Here’s a tip for all press agents sending digital one-sheets to my inbox: If you cite Fugazi, Jawbox, and Smart Went Crazy in the first line of the e-mail, I will check out the album and/or see the band live. Fugazi and Jawbox are a good start, but anybody citing Smart Went Crazy in 2011 earns my trust. It obviously helps if the band sounds like Fugazi, Jawbox, or Smart Went Crazy, but there’s only one way for me to find out, right? Even if you’re lying, I’ll appreciate the effort. Anything to keep “Animal Collective, Paul Simon’s Graceland, and Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys” from being applied to the newest, hottest post-chillwave record.

In the case of Grass Is Green, my excitement was doubled because those references were coming from a Boston-based group. As it turns out, three-quarters of the group are transplants from Rockville, MD, a more natural locale to be weaned on Dischord’s finest, but that fact doesn’t kill the buzz. I am drawn to math-rock guitar figures and time-signature changes like a moth to the flame, and Grass Is Green offers enough of both to make me into a burnt husk on the floor.

Don’t expect a straight hybrid of the aforementioned bands. There’s a lot of Polvo/Rectangle weirdness floating around, specifically the juxtapositions between frenetic guitar interchanges and unexpected bouts of melodic pacification. Smart Went Crazy and Fugazi register for the DC reference points, but the clearest touchstone would be a twitchier take on Faraquet’s ever-shifting math-rock, and not just because Devin Ocampo mastered their first album, Yeddo. With a few welcome exceptions, Grass Is Green aren’t prone to standing still.

It’s easy to extend that tendency to the group’s output. The ten-track Yeddo was released on Bandcamp last September, followed up in March by the seven-track Chibimoon. That’s a remarkably quick turnaround for a band bartering in jagged guitar shapes. Credit the ease of digital distribution and/or an overflow of material. Fortunately, you can grab both of these albums for a whopping $10.

The distinction between Yeddo and Chibimoon is noticeable, if by no means absolute. The former has cleaner hooks and more straight-ahead momentum, the latter has sharper left turns and greater changes in pace. Yeddo is still off-kilter, but the melodies of “No Legs,” “Feeling Different,” and “Tricky Tim’s ‘Night on the Town’” ring through the knotty thicket of guitars and percussion. The aggressively antsy “Uhm Tsk” hits the raucous energy of early Les Savy Fav, and was the highlight of their set when I caught them earlier this year.

Chibimoon is better at showing its range. Opener “Slow Machine” cycles through several whiteboards worth of passages, but never tops its hooky “Drift into the magic hour” part. “Boat Show” and “Chibimoon” start off with uncharacteristic calm, but the cathartic climax of the title track is the highlight of the record. The rollicking “Tongue in Cheek” hits its stride with a drum-crazed mid-section. “Twinkle Toes” is likely as close to a slow jam as Grass Is Green will write. This split between fifth-gear discord and lilting lullabies can make your head spin.

Even within the realm of high-energy, DC-inspired math-rock, there’s an awful lot going on in both Yeddo and Chibimoon. Grass Is Green’s compositional restlessness is both a blessing and a curse, bringing in a surplus of ideas but occasionally ushering the best ones out too soon. The easiest solution would be to cherry-pick each record, grabbing some satisfyingly skewed rockers from Yeddo and the calmer and/or weirder moments from Chibimoon, but you’d inevitably miss out on memorable passages. It’s better to get both albums and work through the knots.

Special Boston-area note: Grass Is Green is on a bill with the excellent Me You Us Them, Grandfather, and Pile at Great Scott on September 1. If you miss that superb bill, you can catch them again at the Middle East Upstairs on September 29 with fuzzed-out indie rockers Young Adults.

Imagine seeing a band play exactly the right length set. No technical problems gumming up the works. No ill-advised set-closing jam stretching past ten minutes. No padding the set lists with weaker tracks. No forced-hand encore. You leave wanting to hear the album when you get home. At a tidy 32 minutes, Austin-based We’ll Go Machete’s debut LP, Strong Drunk Hands, is the recorded equivalent of that ideal set: a half-hour of honed post-hardcore that keeps my eyes away from the clock.

We’ll Go Machete took notes from the right bands. There’s the lockstep precision and fearsome holler of Quicksand, the math-rock guitar interplay of Drive Like Jehu, the big riffs of Fireside, and the urgency of At the Drive-In. Strong Drunk Hands doesn’t reinvent the post-hardcore wheel, but if you have even a passing interest in any of those bands, you’ll marvel at the craftsmanship of “DM Barringer,” “Hayward,” and “Good Morning Munro.” I’d cite the other seven tracks too, but you get the point.

Naturally, next time I’ll want more from We’ll Go Machete. I’ll want a longer set. I’ll want an evocation of the melodies and warmth of J. Robbins’ voice. I’ll want more of that math-rock guitar interplay, which proves thoroughly effective in limited doses here. Hell, I may even want a ten-minute album-closing jam. But for now, I’m fully satiated by the precision, economy, and force of Strong Drunk Hands.

