Capricorns The Capricorns were borne of a Pure Magical Love that will never die. On their fourth album, “Pure Magical Love”, Heather Lynn and Kirsten Nordine return with some of their most expressive and fully realized recordings to date. Pushing their Casio keyboards to the outer-limit, the arrangements are detailed and dense: with pulsating rhythms, contrapuntal melodies and haunting atmospherics abound. Join the Capricorns on a fantastical aural journey through space, time, oceans and skies. “Pure Magical Love” was recorded in Summer 2005 by Chris Bishop at Radium Recordings in Athens, Georgia. Heather Lynn oversaw production of the project and utilized a unique combination of vintage tube equipment and modern digital synths to achieve the record’s mysterious dreamlike sound.

Les Savy Fav

Eno In 1973, fed up with Bryan Ferry's domineering in Roxy Music, Eno leapt into a solo career that would find him championing the "art" in "artifice." This record is a who's who of the then-burgeoning English art-rock scene, featuring Robert Wyatt, Robert Fripp, and every member of Roxy Music except its leader (thus answering the musical question, "What if Eno had helmed the third Roxy record instead of Ferry?"). Warm Jets sports a lightheartedness that was a refreshing antidote to the pomposity of Yes and ELP on the dark side of art-rock's spectrum, with nonsensical, sound-based couplets such as "Oh headless chicken / How can those teeth stand so much kicking?" This debut is a milestone not just for Eno, but for all rocking music. Listen to Fripp's furious guitars on "Baby's On Fire" and "Blank Frank." It's incredible, Velvet Underground-inspired rock in a scene that had forgotten what rocking meant. --Gene Booth

The Streets In a thrilling UK Garage scene, blighted only by a reliance on drippy soul cliché and tiresome braggadocio, The Streets' eminently quotable Mike Skinner may just be the voice to take it to the next level with Original Pirate Material. This debut is a staggeringly eloquent and fearlessly honest snapshot of gritty street-level existence, as experienced by an ordinary bloke. At first listen, the Birmingham-born Skinner's cheeky cockney affectations grate slightly. But for every line that makes you squirm, there are 20 that drop your jaw. "Has It Come to This?" is "A day in the life of a geezer," a seductive encapsulation of London lifestyle, presented raw as a bootleg, but bulging with sharp wit and feverish detail. "Stay Positive" weaves a fearful tale of heroin addiction, while "The Irony of It All" makes a beguiling case for legalization, presenting a fictional exchange between a beered-up, self-righteous lager lout and a fey student weed enthusiast. Original Pirate Material is a milestone, the real voice of British youth set down on record. Don't miss it. --Louis Pattison

Joy Division

Magnetic Fields

Kanye West Kanye West's third in a whimsical trilogy of "scholarly" albums, Graduation wears its predecessors' badges of success on its sleeve. Matriculation has its rewards, apparently, and it's time to take stock. Lyrically, there's plenty of self-congratulation to attend to, but the real fun comes in the collabs, and West chooses co-conspirators like a kid in a candy store--John Legend ("Good Life"), Coldplay's Chris Martin ("Homecoming"), Mos Def and the Section Quartet (both adorable choices for the foreboding "Drunk and Hot Girls")--and plucks samples with A-list braggadocio: Elton John, Steely Dan, Daft Punk, Can, Michael Jackson, Public Enemy. Nothing here quite captures the superlative symbiosis of West's past best beats (think "Gold Digger"), but the central motif remains: No one ever accused Kanye West of being too cool for school, and Graduation still knows how to party. True, Kanye West will happily whine about the pitfalls at the top of the heap, clear his throat and try to rhyme it with Barry Bonds, or diss fish in a barrel all day, but that can't stop a shameless good time, and Graduation maintains an unshakeable knack for producing it. --Jason Kirk

Captain Beefheart "I may be hungry, but I sure ain't weird," Don Van Vliet, a.k.a. Captain Beefheart, famously intones on this bright-sounding remastered version of the 1967 debut by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band. Safe as Milk is a bold, tough-ass distillation of Delta blues stomp and '60s garage-punk swagger, fused with a radically polyrhythmic and tempo-shifting style that one might term "art rock." Listening to the delightfully playful, absurdist "Abba Zabba," it's easy to see why Lester Bangs called Beefheart "the only true dadaist in rock"; the song is a good indication of the intricate, rule-breaking music the Magic Band would continue to hone. But there are also formidable ballads (the psychedelic "Autumn's Child," the lachrymose "I'm Glad"), midtempo pop-soul tunes (the Otis Redding-ish "Call on Me"), and straight-ahead blues-rock workouts ("Plastic Factory"), all of which showcase the fretwork of a young Ry Cooder. Much has been made of Beefheart's multiple-octave vocal range; he sings menacingly on "Dropout Boogie" and allegedly broke a very expensive microphone on the eerie "Electricity." The last seven tracks on this reissue (for the most part fascinating, unfinished instrumentals) were recorded with a different lineup; they are outtakes from Mirror Man Sessions. --Mike McGonigal

