Astro Coast is a very strong debut album that has all of the makings of a band that is about to be heard by a large number of people. Like Cymbals Eat Guitar did earlier in the year, the band liberally take a pastiche of benchmark influences and adds their own dynamic to make a really strong record.

Mark Lanegan’s voice combined with the ethereal sound textures laid down by the Soulsavers team makes for one of the most dramatic and arresting collaborations of the decade.

With the release of their new album, There Is No Enemy, Built To Spill have recaptured my attention with a record that is packed with guitars, melody, and emotion, while still throwing in enough musical surprises throughout to prove that the band is still growing and willing to try new things, even after 17 years in the business.

So, here are the facts: band’s aren’t machines. They change, have emotions, get confused, angry, sad, happy. Weezer may have shoegazy elements, and certain stylistic roots, but they’re just a rock band, and its members are just rock stars.

Boy Meets World is more than a debut album; it’s a young man’s testament to the trials and tribulations of growing up.

1732 Overton Park is a strong collection of songs that masterfully displays the band’s connection with their roots by taking the best from its influences—not just sounds, but emotions alike.

The album ultimately succeeds because the band writes great, scuzzy rock and roll songs and plays the hell out of them. When you got that down, you don’t need any of the extra stuff.

It doesn’t matter if you are a die hard fan or a first time listener however, Street Hop is a great album regardless of your exposure. This album is hotter than hell in every sense of the phrase; Royce spits lava on every track, and each producer provides the napalm needed to keep the fire ablaze.

Their dusty melodies evoke images of a bygone era, one when Appalachia-bound immigrants brought over the folk tunes of their native lands and melted them into the pot that would become American folk.

Even though the new record is filled with some over-indulgent missteps, it still has an urgency and an exuberance to it that was lacking a bit on At War With The Mystics, and represents a strong return to form for a band that has now been making music together for over 26 years.

At times the sound is studio-clean and at others it sounds as if it was recorded on a home cassette player. At its worst it’s pretentious art school music. At its best it’s like stepping into someone else’s fantastically grotesque dream.

Carey may have three different hometowns listed on his MySace page but hey, two of them are American and at least for the time being, here is where his music seems rooted to stay.