When I heard these words, I instantly knew that Eisley was a band that defied convention. Distinguished by their extensive use of harmonies, bewitching combination of vocals and instrumentals, along with intimate, familial touches, the band (comprised of the Tyler, Texas-based Dupree family) effortlessly renders genre-based pigeonholing nearly impossible. Though probably best classified as alternative, the band lies on some middle ground between that and alternative rock, achieving in their sound a wistful, affecting combination of intimacy, elegance and quiet power that transcends any real genre distinction.

With a third album slated for release sometime this spring and having just come off a national tour to promote their latest release (the Fire Kite EP), the band’s recent successes have helped spur an exceptionally loyal, ever-increasing fanbase to grow even more, and it’s easy to see why. Having already established themselves with a consistently dreamlike, naturalistic form of lyrically-based imagery, the band continues to impress, having mastered a perhaps equally important and tragically rare musical phenomenon: evolution.

As of late, the band seems to approach their music with a refreshingly heightened boldness in terms of both ambition and sound, yet does so without sacrificing any of their better qualities. Marked by a clear progression from their nostalgic, entrancing but rather abstract first full album, Room Noises, in 2005, to the more grounded (at least thematically) Combinations in 2007, the band continues its evolution, descending into a darker, at times haunting, place with their latest release, Fire Kite. The progression, while conscious, seems to be natural rather than forced, and, thankfully, comes off as such.

Stacy, the band’s keyboardist/vocalist/lyricist (the latter two roles shared with sister Sherri), describes the band’s latest music as “a little more vulnerable,” giving a distinct sense that “something is deep and broken.” Even so, the EP avoids the precarious realm of the whiny, through maintaining a cautious sort of optimism, because, as Stacy pointed out, “there’s still some beauty and hope, too [‘in the brokenness’],” so “it’s not all dark.” While reminiscent of their older work, the new EP demonstrates a certain maturation that can only stem from, as confirmed by Stacy, a certain level of personal trauma. As such, the EP as a whole feels rather elegiac, but instead of prattling and whining, it mourns in a beautiful sense, coupling the tragedy with a sense of renewal and healing, most noticeable in new tracks “Ambulance” and “The Valley.”

It’s just that sense of convalescence, though, that makes the album uplifting. With the sorrow bringing the listener down and in and the sense of restoration buoying the music up, the melodies are full-bodied and, like the band, “stronger than ever.” Maintaining the same musical power as earlier tracks like “Plenty of Paper” and “Invasion” but combining it with the sentimentality of songs like “Trolley Wood” and “Many Funerals,” Fire Kite embodies a fusion of all the band’s better, former qualities, with some new harder, rock-y touches. This is hardly the culmination of the band’s efforts, though. Says Stacy, “we [Eisley] have a lot more to give, and [...] are very, very passionate about the future.” Considering the band’s evolution, aspirations and youth, it looks like we can expect good things to come from Eisley, not only with their new album coming up this spring, but for years to come.

Sisters Tegan and Sara step it up in Sainthood, the duo’s sixth release. Photo courtesy of the band website.

Tegan and Sara isn’t the same band you used to know. Unless you’re a devoted fan or a frequent Stereogum visitor, the last you probably heard of them was almost six years ago when the Canadian twin set made a minor dent in alternative radio with the indie rock sing-a-long “Walking With A Ghost” off their 2004 breakthrough, So Jealous. But after another studio album and multiple headlining tours under their belts, Tegan and Sara have stepped up their sound and songwriting for their sixth album, Sainthood, co-produced by Death Cab For Cutie guitarist Chris Walla, who also produced the band’s last album, 2007’s The Con.

While The Con incorporated home-recorded demos from the sisters’ isolated songwriting sessions on their respective coasts (Tegan in Vancouver, Sara in Montreal), the approach also generated a more polarized sound: the album’s songs mostly alternated between Tegan’s rapid-fire power pop and Sara’s moodier, intricate compositions. With Sainthood, however, the band avoided following in the footsteps of OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below and opted for a live band approach to recording, rehearsing for several hours a day before recording the songs. The result is a tighter, more aggressive body of work, evident in the lead single “Hell,” one of three songs co-written with AFI’s bassist Hunter Burgan. “Hell” combines the edge of Paramore with the band’s endearing take on love and heartbreak.

Recording together live instead of from their respective homes succeeded in smoothing out some of that songwriting polarization. Those familiar with the band’s prior catalog will likely recognize which sister wrote which song, but cuts like “Sentimental Tune,” a simple, guitar-driven Sara song that could just as easily been written by Tegan will make it harder for new fans to tell their music apart. Seemingly symbolic of this cohesion is “Paperback Head,” the only song so far to have writing duties split evenly among the two of them.