When I first heard Implodes’ Black Earth, I assumed Kranky Records had pulled its woozy strains of droning psych-rock out of the ether. I’d listened to the record a few times before I learned that one of Implodes’ guitarist/vocalists (trust me, the guitars come before the vocals on Black Earth) is Matt Jencik, formerly of math-rock groups Hurl, Taking Pictures, Don Caballero, and Thee Speaking Canaries. Suddenly, the title of “Song for Fucking Damon II (Trap Door)” made considerably more sense, a callback to Thee Speaking Canaries’ “Song for Fucking Damon” on Life-Like Homes.

Yet this connection offers practically no illumination on the dark terrain of Black Earth, except to identify what it is not. (Guitarist/vocalist Ken Camden’s 2010 Kranky LP Lethargy & Repercussion is a somewhat closer stylistic kin.) Implodes do not engage in time-signature workouts. Five of the album’s eleven tracks eschew percussion entirely. Instead, Black Earth thrives on an evocative haze of layered guitars. Lead track “Open the Door” maps out a landscape of strummed acoustic guitar, electric echoes, and distant distortion. Black Earth is a record of guitar tones, first and foremost, and Implodes craft a range of compelling sounds throughout. Songs like “Oxblood” and “Down Time” are welcome additions to Kranky’s canon of droning guitar compositions.

That isn’t to say that Black Earth lacks tangible songwriting. “Marker” obscures its vocals to the point of unintelligibility, but its billowing riffs translate the menace. “Meadowlands” kicks off the second side with a dose of propulsive psych-rock, highlighted by haunting vocals and keyboard punctuation. Closing track “Hands on the Rail” pairs the gothic doom of its spoken vocals with some of Black Earth’s finest guitar work.

This balance between guitar drones and psych-rock maintains Black Earth’s dark, menacing atmosphere. I could wax poetic about the world Implodes creates here—a thick forest at dusk, dark arts practiced around a dying fire, animal blood marking abandoned trails—but the important point is Black Earth encourages such mental pictures. Few debut LPs, even from groups with math-rock elite in their ranks, appear so fully formed.

I just finished Simon Goddard’s The Smiths: Songs That Saved Your Life, an excellent, highly detailed run-through of every song in the beloved band’s catalog. For someone who’s always enjoyed the Smiths but has never been truly obsessed with them, the book opened my eyes to just how much there is to obsess over about in their music: literary references in Morrissey’s lyrics; Motown melodies in Johnny Marr’s guitar lines; the production differences between alternate takes; label conflicts; UK tabloid controversies; internal band strife; and comprehensive concert, radio, and television appearances. I can only imagine the pride I would have had from discovering a single lifted line from one of Morrissey’s favorite plays; being presented with scores of them is both impressive and overwhelming.

This deluge of information encouraged me to touch base with my friend Jon, who does qualify as a Smiths obsessive. After he asked me what my top five Smiths songs are and I opted to hold off answering until I completed the book (at which point I begrudgingly limited myself to “Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before,” “Hand in Glove,” “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out,” and “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore”), I posed the same question to him. Naturally, he threw his hands up in the air at the impossibility of answering. But I’ve been friends with Jon long enough to know that “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want,” a b-side for “William, It Was Really Nothing” that later appeared on the compilations Hatful of Hollow and Louder Than Bombs, would make his short list. He’s mentioned his fondness for the yearning, mandolin-accompanied ballad more than any other Smiths song.

Jon’s not alone in his love for “Please…,” one of the most oft-covered songs in the Smiths’ repertoire. When I saw the number of artists cited on Wikipedia who’ve offered their own renditions of the song, a brilliant/terrible idea popped into my head: track down these covers and convince Jon to listen to them with me. Understandably, he approached this project with trepidation—“I’m sorry I ever brought it up, I’m sorry I ever found out about this band, they may have shaped my life and all….”—knowing that it would test his fondness for the song (and perhaps our friendship as well), but fortunately he caved.

A note on the selections: this list is not comprehensive. My foremost apologies to the scores of acoustic guitar renditions floating around YouTube, but two conditions needed to be met for inclusion: either the song has garnered a proper release or the band is familiar enough for us to endure a muffled live recording. An obvious third condition—I must be able to find the cover in short order—excluded big names like the Decemberists, Franz Ferdinand, and OK Go.

Let’s see if enduring the following eighteen covers can make good men go bad. The band name links to the YouTube or MP3 of the song, when available.

Who: A decidedly ’80s English folk band (i.e. they had fruity keyboards to go with their acoustic guitars).

Where: An instrumental version was featured in the art gallery scene of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but the Dream Academy released a vocal version of the song as a single back in 1984.

What?

Jon: Morrissey seems more butch now.

They just hit the flanger pedal, which they just bought. If it’s new, it must be good, right?

The song should be ending now.

S: When you were in England, did you step into a lift and hear this version?

J: It’s pretty lame to cover the song the year it came out, right? Did Morrissey ever chime in on this?

