EASE DOWN THE ROAD

With nary a dead (or outstanding) release week since the year turned eight, here are some worthwhile albums we’ve been enjoying while staring out our icy windows, counting down the days until the early Spring release season starts. We’re especially excited about albums from Beach House (February 26), Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks (March 4), DeVotchKa (March 18), Destroyer (March 18), Sun Kil Moon (April 1) and Tapes ’N’ Tapes (April 15). Even R.E.M., Counting Crows and The Breeders, three bands Ease often enjoyed through the 90s, have new albums coming in the next two months that are supposed to be good. But, for now, here is a list of albums we think are worth checking out.

Kelley Stoltz’ Circular Sounds. If you’re not yet familiar with Stoltz (the guy just might be the least promoted Sub Pup artist of all-time) but enjoy relative newcomer Richard Swift, then Circular Sounds is probably something you want to hear. Now four albums into his career, Stoltz still refuses to update, recording typically lo-fi songs that double as 60s flashbacks, never sounding too much like any one artist aside from, well, himself. File Circular Sounds under Elliott Smith with a smile, this album is made for a bright, green Spring season. 7/10

Times New Viking’s Rip It Off. Looking for a blast of sugar-coated lo-fi, 90s-era indie rock? With two modestly released, messy-but-acclaimed albums behind them, these crazy kids have finally turned out a batch of songs worthy of celebration. If you love early Guided by Voices, well, here are some more songs to grow old with. 8/10

The Whigs’ Mission Control. Though not as exciting as their debut, Give ‘Em a Big Fat Lip, Mission Control is instantly likeable. Frontman Parker Gispert is the complete package: hair, voice, stage moves, style. Oh, and he can write some killer no-frills rock n’ roll songs. Every songs on this indie rock power trio’s breakthrough record is worth getting to know. 8.5/10

Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago. Fittingly to this week’s column, this much hyped singer/songwriter album from Justin Vernon (DeYarmond Edison) is the sound of frost-stained windows and freezing hearts. Vernon’s upfront topic here is loss: he captures the feelings of such with his subtle sounds and documents the cerebral journey with poetic writing and fragile vocals. This new melancholy classic isn’t something anyone with any sort of forward moving agenda should listen to daily, though it is, without a doubt, worthy of all the hype. 9/10

Drive-By Truckers’ Brighter Than Creation’s Dark. Back on track after their shameless radio plea, A Blessing and a Curse, the Truckers have put together another wonderfully spotty collection of unpretentious, timeless Southern Rock. Mike Cooley, known to only contribute three-or-so songs per album, steps up here, playing the feisty yin to Patterson Hood’s shockingly mature yang. Take the 10 best songs from this 19-track epic and you have yourself a new classic. 8/10

Basia Bulat’s Oh, My Darling. Not every song on this Canadian singer/songwriter’s 13-song debut is perfect, but about half of them are. A modern folk-pop artist by definition, Bulat will most likely appeal to fans of Feist, Sufjan Stevens and Joanna Newsom, though she sounds like no one you’ve ever heard. Organic, poetic, creative, fun and instantly enjoyable, Ease will be very disappointed if this amazing debut album isn’t the start of a great career. 9.5/10

Throw Me the Statue’s Moonbeams. Part Sebadoh, part The Microphones, part Grandaddy, this debut album from multi-instrumentalist Scott Reitherman sounds like a lo-fi album made lush, looping, mixing, cutting and pasting every instrument under the sun together. The result is an always poppy, sometimes amazing album that workds as a very promising introduction to an artist who just needs to find himself. 7.5/10

Vampire Weekend’s Vampire Weekend. Another debut. This one sounds, looks and feels like a possible Franz Ferdinand-like breakthrough indie album. A pop band posed as art stars, Vampire Weekend come off as a very competent crew of hipsters who really like Peter Gabriel, David Byrne and Paul Simon’s Graceland. No, actually, that’s exactly what they are. Not a mind-blower, but plenty of fun. 7/10

The Magnetic Fields’ Distortion. I love this record. Irony-drenched pop music draped in a sheet of Jesus and Mary Chain-like distortion and sung by two very different vocalists, Distortion is far too much of a head scratcher to get the attention it deserves, but what truly arty album isn’t. Fun, funny and weird, The Magnetic Fields’ chieftain Stephin Merritt once again reminds us of his rare scattershot genius. 9.5/10

Also worth checking out: White Hinterland’s Phylactery Factory; Cat Power’s Jukebox; Marah’s Angels of Destruction!; Baby Dee’s Safe Inside the Day; Evangelicals’ The Evening Descends; Super Furry Animals’ Hey Venus!; MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular; The Helio Sequence’s Keep Your Eyes Ahead; Nada Surf’s Lucky; Gary Louris’ Vagabonds; Instruments of Science & Technology’s Music From the Films of R/Swift.