, brushed drums and frontman Alasdair Maclean's hushed vocals and delicately plucked guitars. The forecast called for weeks of damp weather on The Clientele's magical debut album, Suburban Light, that includes two songs with "rain" in the title and sounds like it was recorded in a cloud, or at least the London fog, with dense layers of reverb surrounding everything. It just adds to the wonderful, wistful atmosphere and you can't help but be swept up in the mise-en-scene of "Reflections After Jane," "We Could Walk Together," "An Hour Before the Light" and, yes, "Rain." Dress accordingly.

Clinic – Internal Wrangler (Domino)

Having released numerous singles and EPs through the late-'90s, Liverpool's Clinic had it all figured out by the time of their debut album, from their look (ahead-of-their-time surgical masks and scrubs), to their sinister sound that combined dubby postpunk, sleazy garage rock, analog synthesizers and motorik krautrock rhythms with Ade Blackburn's acid-dipped vocals. Dark as it was, Internal Wrangler was also kind of a party record, with the throbbing "The Second Line," "TK" (which cribs melody from "Ring of Fire"), and the melodica-soaked "The Return of Evil Bill" -- all surefire dancefloor fillers at any party full of nervous, paranoid people who haven't slept in a week.

The Delgados – The Great Eastern (Beggars Banquet)

Led by singer/guitarists Alun Woodward and Emma Pollock, Scottish band The Delgados were one of the best bands of the 1995-2005 era, making magisterial indie rock that felt both immense and entirely homespun. Their third album, The Great Eastern, is wildly ambitious both in song structure and in arrangements -- songs were prone to left turns of tempo and time signature, and grand orchestration. No doubt influenced by Mercury Rev's Deserter's Songs and The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin (both of which were, like The Great Eastern, produced by Dave Fridmann), songs like "Accused of Stealing," "American Trilogy" and "No Danger" remain perfect indie rock symphonies The Delgados feel a little lost to the era, for whatever reason, but The Great Eastern still wows.

The Fall – The Unutterable (Eagle Records)

Following a weird/bad mid-'90s that saw The Fall reuniting with former guitarist Brix Smith briefly and Mark E Smith blowing up what remained of the classic lineup on-stage in NYC, MES recovered with an almost entirely new lineup of the band and some of their best records in years. The peak of that period is The Unutterable, which has Smith in fine cantankerous form (the most together he'd sounded in years) and the group adding current electronic sounds to their garage/rockabilly/krautrock M.O. There are no shortage of classics here -- "Cyber Insekt," "Two Librans," "Octo Realm / Ketamine Sun" -- but the album's worth the purchase for "Dr. Buck's Letter" alone, where MES reads an apparent actual, unintentionally hilarious, letter from an actual Dr. Buck over a killer, dubby groove.

The Go-Betweens – The Friends of Rachel Worth (Jetset)

Australia's Go-Betweens called it quits in 1989 but bandleaders Robert Forster and Grant McLennan remained close friends, at one point attempting to write screenplays together. That never panned out but Forster and Mclennan reunited in the late '90s for one of the best second acts any indie band has ever had. Made in Portland with Quasi (Janet Weiss & Sam Coomes) in the backing band and the rest of Sleater-Kinney on a track too, The Friends of Rachel Worth almost feels as if both songwriters had been saving up some of their best material in hopes of a reconciliation, here delivering some of their most sublime songs, like McLennan's "Going Blind" and Forster's "Surfing Magazines." The understated production, free of any attempt to get them "in the charts," makes this their best-ever sounding album. I would argue you could take the word "sounding" out of that last sentence, too.

Goldfrapp – Felt Mountain (Mute)

Having sung on records in the '90s by Orbital, Tricky, Plaid and Add N to X, Alison Goldfrapp jumped into the spotlight with Felt Mountain, the debut album from her namesake collaboration with Will Gregory. Drawing from sweeping '60s soundtracks and the downtempo scene she'd been involved with for the previous decade, nothing else sounded quite like it (though Broadcast and Blonde Redhead were clearly from the same galaxy). The album opens with the gorgeously unreal "Lovely Head," Goldfrapp's debut single, that plays like an acid-trip Bond theme featuring whistling, harpsichord, freaky electronics, and spine-tinglingly processed vocals that sound like... an ostrich singing opera? It's an unforgettable start to an record still bewitches and surprises today.