S: Yes, Goddard’s book mentions that it was included in the interval tape on the Smiths’ 1985 tour of Scotland. Also, in a 1988 interview, Morrissey said, “I liked the Dream Academy version… Everyone despised it and it got to number 81, which is nearly a hit."

What amazes me about this cover is that no matter how dated Smiths records sound in terms of production values, it could have been much worse in terms of keyboard usage/sounds.

Who: A collaboration between the baritone Calvin Johnson of Beat Happening and the noticeably higher register of Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch.

Where: Included as a b-side on their 1995 single for “Don’t Touch My Bikini.”

What?

J: (Audible sound of disgust when Calvin Johnson’s voice comes in.)

Terrible? Terrible. Why should Calvin Johnson be too cool for school on a Smiths cover? Didn’t he try to live out a Smiths video in Portland, Oregon? Don’t you remember that bit from Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life?

S: If you could have a mute Calvin Johnson plug-in, would you like this version?

J: No, this was still before Doug Martsch learned to sing on key. It’s still a terrible version.

Everything that Doug Martsch does, I try to figure out what J. Mascis did ten years earlier. In this case, Dinosaur Jr.’s cover of “Just Like Heaven” wins.

I need to have a cleansing cigarette after that.

S: You’re going to go through a pack and a half.

Who: The nu-metal band who openly enjoy The Smiths, Drive Like Jehu, Hum, and Jawbox, thereby making it acceptable for indie rockers to listen to a nu-metal band.

Where: Originally appeared as the b-side to their first single, 1995’s “7 Words,” subsequently reappeared in a remixed version on 2005’s B-Sides and Rarities and 2011’s Covers LP.

What?

S: I’m waiting for this to get a lot worse, considering it’s from 1995.

J: The shredder pedal on the solo is bad.

S: This is not a crowning achievement of guitar tone.

J: This is what it has going for it: It seems like a true love letter to the song. But the guitars are a problem. The Deftones are a litmus test for people who liked Hum for all of the wrong reasons. I can’t really knock them too hard. The guy’s got an interesting voice.

S: I feel like at the end of this we’ll look at this fondly.

J: (Audible groan)

Who: A long-running Italian pop/rock band that started as contemporaries to The Smiths in 1984, reformed to record this cover in 1997, and then finally called it quits in 2009.

Where: There Is a Light That Never Goes Out – A Tribute to The Smiths, a compilation of primarily Italian bands.

What?

J: Goddamn a wah-wah pedal.

S: Like the Dream Academy version, this underscores why the song should be under two minutes.

J: They make the Dream Academy version sound butch.

Who: A ’90s modern rock band whose ubiquitous singles (“Semi-Charmed Life,” “Graduate,” “How’s It Going to Be,” “Jumper”) haunted alternative rock radio when I was in high school. Singer Stephen Jenkins once compared his group’s independent mindset to Fugazi.

Where: Recorded at their show at Boston’s Paradise Rock Club from October 11, 1997, the height of their infamy.

What?

S: Do you think this guy ever got what he wanted?

J: Blake Schwarzenbach you mean?

Sounds like the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

S: They are in Boston.

J: This is clearly the definitive version!

S: It was mercifully short, at least.

Who: The little-known early band from Burger King pitchman Darius Rucker.

Where: One of fifteen cover songs on their 2000 Scattered, Smothered, and Covered album, which revisits the group’s bar-band origins.

What?

S: That’s Hootie’s voice, alright.

J: (Bursts out laughing) Jesus Christ! Even though I don’t hear any drums, I still want to punch the drummer for this. It sounds like a radio DJ singing, just horrible.

S: Are you regretting your decision to participate?

J: (multiple sighs). Jim Neighbors could do a more soulful version of that song.

Who: You know, that British band who sounded like an alt-metal version of Radiohead for a while, then shifted into prog-glam overdrive. Either the greatest or worst band in the world, depending on which of your friends you ask.

Where: Included as a b-side on the second of two CD5s for the double a-side single “Hyper Music”/ “Feeling Good” (2001), the latter of which was elected in 2010 by readers of NME as “the greatest cover song of all time.” A likely story!

What?

J: Thinking of Muse makes me mad I couldn’t get through Guitar Hero 3.

Is this Thom Yorke’s cousin’s band? This song always needed a more muscular version. It sounds like Weezer with a fake Thom Yorke singer.

S: When we complain about the Smiths’ drum sounds, this is what they should have been going for?

J: Well, the production’s better.

Who: An excellent British rock group who also originated in Manchester, England. I’m particularly fond of their sophomore album, 2002’s The Last Broadcast.

Where: Performed the song for BBC’s Re:Covered program(me) in 2002.

What?

J: This band is the Level 42 of today.

S: Why is that drummer doing so much?

J: He’s recording the tracks for the next song. Maybe he’s playing Rock Band.

S: That was a reasonable version. If you like Doves, you’ll be happy to hear this cover.

J: Boring, but not bad.

Who: A string quartet that churns out classically arranged versions of songs for practically every artist/group around. Seriously, Dr. Dre, Ke$ha, Saliva, Sum 41, Jet—the list goes on.