The Beatles The Beatles' last days as a band were as productive as any major pop phenomenon that was about to split. After recording the ragged-but-right Let It Be, the group held on for this ambitious effort, an album that was to become their best-selling. Though all four contribute to the first side's writing, John Lennon's hard-rocking, "Come Together" and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" make the strongest impression. A series of song fragments edited together in suite form dominates side two; its portentous, touching, official close ("Golden Slumbers"/"Carry That Weight"/"The End") is nicely undercut, in typical Beatles fashion, by Paul McCartney's cheeky "Her Majesty," which follows. --Rickey Wright

My Bloody Valentine My Bloody Valentine's entire career has been aiming toward the perfect guitar noise that Kevin Shields has in his head: a pure, warm, androgynous but deeply sexual rush of sound. Loveless is overwhelming, with Shields and Bilinda Butcher's guitars and voices blending into each other until they become a distant orchestra, the rhythm section striding in majestic lockstep, and occasional bursts of dance rhythms (as on the single "Soon") buoying the live instruments' warp and drift. Furiously loud but seductive rather than aggressive, the album flows like a lava stream from one track into another, subsuming everything in the mix into its blissful roar, and pulsing like a lover's body. --Douglas Wolk

The Rolling Stones From the swaggering frustration in the first song ("I only get my rocks off while I'm sleeping," Mick Jagger sings in the hyper "Rocks Off"), the Stones speed through familiar neighborhoods of country, blues, and R&B on Exile. They never even bother to stop when they've crashed into something. They don't leap into new worlds so much as master the old ones, turning Slim Harpo's blues obscurity "Hip Shake" into a harp-and-piano steamroller and setting spines a-cracking in "Ventilator Blues." Both "Tumbling Dice" and Keith Richards's "Happy" have become hits, but the 1972 album is most notable for its overall murky adrenaline. --Steve Knopper

The Velvet Underground, Nico When the Velvets recorded this debut, they were best known as the protégés of Andy Warhol (who designed the sleeve), and as a grating, combustive live band. Fueled by drummer Moe Tucker's no-nonsense wham and John Cale's howling viola, some of the straight-up rock & roll and arty noise extravaganzas here bear that out. But before Lou Reed was singing about sadomasochism and drug deals and writing lyrics inspired by his favorite poets, he was a pop songwriter, and this album has some of his prettiest tunes, mostly sung by Nico, the German dark angel who left the band after this disc. Even the sordid rockers are underscored by graceful pop tricks, like the two-chord flutter at the center of the classic "Heroin." --Douglas Wolk

Sonic Youth It's been almost a quarter century since a youthful, avant-garde band with cut-rate guitars and an impetus for experimental noise burst into the New York underground, and it's very possible that as its 21st record to date, Rather Ripped is also Sonic Youth's most accessible. Familiar are Kim Gordon's distinctive oral tonality and the tangled sheen of guitar dissonance that plays out between Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo. But a majority of the dozen songs are as pop-smart as they come, including a pair from Gordon: "Reena," which ranks among her finest, and a pensive pair ("Lights Out" and "Turquoise Boy") that have the 50-plus singer's ethereal voice recalling a street-worn Francoise Hardy. Ever the whiz kid, Moore ponders religious hostility in the meditative "Do You Believe in Rapture" and skewers promiscuity on the Lou Reed-ish "Sleepin' Around," while Ranaldo's requisite number "Rats"--all futuristic and feedback-heavy--is among his best compositions. As the record fades out with Moore's near-folk song "Or"--the alternative conjunction linking "ready" and "not"--Sonic Youth is as genial as ever: another phase in a punk rock novel that ostensibly has many chapters to go. --Scott Holter

