BRUNCH: Thank God

Guyana escapees, Bickel-less, keep fighting. Looser and less linear than the GPL oeuvre, and also weirder: the less amped stretches of "Good Thing Highwaters Are in Fashion" and "Mr. Bluebird Shitting on My Shoulder" could pass for Ruins. Trad-core drag races emerge from calculated confusion, then phase out. Third cousin to the Richmond and Gainesville schools, but generally more offensive: the EP is called Thank God for Pregnant Virgins.

"One Hand Over Yr Mouth"
"Good Thing Highwaters Are in Fashion"
"Alligators Don't Cry"
"2000 Bees Can't Be Wrong"
"Breathing Concrete"
"Mr. Bluebird Shitting on My Shoulder"

Spoonboy, "Fireball, or What I Learned from TV"

Plan-It-X goes to Washington. Downstrokes cut deep as Mr. Max Levine wails, squeezing in every last word against moving pictures. Dense organ harmonies show up to gild the vocal line; tension mounts. Old flames — "That's not reality" — fanned by the fierce urgency of 2004.

"Fireball, or What I Learned from TV"

The Would Be's, "My Radio Sounds Different in the Dark"

Pitch-bending Eire pop, as told to John Peel. Top brass keeps it baroque; counts to seven keep it awkward. Odd enough to estrange jangle partisans, but catchy like the plague.

"My Radio Sounds Different in the Dark"

BRUNCH: Loma Prieta

Cuisinart "skramz": guitar 3, bass 0. Wordy song titles collide with mathy melodrama, erupting into select moments of real transcendence. Paging Kirk Gibson.

"With a Moment of Silence All Was Lost"
"Welcome Spring Break 1989"
"It All Went Down Like on an Episode of 'Law and Order'"
"I Have a Fear of Young Asian Boys"
"Scream Triathlon"

The Brilliant Corners, "Why Do You Have to Go Out with Him When You Could Go Out with Me?"

Toward the ineluctable mope. Davey Woodward's laments are as grim as Morrissey's, but (see title) more plain-spoken; arrested by the "punchy" trumpet break at 1:05, they almost pass for optimism. Amelia Fletcher backs up the chorus, cherubic as ever (and an odd foil in the song's shameful, shameful video). She haunts the outro, too — "I know I should have told you" — while Woodward moans and ties a noose. Decadent jangle pop pushed to the very edge.

"Why Do You Have to Go Out with Him When You Could Go Out with Me?"

Fat Day, "Knute Rockne"

BCS violence, fresh-killed. So much with so, so little. On and emblematic of the first seven-inch, before things got complicated: more slobber, less squeal.

"Knute Rockne"

BRUNCH: Jawbreaker

Dear You discards, still topical as Thorns of Life take root. Skinned knees and shredded vocal cords give way, DGC and all, to a more subdued trio. "Shirt" moved Kurt; "Friendly Fire" triumphs at 2:00, then comes back for more; "Boxcar," juiced but not reduced, remains the definitive implosion of scene politics. Such Promise, such Vision, such Profit Margin: two out of three ain't bad.

"Shirt"
"Into You Like a Train"
"Sister"
"Friendly Fire"
"Boxcar"