Where: 2003’s The String Quartet Tribute to the Smiths, obviously.

What?

J: This version accompanies flowers and a white dress walking down the aisle.

S: I was thinking it would be great for a bris.

J: The EQ with the violin cutting through your eardrums is perfect. It makes me want to go back to the Third Eye Blind cover.

Who: A London-based indie folk group on Matinee Records who released one LP back in 2003 called The World Can Wait (hardly equaling the confident outrage of the Smiths’ The World Won’t Listen).

Where: Included on Matinee Records’ 2004 Smiths tribute album, Romantic and Square is Hip and Aware.

J: This is the problem with the Smiths: they appeal to people who have no balls who also think Morrissey has no balls. “This is my ball-less band.” That’s not Morrissey at all.

S: I nodded off there for a minute. This one lacks both balls and a pulse.

Who: A buzz band from NYC trafficking in ’80s nostalgia whose biggest musical accomplishment was placing a song on The O.C.

Where: The cover-filled soundtrack for Sky High (2005), a live action Disney film about a super-powered high school.

What?

J: I saw Elefant when that dude was dating Lindsey Lohan. Seven people were in the audience and he insisted on berating the closest member to the stage. If any ladies were in the audience and wanted Chlamydia, I bet they got it.

This is going to be good. It’s going to have Jeff Garber production. Tremolo pedal.

S: This guy’s British affectation is beyond irritating.

J: He’s from Enga-land!

S: Every time I hear the mandolin section, I think about how perfect it was the first time around.

J: Oh great, comes around for another chorus. Sounds like the auto-tune was set to “I have a heart and it’s on my sleeve.”

What a bad version for such a good movie!

Who: A contemporary British folk group.

Where: The soundtrack for the widely acclaimed 2006 film This Is England, which explored the skinhead youth culture in England in 1983.

What?

J: This guy won American Idol, right?

S: I have a feeling this is going to be excruciatingly long at 3:43.

J: It’s off-key Sting with asthma.

This is a leftover Gerard Butler cover from P.S. I Love You.

S: Now that dude has some balls.

J: Wait, he’s feeling it now.

S: This is passable and probably fits well in the movie.

Who: An alt-country/folk singer.

Where: Apparently on a promo-only disc called Reel to Reel V3.4: Nettwerk Covers (2007).

What?

J: I think PBS gives away his CDs when they have a fundraiser.

S: Wow, his voice is annoying. Too high/reedy.

J: Nobody likes Steve Earle.

S: You know what would make this version better? If Calvin Johnson added baritone vocals in the right channel.

J: I bought this four-track and I’m going to use it!

Who: The lead singer of the Boston-based Dresden Dolls, who play a dark brand of cabaret punk.

Where: Performed at Club Academy in Manchester on October 6, 2008.

What?

J: From the YouTube still, it looks like Amanda Palmer is riding on a hobby horse.

I’d rather watch a Sarah McLachlan commercial for abused animals.

S: This song desperately needed overbearing piano embellishment.

J: At least Meatloaf’s vocal was good when he was dramatic. I want to do a monologue over this about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Who:The pairing of actress/singer Zooey Deschanel and indie folk singer/songwriter M. Ward, otherwise known as the most adorable thing ever.

Where: Part of the soundtrack of Marc Webb’s Smiths-loving 2009 film (500) Days of Summer, which starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel.

What?

S: Jon, tell me your thoughts on (500) DOS.

J: I don’t know if I can give my quick thoughts on that film. [Editor’s note: Jon loathes (500) Days of Summer more than anything since Nothing but Trouble.]

I thought I liked M. Ward a lot but not enough to enjoy this.

S: I’ll give him credit for the instrumental composition of this version, which is one of the best we’ve heard, but her vocal affectation is still too irritating.

J: It’s so precious.

Who: A talented guitarist who’s slowly transitioning from instrumental compositions to more pop-oriented songwriting.

Where: Along with a number of other Smiths covers, it’s part of her live repertoire, and this particular version was recorded at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn on February 9, 2010.

What?

S: At the beginning of this song it looked like she was doing the guitar version of the Doves’ drummer’s over-activity.

J: This is the best version to watch if you want to know how to play this song.

S: She needs to sing louder. This is all guitar.

J: She can belt it, right? Her vocals were barely there on this song. She’s a good guitar player, though. For a girl.

Deleted Scenes

Who: A DC-based band that draws from both layered indie pop and the guitar rock more typical to their home city.

Where: Included on their 2011 Bedbedbedbedbed 12” (which just came out, so no .mp3), a precursor to their upcoming (and downright excellent) Young People’s Church of the Air LP.

What?

S: I like Deleted Scenes, but they have a tendency towards too many production tricks, and this is a good example of that. Nice vocal obscured by stuttering loops.

J: My copy’s all screwed up. Too many pops and clicks. Just a bad encode.

S: Is there anything to this version beyond production tricks?

J: This is pleasing no one.

S: The end is nice. The aesthetic finally went somewhere. I feel like the payoff was worth hearing an eighteenth cover of the song.