That’s not to say Tegan and Sara have abandoned what makes them unique — Tegan still churns out songs like “Northshore,” a two minute power chord-fest complete with addictive, stream-of-consciousness lyrics, while Sara still crafts intricate, quirky pop songs, such as the piano-driven and single-worthy “Alligator.” The sisters’ trademark vocal harmonies are also just as prevalent as ever, but are less necessary than before. Tegan’s voice is strong enough to carry the weight of most of her tunes completely solo, like on the pounding “Don’t Rush,” while Sara’s layered vocals, more of an acquired taste than her sister’s, can still run thin on songs like album highlight “On Directing.”

Unlike The Con, whose lyrical content focused on anxious, desperate pleas to change the minds of unrequited lovers, Sainthood takes a calmer, more calculated approach to practicing perfection to win over hearts. While The Con’s final song “Call It Off” ended the album on a defeated note with lines like “Maybe I could have been something you’d be good at,” Sainthood closes with some optimism. “Someday” features MGMT-esque synthesizers and a free-form delivery that weaves hopeful determination into similar lyrics like “Might do something I’ll be proud of someday / Mark my words, I might be something someday.” They may not be saints yet, but with an album like Sainthood, they’ve already done something to be proud of.

Zero 7’s latest album, Yeah Ghost. Photo courtesy of Atlantic Records.

Dusk breakers, sparks green

crackling as they crest. Grey froth &

Moonight. Alone rockspear through black

Coast no water just

Rocksandwaves.

U.K.-based downtempo artists Zero 7 scatter shoot on Yeah Ghost, the group’s fourth full album. They score more hits than misses, but the targets are so far apart that their audience will likely wonder at what they were aiming.

As Zero 7, Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker released their first album, Simple Things, in 2001. The album was nominated for the U.K. and Ireland’s prestigious Mercury Music Prize and received broad critical accolade (Pitchfork, unsurprisingly, demurred, calling the album a prime example of “limp-tronica”).

The band found mainstream appeal by licensing singles such as “Destiny” and “In the Waiting Line” for use in overwrought dramatic montages on Smallville, House and Sex and the City. Zero 7 bucks this easy characterization and embraces the weird on Yeah Ghost. The scouts at Apple’s ad division are in for some disappointment.

Yeah Ghost could be a soundscape from an alien world’s beaches and balconies, temples and fire pits. The first cut, “Count Me Out,” undulates with baleen cascades of blue synth. The song doesn’t wash over the listener; it actively pulls and pushes them into a final, empyrean crescendo.

Then “Mr McGee” surprises with a Little Jackie jaunt into R&B, courtesy of guest singer Eska Mtungwazi. Zero 7 puts their production expertise to good use and provides an accessible handicap tee for anyone put off by the lead track’s abstract electronica.

“Swing,” featuring folk singer Martha Tilston, misses longtime collaborator Sia, who does not appear on any of the tracks. The steel drums are a nice touch, though.

An apparent throw-in to footballer Zinedine Zidane, “Everything Up (Zizou)” reintroduces Binns’ voice after his 2006 singing debut on the album, The Garden. For himself, Binns saves a choice verse, “Murakami would have told you so/If you catch him would you let me know/I’m bobbing apples in the studio/Aikido, aikido-se-do.” He not only pulls the line off, but also makes it one of the album’s most memorable moments.

Yeah Ghost peaks with “Pop Art Blue,” a lover’s retrospective campfire song that chills with “I cut myself on barbed wire/getting wood for the fire.” Mtungwazi returns for “Medicine Man” and “Sleeper” and she shocks some urgency into the album’s second half. Yet the songs break up the pace and turn Yeah Ghost into an eclectic trip-hop mix tape.

What’s left? “Ghost SYMbOL,” will excite fans of dubstep artists like Burial. “The Road” reassures, a warm techno-hymn that could be from the soundtrack to Brother Where Art Thou? A Space Odyssey. An expendable instrumental piece, “Solastalgia,” precedes.

Spare and patient, the final track, “All of Us,” triumphs. The tune’s placement and title imply Zero 7 intends to have taken the listener on a journey from the initial “Count Me Out.” Binns and Hardaker hop around so much, though, it’s hard to determine if we’re two steps forward, one step back or just off to the side somewhere.

Mika’s latest album The Boy Who Knew Too Much. Photo courtesy of Casablanca Records.

Grade: B

Compare the cover art of Mika’s 2007 debut, Life in Cartoon Motion, with the pop virtuoso’s sophomore effort, The Boy Who Knew Too Much. If you can tolerate one coloring book brain burst, you’ll probably dig two. Same applies to the music within.

For those unfamiliar with Mika’s coming-out album, your enjoyment of The Boy Who Knew Too Much will depend not on how long, but how high you’re willing to listen. Beginning with the words “Teenage dreams in a teenage circus,” Mika sticks to falsetto — thematically and vocally — for all 13 tracks.