Yo La Tengo We always suspected they had it in them, but who knew Yo La Tengo would finally craft a record as wholeheartedly terrific as this? Fourteen years into their career as indie rock's low-key mainstays, the Hoboken, New Jersey, trio have arrived--and it's about time. It's as though simply by sticking around long enough and doing the same thing over and over while constantly refining and focusing Yo La have evolved from scattered, record-collecting eccentrics into the true classicists of '90s indie rock. Blending elements of what has illuminated Sonic Youth, Stereolab, Pavement, and My Bloody Valentine, they've long had a clear voice but never sounded so comfortable using it. Willfully eclectic husband-and-wife multi-instrumentalists Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley--with third member James McNew never sounding more permanent--have previously tended to alternate between their instincts to be a pop rock band and to serve as artsy noisemakers. On I Can Hear..., the group doesn't have to choose between songs and sounds. There's noise leaking out everywhere, but it's always under control. Even the most layered soundscapes--songs like "Autumn Sweater," "Sugarcube," or "Moby Octopad"--have unforgettable melodies, with fragile harmonies to boot. "We're an American Band" (not a Grand Funk cover) could be Simon and Garfunkel singing along to the Jesus and Mary Chain. And on tracks like "Shadows" or "My Little Corner of the World," where the melody consumes everything else, deceptively simple backdrops provide a less-is-more atmosphere. Just in time for indie rock to catch up with Yo La Tengo, Yo La Tengo has caught up with itself. --Roni Sarig

The National With Boxer, the National have reached four albums into their increasingly lauded career, never hurrying the tempo, never over-reaching in volume or instrumental density. Instead, the quintet's balanced on a pin, emotionally austere, if not utterly downhearted, finding brilliantly dusky ways for Matt Berninger's lovelorn voice to mesh with a pair of unobtrusive guitars and, here, an occasional phalanx of piano, horns, and strings. The tunes roll off slowly, Berninger's lyrics hugging the instruments with a sad brawn, rough-hewn as the drums and bass toy with angularity (try "Mistaken for Strangers," for one) but end up woven by that voice. Drummer Bryan Devendorf presses the songs forward repeatedly, as on "Start a War," where he gently thumps the time as the acoustic guitars frame and dot the melody, coalescing as the drums starkly chisel the melody. Nary a distortion pedal is harmed on Boxer, giving the National a magnetism so forlorn that you can't stop listening. --Andrew Bartlett

Weezer There's a classic episode of The Little Rascals where one of the gang can't join everybody else on the ballfield because he has to stay home with his younger brother, who has the croup. "I can't come out and play," he whines. "I've got to stay home and grease Wheezer!" Nobody at Geffen Records knows whether this was the inspiration in naming Weezer, but it makes sense. Like many of their peers, the members of the Los Angeles quartet seem to have spent their formative years in front of the TV; when they were a little older, they were just as entranced by college rock. Finally, ala the Rascals, one of the gang said, "Hey, kids, let's put on a show!," and the result is Weezer's uplifting, unpretentious, and extremely endearing debut.

The self-titled Weezer is lean and mean at 10 short, punchy tunes, but nearly every one is powered by a larger-than-life chorus or a simple but effective lyric. "Undone-The Sweater Song" uses an unraveling sweater as a metaphor for a relationship on the rocks; "Buddy Holly" pays heartfelt tribute to the '50s rocker, and "In the Garage" paints a scene of suburban teens jamming while surrounded by posters of Kiss. Producer Ric Ocasek of Cars fame pushes the vocals and rhythm guitars, and this bare-bones approach may earn comparisons to fellow garage-pop band Green Day. But Weezer has more in common with the late, lamented Big Dipper, another group of slacker wiseguys that you just had to love. --Jim DeRogatis

LCD Soundsystem Two years after LCD Soundsystem's eponymous full-length debut sent indie scenesters rushing to the dancefloor, the outfit headed by dance-rock producer James Murphy serves up another stiff cocktail of punk, dance, and funk with Sound of Silver. Analog synths, chugging basslines, chunky guitars, and Murphy's wild falsetto excursions are once again the foundation to which is added the new and strange, such as the heavily chorused voices that suggest backward-masking in the opener "Get Innocuous" and the captivating harmonics keyboardist Nancy Whang bounces off of Murphy's vocals on "Someone Great." If this album has its own version of "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House," it has to be "North American Scum," an infectious stormer that breezily dismisses Europe as a place where "the buildings are old and you might have lots of mimes." Such lines are good evidence that LCD's music would rather ridicule itself than fall into the kind of pretense and nostalgia it constantly lampoons. The album's title track reflects that hankering after one's teenage years is often interrupted when "you remember the feelings of a real live emotional teenager--then you think again," while the power ballad "New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down" wearily serenades the Big Apple as "still the one pool where I'd happily drown." True, LCD's music is not for everyone, which may have something to do with why their fans love them as they do. If you fall into the latter category, however, Silver is gold. --Brent Kallmer