Wrapping Up

Jon: I feel like I’m a better friend now.

Sebastian: That’s entirely true. What versions stuck out for you?

J: Overall I think we’ve learned that “Please, Please, Please” is a bad song to cover. If you took the vocals off the SIANspheric version, it would good. The instrumental version of Dream Academy from Ferris Bueller is fine. The Deftones version is passable, same with the Doves.

S:The Doves is the best straightforward version. I agree with you on the other highlights, as well. In general, I appreciated when bands did something different with the song (SIANspheric, Deleted Scenes in particular) as opposed to a rote folk version.

If we’d done this a few weeks ago, I could have used it to wish you an “Unhappy Birthday.” How long do you think it’ll take before you can listen to the original again?

J: Six months to a year, provided you don’t send me any more covers.

Should I even use the word “reunited” in reference to Polvo anymore? Since their 2008 reformation, they’ve reworked their back catalog for live sets, released an excellent LP in 2009’s In Prism, and rather suddenly re-emerged with this single. Unlike a certain reunited band who’s remained in set-list stasis for eight years now, Polvo’s too restless to stand still.

“Heavy Detour” b/w “Anchoress” heralds the group’s as-yet untitled new album, due on Merge Records in an as-yet unannounced timeframe. The a-side, available for streaming here, splits the difference between the mid-tempo pace of Dave Brylawski’s three contributions to In Prism and the driving guitar loops of “Beggar’s Bowl.” Brylawski’s vocal melodies have improved, the energy level is up, and the presence of both sitar and electronic strings (reminiscent of Helium’s The Magic City) makes perfect sense. “Heavy Detour” bodes well for that upcoming LP.

Ash Bowie’s “Anchoress” takes a more ponderous route, exploring one of Bowie’s intractable, vaguely unsettling narratives with lyrics like “The seasons turn and she fashions a shrine / Arranging all the apples in symmetrical lines.” Lighthearted keyboards cut through the atmosphere, but the song’s keyed by its tense closing jam, which threatens to run long before a 45-enforced fade-out.

The alternate take of “Anchoress,” available as a digital download with purchase of the 7”, revisits the mid-fi production values of Polvo’s Today’s Active Lifestyles and Exploded Drawing. The noisy guitars are a welcome return to that era, especially when they recall the lurching of “When Will You Die for the Last Time in My Dreams.” While I’ve grown to appreciate the polish of In Prism and “Heavy Detour,” the grime of this alternate take of “Anchoress” fits the tone of the song better.

To return to my opening point, no, I should not use “reunited” in reference to Polvo’s post-2008 output. “Heavy Detour” b/w “Anchoress” isn’t a worthy pick-up because it’ll scratch your nostalgic itch; it’s a worthy pick-up because these two songs are excellent additions to a daunting discography. That’s past tense vs. present tense, and it’s time for more of Polvo’s reunited peers to join them (and Superchunk, Dinosaur Jr., Mission of Burma, etc.) in the latter category.

It’s been five years since Pinebender’s mammoth 2006 LP, Working Nine to Wolf. How long those years felt depends on whether your clock ticks away at Pinebender speed, a self-advertised 58 beats-per-minute. For me, it feels like decades since I saw the group decimate Great Scott in Allston. (At said show I requested, with the utmost sincerity, a four-song set list comprised of “Parade,” “Fifth and Last,” “There’s a Bag of Weights in the Back of My Car,” and “Simp Twister,” which would have filled a 45-minute slot. Baritone guitarist Stephen Howard said they’d toyed with the concept.) I’ve gotten tremendous shelf-life from the glacially paced guitar heroism of the group’s four releases, but sometime in 2009 I went into withdrawal.

Naturally I had my ear to the ground on Pinebender-related projects, checking out Howard’s solo project Quieting Syrup (Songs about a Sick Boy on Lovitt, Daytrotter session here) and guitarist/vocalist Chris Hansen’s acoustically oriented Paletazo songs on MySpace (particularly the lovely “Nothing Wrong with Love”), but news of Hansen’s Head of Skulls! slipped through my nets. That’s the high price of living too long outside of the Midwest, where I likely would have picked up The Liquid Ball EP upon its 2008 release rather than a recent trip to Reckless (which seems to be the lone place you can acquire a physical pressing of this one-side LP, although it's available digitally through the usual outlets).

For Head of Skulls!, Hansen joined up with Noah Leger, the powerhouse drummer from Hurl, Milemarker, Taking Pictures, and Thee Speaking Canaries, and bassist Allison Hollihan, formerly of Atombombpocketknife (who has since been replaced by Chicago scene veteran Pete Croke, who joins Leger and Howard in Tight Phantomz). This lineup confirms the near certainty that Head of Skulls! play faster than Pinebender, since Hansen would need to acquire one or both of Chris Brokaw and Doug Scharin to slow things down even further.

