Although the record isn’t due out for another few weeks (July 15th, to be exact), over at their Myspace page The Hold Steady currently have Stay Positive, in its entirety, streaming for free!

I have quite a few lengthy things to say about the brilliance of Stay Positive, so please continue on after the jump to hear me rant about why this record may prove to be the finest in their catalog, and why The Hold Steady are easily the greatest working band in rock and roll.

It’s not fair to say that the new album from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is going to be terrible just because this photo, right? Right?? What about a press release that mentions something called “kitten factor.” Ugh.

Full, bizarre, press release after the jump. Good luck with that.

Animal Collective’s Strawberry Jam was the record of 2007. It cemented the group as one of the most original, exciting, forward-thinking of this sleek, sleepy and often sterile new era. Somehow the foursome made heavy electronics organic. Jam is a compact sun full of pretty, poppy, danceable, shouting chaos, complete with profound subversives.

Each Animal Collective full-length has been followed a companion EP. Water Curses contains four tracks from the Strawberry sessions that cohesively make up their own thing. More mellow and expansive than the taut, shaking jello of Jam, “Water” is an apt descriptor—the feeling is fluid, refreshing and enveloping (and shit, there are sounds of actual water all over the EP).

After the bouncy, single-worthy title-track, the EP relaxes into a soft stream. It’s warm and welcoming, but short on profane amazement so often bursting from Strawberry Jam. The two works, created in the same session, are split perfectly—each with an overriding aesthetic. Water Curses is like a fine mist—if Jam is the waterfall, Curses is the spray and drift after the crash.

Listen: “Water Curses”

Barry Adamson is one bad mofo. The former bassist of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Magazine makes noirish soundtracks to self-imagined films that constantly loop through his head, and he’s been on the longest hep-cat streaks I’ve ever seen. His newest album, Back to the Cat, is an amazing collection of jazzy, gospel, soul-inspired songs strung together in a secret agent package. I’ve been geeking out over it like mad.

MP3:
Barry Adamson - “Straight ‘til Sunrise”

Sleazy crooner travels the Lost Highway of the ’60s!

MP3:
Barry Adamson – “Spend a Little Time”

Murder meets handclaps!

I wish I could tell you he’s coming to town, but no such luck. No US tour dates as of yet. I can vouch for the album though—it came out Tuesday on Central Control.

It’s difficult for me to explain why some guitar-based indie rock works, and some just doesn’t. There’s a lot of it out there. It’s either fantastic, or completely boring. And I think a lot of it has to do with where the band comes from. For example, earlier this week I saw a guitar-based indie band from Stillwater, Oklahoma and I was won over by their slanted take on the familiar style (I may be alone in this). There’s just something about weirdos from Oklahoma (see also: Flaming Lips, Evangelicals) making off-kilter, intriguing music. Having never been to Oklahoma, I’m guessing there’s little to do there, so weirdness has a way of creeping into the music in order to generate some excitement. And there’s little to compare yourself with when you try to do something outside of the box. Then last night I saw a guitar-based band from L.A. and it was totally dull. I’m not sure I could say why; it just seemed absolutely generic, like they took to heart their city’s Hollywood ways of test marketing and demographics to make music that appealed to as many people as possible. In other words, blandly accessible and totally uninteresting.

Which brings me to the Darcys, a group of Torontonians who escaped to Halifax, Nova Scotia—or maybe it’s the other way around. Either way, the relative isolation of Nova Scotia has given them the perspective needed to make their familiar brand of melodic, reverby, guitar-based indie rock seem fresh and new. I’m reminded of another band from similar extremes of Canada, the Novaks from St. John’s, Newfoundland, who make music that should seem totally boring: bar band Tom Petty ripoffs that sound like something a suburban mama would get down to at quarter-beer night. But I think the Novaks, for some reason, are totally great—and so are the Darcys.

Their album, Endless Water, starts with the isolated handclaps and unison vocals of “Strange Fits,” and moves to heights of grandeur in “We Twin Bruises.” Meanwhile, “When We Were a Wilderness” bridges the gap between nonchalance and longing, with circular guitar trills building on top of a half-finished guitar riff and solo pulses from the bass, before moving into a loose, meandering jam. Some of the dancier tunes don’t quite work as well, like “I’m a Ship” which navigates a familiar disco-rock course. But when the band stretches out on the “Where Are Your Daughters/No More Love Songs/Endless Water” triptych, which features some Midlake-esque harmony vocals and some French lyrics, they capture a sense of history, space, and loss. And “Subsequent Ghosts” is beautiful and slow, what they would have called a power ballad twenty years ago, but never falls into the trap of overkill or becomes guilty of sounding like Coldplay. It’s just a little too weird, and raw. Thank god.

If anything, though, the album can at times seem a little anonymous, as if the band’s identity is afraid to assert itself through the delicately alluring music they’ve created. A little more personality wouldn’t hurt. And it’s a tad overinflated, too—the “Untitled (Bedroom Beats)” interlude is totally pointless. But the majority of the music on the record is gracefully, subtly wonderful, bringing to mind chilly weather and vast areas of open water. It knows the importance of warm clothing and shared body warmth. It recognizes the harsh beauty—not only in one’s natural surroundings, wherever they may be—but in new, unexplored emotions, which might be the most terrifying and exhilarating sort of frontier.

MP3:
The Darcys - I’ve Been Sleeping
The Darcys - We Twin Bruises

Endless Water is available at CD Baby and at iTunes.

The new Magnetic Fields album Distortion was released yesterday, and it revisits the fuzzed-out candy pop of some of their older work, specifically Holiday. It’s actually kind of a pleasant shock, coming after the mannered Broadway-leaning pop of songwriter Stephin Merritt’s recent work. This is the right decision; after the landmark 69 Love Songs, there was nowhere further to go in that direction, and i (the last MF album) floundered and failed to gain purchase on this listener’s ears.

Regarding the new record - the whole thing was streaming at their Myspace; it’s since been taken down, but a few songs are still up for enjoyment. Opener “Three Way” resembles an instrumental surf rock tunes (complete with the song title chanted at appropriate intervals), filtered through the distorto-glam of the Jesus & Mary Chain. “California Girls” is another fun song with vocals courtesy of Claudia Gonson. “I’ll Dream Alone” takes some of the familiar, moody elements of Merritt’s innumerable heartbreak songs, but pumps it up with grandeur worthy of Phil Spector. It sounds like Merritt is having a lot more fun these days, or at least is taking the Magnetic Fields thing less seriously.