(lo:muêso), "Rented Mistakes"

Catalan anglers hoard punctuation, dramatic structure. Give it time — specifically, 2:30, at which point the choppy dissonance wanes, funneling into an extended up-the-ladder second act that promises transcendence and almost delivers. Jehu freaks with a touch of the baby's-breath vocals that kept Party of Helicopters in flight — but also some questionable prog tendencies of late. Never forget.

"Rented Mistakes"

BRUNCH: The Dils

Carlsbad class consciousness. Sweetness and light from the upper registers of that left coast. The downbeat stomp of "You're Not Blank" remains the fittest rival, in the last analysis, to "I'm a Bug"'s troglodytic cadence, except the Kinmans pile on harmonies and some unforgettable unison kicks. Praxis makes perfect.

"I Hate the Rich"
"You're Not Blank"

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, "Helen"

Washed-out background pop from the hills. Old news by now, but this is what we call a sleeper. Among the less self-referential tracks on House Arrest (cf. "Hardcore Pops Are Fun," built on an identical chorus hook), and a welcome flash of candor from this lilting scion.

"Helen"

Descendents, "Like the Way I Know"

Lost-and-found angstage from the greatest. Cut with SPOT for MGTC but unmixed until 1998, this one trickled from The Last to the Descendents before escaping non-posthumous release. Chainsaw pop at its purest, the thick Navetta tones both prickly and warm, Milo's wounded cords spitting little dissertations on the outcast's episteme. In every sense, a national treasure.

"Like the Way I Know"

BRUNCH: Tiala

Combustible time-sig terrorism. Complex but never hyper-intellectual, grafting tightly wound thrash segments onto the bipolar conservation-of-energy rubric that bubbles under so many records birthed in the wake of emo. Dig the Shaft-hat intro, the walking bass, and finally the screams as the boys lay waste to facile notions of climax and denouement. Tiala pals around with the Malay crew — Fujicolor, Orbit Cinta Benjamin, Kias Fansuri — but is Japanese, and their side so dwarfs splitmates and alleged scene doyens Utarid as to compel some serious soul-searching around Kuala Lumpur.

"Futekisetsu Gendou"
"Public Enemy"
"Tuu Tuu"

Algernon Cadwallader, "Serial Killer Status"

Puberty comes to the Keystone State. The realest Cap'n Jazz clones modern science ever cooked up. The jilted aphorisms live on — "You can't just get off the bus now / So cut off your feet and like it because stubs are better feet" — but wordplay, when it indeed crops up, feels just perfunctory: another track, we regret to inform, on the Some Kind of Cadwallader LP is called "Yo Soy Milk." Boisterous, anyhow, and atavistic in the best way. ¡Qué suerte!

"Serial Killer Status"

Books Lie, "Letter to My Psychiatrist"

Possessed hardcore from pre-onslaught Williamsburg. Vocals by way of End of the Century Party, which spells spite and frustration, but a clear eschewal of the spastic tactics that defined that band, Palatka, or other Floridian comrades. Total refusal, lyrically, underwritten by a furious battery harvesting the fruits of the '90s and spoiling them anew.

"Letter to My Psychiatrist"