The Liquid Ball EP blasts through its first three songs in the seven minutes that would comprise the average Pinebender song. “Ghost of a Wreck” is a Hot Snakes-paced rocker, with Hansen’s barked delivery reminding me of Slint’s Tweez played at 45 RPM. (That’s in contrast to my usual comment that Pinebender sounds like a Dinosaur Jr. 45 played at 33.3.) “Gold Tooth” rifles along with garage-punk intensity until hitting its Leger-led bridge. “The Cave” seethes with a post-hardcore nastiness.

The EP’s closing track, “Winter Witch,” rewrites the script, letting the song stretch out to nearly nine minutes, but its first half is a showcase for Leger’s floor-shaking fills. The second half of the song stretches out with some familiar Pinebender chord progressions, but doom resonates with each down-stroke.

At 16:15, The Liquid Ball EP lasts only a few minutes longer than the lead track from Pinebender’s Working Nine to Wolf, but Head of Skulls! make their presence felt in that short span. For those itching for another dose, the group’s debut LP, You Became Your Mind, was finally released last year after sitting on the shelf since 2008. In hindsight, it’s a good thing I didn’t know about Head of Skulls! until now—having to wait several years instead of several weeks to hear another batch of songs would have only added to my Pinebender withdrawal.

I picked up a used copy of Helium’s 7” for “Pat’s Trick” at Reckless Records and got a booby prize in the sleeve: the sales slip from the previous owner’s original purchase of the single. Along with the Helium find, the haul included two additional singles, each priced at $3.49: one from the space-rock band Flying Saucer Attack (recently recalled by Scott Tennent of Pretty Goes with Pretty) and one from Grenadine (a Simple Machines band featuring Tsunami’s Jenny Toomey and Unrest’s Mark Robinson playing 1920s-style ballads). Sadly, the slip didn’t include any further details, like the store name, the specific singles purchased, the date of sale, or the physical singles for Flying Saucer Attack and Grenadine, so my walk down someone else’s memory lane is cut short.

If you need a refresher on Helium, here goes: Washington, DC expatriate Mary Timony trekked up to Boston for college, leaving behind Dischord’s Autoclave, and replaced Mary Lou Lord in the fledging Helium. I can’t imagine Helium without Timony’s vocals, which alternate between airy wisps and husky monotones, let alone the medieval melodies of her guitar work and the simultaneously inviting/dismissing lyrics. They released two full-lengths, 1995’s fuzzed-out The Dirt of Luck and 1997’s prog-rock-inclined The Magic City, which rank among my favorite Matador Records releases, along with a few essential EPs (Pirate Prude, No Guitars, and the CD5 Superball+, which offers the superb “What Institution Are You From?” [live video link!]). Polvo’s Ash Bowie (Timony’s then-boyfriend) joined the group on bass prior to The Dirt of Luck, and there’s some bleed-through from that group’s off-kilter melodic approach. Helium split up following The Magic City, leaving Timony to an excellent solo career and now Wild Flag, but as you can tell from my purchase of a seventeen-year-old single (cue depression), the original documents hold up.

A-side “Pat’s Trick” is the lead track from The Dirt of Luck, and an excellent intro to the record’s strengths. It made an appearance on Beavis & Butthead, on which the guys commented on double-meanings and the small size of Timony’s nostrils, following up a showing of Helium’s “XXX” video which provided an ample dosage of zingers (“Hey Butthead, I think the TV’s on slow,” “I think this chick just, like, woke up or something,” “She probably doesn’t really start rocking until later,” “Check it out her guitar’s broken”).

The flip side offers the aptly titled “Ghost Car,” a haunting piano ballad muses how “What I’ve got can make you stop this ride to hell so I can get off” and closes with a muted warning to “Stop this car before it goes too far.” It’s an intriguing diversion, but fits better as a b-side than a missing piece of The Dirt of Luck.

From what I can tell, Helium’s b-sides aren’t available digitally, so I can pass along this compilation of b-sides and non-album tracks with more excitement than guilt. Highlights include early single “Lucy” (which appeared on the bonus disc of What’s Up Matador), an alternate take of “Superball” with Joan Wasser from the Dambuilders (who also joined Timony in Mind Science of the Mind, a short-lived side band fronted by Nathan Larson of Shudder to Think), and the aforementioned “What Institution Are You From.” Godspeed to the Soulseek user who initially compiled this material.

I’d never heard of Clikatat Ikatowi before last year, when I was formally introduced to the group by my friend Charlie. There is an underlying logic to both sides of that sentence. Charlie grew up as a San Diego punk rock kid, so the importance and visibility of an art-punk group like Clikatat Ikatowi was exponentially greater there. In contrast, my knowledge of the ’90s San Diego scene emphasizes the bigger names and more palatable sounds of Drive Like Jehu, Rocket from the Crypt, and Heavy Vegetable, overlooking the more explicitly hardcore realm of Gravity Records. At the very least, I’d be able to pick names like Heroin, Mohinder, Indian Summer, and Antioch Arrow out of a line-up. But Clikatat Ikatowi? Even after typing their name three times in this paragraph I'm unsure about the correct spelling.