Grandaddy – The Sophtware Slump (V2)

Grandaddy really figured out their sound and worldview with their fantastic second album, featuring frontman Jason Lytle's absurdist tales of mundanity and stress in our increasingly tech-reliant world, set to a blend of '90s indie rock, glammy synthphonic flourishes (Flaming Lips/Mercury Rev's influence loomed large in 2000), and twangy country. The concept album imagines a world full of alcoholic robots, sad computer programmers, lost pilots, stuntman Evil Knevil, and forests made of discarded appliances that Lytle makes relatable with his empathetic style and a hard drive full of earworm spacerock pop...somehow it all sounds even more relevant now than it did in Y2K.

The New Pornographers – Mass Romantic (Mint)

They may be the Carl Newman Show these days, but The New Pornographers started off as a true collaborative supergroup, with Newman (previously of Zumpano), Destroyer's Dan Bejar and Neko Case all writing songs, often together, played with a band that also included members of Limblifter and Nardwuar's band, The Evaporators. "How could we lose," Newman told Pitchfork on their formation. "You could just take some interesting elements and put them together. Even taking myself out of the picture, when I looked at the band I just thought, 'This band's got to be great.'" He was definitely right, and their debut album, recorded over a three-year period, is a modern guitar pop classic where every song is a potential single.

Oranger – The Quiet Vibrationland (Amazing Grease / Poptones)

San Francisco's Oranger were popsmiths of the highest order, borrowing the best bits of '60s and '70s psychedelia to create their own brand of sunshine pop. Nicking the title from The Who's Tommy (and drummer Jim Lindsay swiping wild fills from Keith Moon), The Quiet Vibrationland also borrows from The Byrds, Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Turtles and the Kinks, but they do it with panache, punny pop-culture-laced humor and their own fantastic melodic sense. Oranger never really got their due -- they're not too far in sound or style from Fountains of Wayne -- but "Suddenly Upsidedown," "A View of the City from an Airplane," "Texas Snow" and "Stoney Curtis in Reverse" all sound like lost classics.

Primal Scream – XTRMNTR (Creation/Astralwerks)

Like The Fall, Primal Scream svengali Bobby Gillespie has always been able to absorb myriad influences and current trends into his band's own brand of rock n' roll and have it sound like they invented it. They were never more ambitious than on XTRMNTR -- a call-to-arms with revolution (political, musical, everything) in its sights that counted The Chemical Brothers, My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields, New Order's Bernard Sumner, and The Stone Roses' Gary Mounfield as part of their band of rebels. The 'Scream had never sounded so urgent, gritty and alive, and crazed, techno-infected songs like "Swastika Eyes," "Kill All Hippies" and "Shoot Speed/Kill Light" were miles away from the ecstasy-fueled good vibes they began the '90s with on Screamadelica. Gillespie may have lost the war, ultimately, but XTRMNTR remains a helluva battle.

Radiohead – Kid A (Capitol)

What is there to say about Kid A at this point that hasn't been said in a million other places? The band could do no wrong at this point, and going from The Bends to OK Computer, to this -- one of the most thrilling hot-streaks of the era -- it became apparent that the only thing you could expect from Radiohead was to be surprised and usually wowed. To wit: the minimal electronic bent of much of the record (like "Idioteque"); when the horns come in on "The National Anthem"; and the ambient beauty of "Treefingers." When they weren't dismantling the the sound formed on their first three albums, Radiohead showed they could still make powerful rock tracks like "Optimistic" and "Morning Bell." Even with all that's come since, Kid A still feels like an amazing curveball.

Super Furry Animals – MWNG (Placid Casual / Flydaddy)

Radiohead (see above) get the credit for being the biggest rock innovators of the late-'90s and early-'00s, but I'd at least give the silver medal to Welsh band Super Furry Animals who consistently pushed the envelope -- musically, visually, everything -- and were never scared to take wild swings while still working within in the boundaries of pop and rock. Take MWNG, which debuted at #11 in the UK albums chart and is sung entirely in Welsh. Even if you don't understand what they're saying on this one (and I don't), there's no denying the melodies, performances and clever production which are super and furry in any language.

Teenage Fanclub – Howdy! (Sony)

Glaswegian greats Teenage Fanclub have never been ones for breaking new ground, but they have one of the most consistent track records of any group that have been together 30 years. Howdy! is the Fannies' seventh album and one of their most underrated. It barely got released in America -- I bet many fans don't know this one even exists -- but Norman Blake, Gerry Love and Raymond McGinley are still cranking out the jangly hits. Everything you love about Teenage Fanclub is here: stick-in-your-head melodies, great harmonies, and really nice arrangements. They were a much mellower band by this point, but that fits them like a favorite sweater.