Justin Timberlake One spin of FutureSex/LoveSounds and it's hard to believe that Justin Timberlake was ever a boy-band barnstormer--no modern-day male artist beats him when it comes to single-minded self assurance or suavity. "SexyBack," the inescapable summer sizzler of a first single off this short and thrillingly unwholesome disc, makes that clear on its own: If there was ever any question about whether sexy was in need of reviving--a doubtful proposition at best, given the sheer volume of JT's gyrating counterparts--he lays it to rest instantly over a small but insistent Timbaland-concocted beat. On that track, Timberlake's appeal is his sweet but newly thuggish-sounding voice--here's a good kid gone bad, and he's determined to convince us of it not only by tossing a few well-timed mother****ers our way but also with such lyrics as "I'll let you whip me if I misbehave." The rest of FutureSex will feel familiar to anyone who picked up 2002's brilliantly funk-flecked Justified: "Love Stoned/I Think She Knows Me," shifts from Michael Jackson-esque paranoid trilling to pulsating guitar rock; "Chop Me Up," a collaboration with Three 6 Mafia and Timbaland, gives up the grit rap-style but still manages to recall both Prince and Stevie Wonder; "My Love," with T.I., mines classic Timberlake territory with meltaway lyrics like "I can see us holding hands walking on the beach/Our clothes in the sand"; and the straight-up but groovy lament "Losing My Way" asks, searchingly, what may be the silliest question a squeal-inducing pop star has ever posed: "Can anybody out there feel me?" Rest assured, JT: we feel every past-, present-, and future-sexy verse. --Tammy La Gorce

The Boredoms The Boredoms are a notorious Japanese rock group with an over-the-top, in-your-face artistic approach that is both ferocious and awe-inspiring. On its 10th full-length album, the Osaka-based ensemble exudes a sonic collage of trance-inducing drones, power-chord riffs, and enthusiastic jamming. While hyperkinetic frontman Yamatska Eye leads the Boredoms through seven extremely long compositions, this disc is rarely boring. On the opening song, "Super You," they embrace traditional rock structures with galloping drums and reverberating guitars that eventually melt into tribal-like chants and surreal studio effects. By combining their high-energy approach with sophisticated recording techniques, the Boredoms create a psychedelic milieu that celebrates unorthodox musicianship, instrumental excess, and raw energy. This is aggressive, contemporary rock music without the pretentious trappings of heavy metal or punk. --Mitch Meyers

Modest Mouse Their last album may have given them a certifiable radio hit, airtime on VH1, and a Kidz Bop tribute, but listening to the follow-up to 2004's Good News for People Who Love Bad News, you might get the sense that the members of Modest Mouse are flinching at the spotlight. We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, the group's fifth full-length release, is denser than its predecessor with tunes that seem willfully harder to penetrate. Even the addition of former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to the line-up seems incidental, as Modest Mouse's off-kilter sound stays largely intact. But keep listening and it becomes obvious that the band hasn't lost any of his pop bite, especially midway through with a sweep of terrific songs like "Missed the Boat," "Education" and "Little Motel." It's hard to tell if there's another "Float On" in the bunch. In fact, the first single, "Dashboard," is one of the weakest Isaac Brock has ever penned. With Shins James Mercer adding lovely vocals to "Florida," however, it hardly matters. --Aidin Vaziri

The Beach Boys If you need some pointy-headed pundit to sell you on the merits of Pet Sounds, your money might be better spent on an ear specialist. Brian Wilson's gift to 20th-century music elevated this pop album into a beguiling musical and emotional cogency that still operates outside pop culture's fickle space-time continuum--and limited critical lexicon. There's never been another record to compare (Rubber Soul, its inspiration, is close; Sgt. Pepper's, its response, misses the point), and certainly no album has been as dissected, overanalyzed, and predigested for public consumption. In 1997 Capitol Records devoted an entire four-disc box set, The Pet Sounds Sessions, to its thorough deconstruction. The techno-marvel centerpiece of that project--the album's first true stereo mix, painstakingly conjured out of multitape session sources by producer-engineer Mark Linett (under Wilson's supervision)--was at once heresy and revelation. Now the label has gratifyingly seen fit to offer both mixes on a single disc (along with alternate versions of "Hang On to Your Ego," the original title of "I Know There's An Answer"), an idea that should please the orthodox and heretics alike. And while the album has always clearly been The Brian Wilson Show featuring the Beach Boys, David Leaf's concise new notes attempt to be more inclusive of a wider band perspective. The result (three of the five band members claim credit for the album title) sometimes resembles Rashomon. If Pet Sounds forever crystallized the band's various creative (in)differences, it also became Wilson's grand karmic joke on his band mates; its burgeoning reputation (Mojo magazine's panel of pop experts once elected it greatest album of all time) guaranteed they would sing its songs--and praises--until the end. And if putting two different versions of the same album on one disc seems like overkill, look at the bright side: it's a perfect excuse to listen to the glorious Pet Sounds twice. --Jerry McCulley

Beat Happening