Charlie was right to recommend Clikatat Ikatowi to me, however, and I was smart to snare a copy of their 1996 debut LP Orchestrated and Conducted by Clikatat Ikatowi at Mystery Train. There’s no doubt this band came from the ’90s San Diego scene (with a member of Heroin, no less), but for every passage of caterwauling screamo, there’s a confident lull closer to the quieter moments of Jehu, Slint, June of 44, or Rodan. Drummer Mario Rubalcaba, later of Thingy, Hot Snakes, Rocket from the Crypt, Black Heart Procession, and Earthless, is an absolute beast, levitating the frayed electrical wires coming from the guitars and vocals and preventing the whole apparatus from short-circuiting. There are ample doses of math-rock here, but unlike the rehearsed confidence of the recently reviewed Rockets Red Glare, those time changes often hit at breakneck speed. Keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

Those moments of June of 44-ness (minus the nautical fetish) represent an unpredictability that keeps the album slippery even after a few spins. Two songs, “Desert Oasis” and “Transmission” (.mp3), stretch out past five minutes, while others pass out before hitting two minutes. Some songs are delivered with throat-killing screams, others pick up Slint’s mumbled speech. Sometimes the guitars throw notes at a dartboard, other times the riffs congeal into fist-pumping classics. Even after you’ve recognized the patterns, their execution betrays normal order. Hell, there’s harmonica in the middle of “Desert Oasis.”

Clikatat Ikatowi’s limited discography offers a manageable addition to your to-buy list. Along with Orchestrated, they released the eight-song 1998 LP River of Souls and a live album, Live August 29th and 30th, 1995 on Gravity Records. Given that member Ryan Noel (later of A.R.E. Weapons) died of a heroin overdose in 2004, reunion shows are out of the question, but fortunately, their records hold up without the context of a sweaty, all-ages punk venue.

This past weekend I came across a copy of Rockets Red Glare’s 2002 self-titled debut at Mystery Train Records in Gloucester, MA (otherwise known as my favorite record store in the northeast). I would be surprised by the score if not for its source; I’ve found all sorts of “This shouldn’t be here…” sundries at Mystery Train, including a stack of mid-’90s Midwestern rock records that I never caught a glimpse of during my six years living in the Midwest. Finding a limited-run vinyl copy of a Toronto post-hardcore outfit’s debut record is strange, but not unforeseen. Actually buying it, that was the tricky part.

(Choose your own adventure directions: Skip down two paragraphs for an description of this record and a sample mp3. Keep going for record-buying anecdotes.)

I can’t remember if this habit pre-dated the dollar LP warehouse, but my process for record shopping is to pull everything of interest and then sort through it at the end. I make three piles: things I’ll definitely buy, things I’ll check reviews (or Discogs prices) on, and things I’ll stop kidding myself on and put back. During this trip to Mystery Train, the first pile was comprised of Dr. Octagon’s Dr. Octagonecologyst (an album I begrudgingly bought on CD a few years ago but will gladly purchase in my preferred format), Clikatat Ikatowi’s Orchestrated and Performed by Clikatat Ikatowi (a recommendation from my friend Charlie—San Diego math-rock/ with drummer Mario Rubalcaba, later of Thingy, Rocket from the Crypt, Hot Snakes, and Earthless), and M83’s Teen Angst EP (cheap, great song, bonus b-side and remix). The second pile was towering: a pair of John Coltrane records ( Olé Coltrane and Live at Birdland) that became no-brainers; a Sun Ra’s Live at Montreux (which reinforced my issue with Sun Ra—I have no idea where to go next); a Jon Hassell LP (Fourth World Volume Two: Dream Theory in Malaya) that reminded me I need to spend more time with the copy of Fourth World Volume One: Possible Musics I grabbed in a previous visit to Mystery Train; a Beastie Boys seven-inch for “Sure Shot” that triggered my potential resale reflex; and the Rockets Red Glare LP. The “C’mon, you have places to be” pile included a pristine copy of the Rolling Stones’ Their Satanic Majesties Request; an Engine Down single; and Pinback off-shoot The Ladies’ lone LP, They Mean Us. With regard to Engine Down and Rob Crow-related albums, Enuff Z’nuff, you know?

I narrowed my stack down to the Dr. Octagon, Clikatat Ikatowi, M83, Beastie Boys and Coltrane records. The big question mark was the Rockets Red Glare album. The review touchstones were tempting—Hoover, Slint, Shellac, Mission of Burma, ’90s math-rock like Sweep the Leg Johnny (whose label Sick Room Records released the CD pressing of this album)—but I was sure I’d seen it there before and was relatively confident I would see it there again. Ultimately I flipped a mental coin, saw that it landed on “Just buy the damn thing,” and checked out.

