Caught in the Carousel

10. Broadway Calls - Good Views, Bad News: when subject matter near and dear to "ourselves" is put in the hands of 3 eminently talented musicians, you occasionally come up with something as strong as Good Views, Bad News.

9. Clock Hands Strangle - Distaccati - Italian for detached. Go ahead, become engaged to Distaccati.

8. Nathan Maxwell - White Rabbit - White rabbit, we weren't too late. We are just in time to enjoy Nathan Maxwell and the Original Bunny Gang's White Rabbit.

7. RX Bandits - Mandala - the RX Bandit's Mandala album makes something challenging equally and immediately appealing while also jumping them ahead on their own game board of relentless drive for uniqueness.

6. The Gary - Chub - This is the kind of stuff you play to put a mellow exclamation point at the end of a great day. Not bad for 2 guys who met drinking beer while floating down a river in July 08, added a guitarist and gave us Chub not quite a year later. Well done!

5. Portugal. The Man. - The Satanic Satanist - Amazing songcraft. As the in the opening to the albums song, "The Sun": "If you look real high, you just might find sitting in the stars, glistening, glistening, waiting for the band to come..."

4. Dredg - The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion - Throughout this "letter to the listener"- style album, evocative vocals mingle with emotionally intense music that leaves you with the sense that the four members of Dredg simultaneously reached into the ether to pull down the 18 brilliant tracks that make up The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion - one sound - the definition of a band.

3. Damn Handsome & The Birthday Suits - Forfeit Afternoon - Damn Handsome are in the midst of completing and LP which they hope to release in early 2010. I, for one, can't wait for their big band brashness and cocktail punk. Until then, this EP will serve as a most excellent prop to occupy your time.

2. The Casualties - We Are All We Have - This band continues to remind us of what we can push for individually or as a group. As the title of the first track Carry On The Flag would have it, The Casualties release of We Are All We Have implore us to carry on the flag!

1. Anti Flag - The People or the Gun - From the opening "Sodom, Gomorrah, Washington DC" through to the end, the Pittsburgh, PA based, Anti-Flag display a musical maturity, along with their philosophy and tie it all up in that sense of urgency. The punk section of your musical library will not be complete without The People or the Gun. VIVA PUNK!

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