That was a wise decision. Despite possessing a band name more evocative of super-patriotic American country music, Rockets Red Glare nails Hoover’s style of churning post-hardcore. The average track length stretches to seven minutes, but there’s no excess. The tangled guitars, clear bass lines, deftly shifting drums, and alternately spoken and shouted vocals adhere tightly without an ounce of studio trickery. If you enjoy harmonics cutting through a thick haze of crash cymbals, shouted vocals offering impenetrable poetry (from “Embouchure”: “History is our lemon yellow awning / Opposite spokes obviate sorrow”), stop-starts that have been practiced into muscle memory, quiet passages with wandering arpeggios, and urgent strafing in the place of big choruses, Rockets Red Glare is an obvious pick-up. I have a stack of promo CDs from the late ’90s that evoke this sound, but few of them came close to Rockets Red Glare’s brutal efficiency. (Higher praise: I'm far more likely to put this one on than post-Hoover project Regulator Watts' The Aesthetic of No-Drag.) Check out “Union Station” (.mp3), which is one of the album’s standout tracks.

Rockets Red Glare released one more album, 2003’s Moonlight Desires, also on the Montreal-based Blue Skies Turn Black label, before going their separate ways. Singer/guitarist Evan Clarke drummed for Toronto slow-core outfit Picastro for a spell and joined up with Burn Rome in a Dream, while bassist Jeremy Strachan and drummer David Weinkauf formed the free-jazz outfit Feuermusik (saxophone and bucket percussion). The group played a few reunion shows in 2009, but didn’t release anything new. I haven’t checked out Moonlight Desires yet, so I can’t vouch for its post-hardcore goodness, but if you find yourself in front of a copy of Rockets Red Glare, move it into the to-buy pile.

Bonus content alert: Commenter Anthony below mentioned that Rockets Red Glare's first single, "Redshift" b/w "Halifax," contains his favorite song from the group. Since that single appears to be highly out-of-print, here it is: "Redshift" b/w "Halifax" (.mp3). The a-side is an instrumental, the b-side is an urgent rocker. Both songs are more compact than their sprawling companions on Rockets Red Glare. This single reminds me of another excellent, mostly forgotten math-rock band: Drill for Absentee.

Warning: This will be one of those “I’m not sure where he’s going with this point” reviews, so bear with me. I promise I’ll get around to discussing the new Daniel Striped Tiger album, which is well worth checking out.

One of the competency exams for my Master’s Degree in English involved reading passages from various works of literature and then naming what movement it came from, assigning a date range to it, and citing stylistic motifs to support your choices. If you knew the author and title of the work, fantastic, but the big picture was more important. For someone whose studies focused on the 20th century, differentiating between a modernist and postmodernist work was second-nature, but the fear of having to recognize a Restoration comedy kept me glued to my Norton Anthologies for a few weeks. Fortunately a Wallace Stevens poem made an appearance and allowed me to exhale.

I bring up this anecdote not to alienate the majority of my readership (although I know there are a few past or present literary scholars in my midst), but because Daniel Striped Tiger’s No Difference caused me to think of a related, if entirely hypothetical exam. Does No Difference qualify as hardcore, post-hardcore, both, or something else entirely? Tricky DC post-punk? Late ’90s screamo? I envisioned an exam in which I heard 30 seconds of one of these songs and had to place the sub-genre, choose the year range, and cite the dominant facets of the sound. I shuddered at this thought. Not only are these distinctions much more precise than the literary periods I was required to know (measured in decades rather than centuries), but their boundaries are blurred, if not outright broken.

Daniel Striped Tiger make that hypothetical test nearly impossible. Depending on which 30 second sample you got, you could present a convincing argument for any of those sub-genres/eras. Maybe you get the first 30 seconds of “Goldwood” or “Ancient Future” and chalk up its careening-off-the-rails energy and throat-shredding vocals to a well-done contemporary hardcore album. Maybe you get the loping, bass-heavy groove of “No Reverse” and place it in the mid-fi, turn-of-the millennium indie rock boat alongside North of America. Maybe you get the stop/starts of “Wait Outside” (MP3) and wonder if they’re from DC. Maybe you get one of the album’s stockpiles of gut-punching half-time riffs, let’s say the last half of “Off White,” and choose post-hardcore as your final answer. Maybe the instructor’s a total jerk and gives you the drifting feedback of “Traceroute,” lining you up for certain failure.

No Difference touches on all of these sub-genres, but Daniel Striped Tiger is too smart to stick with one for too long. The album is all about building energy, hitting that point when the train leans off the rails, then finding interesting ways to dissipate that energy. Every half-time breakdown, start/stop section, and quiet passage of instrumental interplay has two purposes: blow off the head of steam and throw more coal in the engine. They never stop moving long enough to lose the energy of hardcore or fully embrace the tightness of post-hardcore. If there’s a line between the two, Daniel Striped Tiger is sitting on it.

What makes the distinction between hardcore and post-hardcore even harder to nail down is that No Difference doesn’t follow the usual evolutionary arc from the former to the latter. Daniel Striped Tiger demonstrated both styles on 2005’s Condition and 2007’s Capital Cities. They’re simply better at it now. The riffs are bigger, the momentum’s greater, and the sense of impending collapse is higher. The lone caveat: with only eleven songs (three of which are essentially filler) spanning 26 minutes, No Difference skews much closer to a hardcore ten-inch than a double LP rock opera. I may be breathless after No Difference, but I wouldn’t mind an encore.