Lead single “We Are Golden” never surpasses its title, an earnest identification for the gays and girls craving a more wholesome (but still fabulous) counterpart to Lady Gaga’s glitter. Another anthem, “Touches You,” stands loud and proud amid the chaos: “I want to be your brother/Want to be your father too/Never make you run for cover/Even if they want us to.”

In every permutation, Mika addresses boys, girls and love. His shrieks instantly bring to mind singers such as Prince and Freddie Mercury. Lebanese, American, French, British and the student of a Russian opera singer, Mika poses as a serious contender for the queer throne once ruled by goblin king David Bowie, Queen and Sir Elton John.

Flirtations with different genres produce mixed results. Calypso (“Blue Eyes”) suits Mika well. The music box, Disney trills of “Toy Boy,” (treading the same ground as the Dresden Dolls’ “Coin-Operated Boy”) errs toward too cutesy. On one of the album’s standout tracks, “By the Time,” Mika out-dreams his collaborator, sandwoman Imogen Heap.

Elsewhere, Mika plays it safe. He smartly trusts his expert pipes and layered arrangements to dazzle Cartoon Motion fans all over again. “Rain” replicates the gloomy, pulsing electro-lite of “Relax, Take it Easy.” On the other hand, an old-timey intro to “Blame it on the Girls” doesn’t stick like that final “Ka-ching!” of “Grace Kelly.”

Not a boy, not yet a man, Mika frequently mentions mom and dad, and his chirpy highs and melodramatic lows prevent anyone from taking him seriously. The Boy Who Knew Too Much offers every type of sugar a kid could want. After the rush, though, it’s just hunger and headache.

You may have heard of them if:

• You are a fan of any of the bands members: Jack White (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs), Alison Mosshart (Discount, The Kills), Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age), Jack Lawrence (The Raconteurs, The Greenhornes).
• You are an avid reader of Rolling Stone or any other rock/indie music publication (they’ve been mentioned at the very least by Rolling Stone and Pitchfork).
• You’ve watched the second episode of — yet another thing about vampires — The Vampire Diaries (their first single, “Hang You from the Heavens,” was featured in Episode 2).

You may like them if you like: The White Stripes, The Kills, The Raconteurs, Queens of the Stone Age, The Black Keys or Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

How can a band that formed in March already have released their debut album, toured the US and Canada and have European venues scheduled for the next month and a half? I think it’s enough to say that Jack White just makes things happen.

For example, the longest The White Stripes ever took to record an album was three weeks. Once the Stripes took up a prolonged hiatus, White started right back up with The Raconteurs. It was only a matter of time before this aptly named “super group” hit the studio and the road.

The Dead Weather is part hard, part experimental, part blues and maybe part punk rock too. It’s a little darker than the bands its members have been in before. With experience on their shoulders, the band mates have been able to work with each other to create something they haven’t quite done before.

Something that may surprise any Jack White fan is that rather than taking over as frontman on his newest creation, he has stepped back, giving Mosshart the lead. Instead, he spends his efforts banging on the drums he had only played for a brief stint pre-White Stripes.

And while Jack’s few ventures on guitar and vocals are a treat to those who love him, there’s no denying Alison’s dynamism as lead singer and performer. Her voice has a strong and sexy resonance that drives every lyric straight through the bone. Her stage presence is even more remarkable. She jumps, climbs, walks, stalks and mesmerizes her audience the whole while through.

Jack joins Alison for duets on two songs and their chemistry is totally carnal. In “Treat Me Like Your Mother,” you’d swear the two are going through the most bitter falling out of the century, especially in the amazing shoot-out-fest of a music video. And throughout the final song off Horehound, “Will There Be Enough Water,” the two slowly seduce while crooning, “Just because you caught me, does that make it a sin?” Sexy.

And let’s not forget Fertita and Lawrence, whose guitar and bass (respectively) resonate power in every chord. Dean’s Queens of the Stone Age style comes through now and then, but there’s something new in it. It’s as if he’s added another layer and is really pouring it on thick. Meanwhile, Lawrence’s bass has lost its element of playfulness that came through with The Raconteurs and has deepened its edge. The result: a great combo to work with.

The greatness of The Dead Weather and therefore, of Horehound, is the way it erodes and evolves and becomes this brilliantly sinister lovechild of blues and hard rock — a blues-rock noir, if you will. They don’t really sound like anyone else around, and yet there’s something familiar in there.

Speaking of familiar, the even greater greatness of this perfect essence is the way the band gets along. Watching them “Hang You From the Heavens” and “Cut Like a Buffalo” on stage shows their daring showmanship, but at the end of the show, the four musicians gather together and accept the audience’s rambunctious applause arm in arm. It’s actually really adorable.

This video will tell you all you need to know, or at least make you laugh.

You may have heard of them if:

• You play Rock Band. Their most popular song, “Maps,” is featured in the game.
• You saw I’m Not There. Karen lent her vocals to Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited”.
• You’re a Spike Jonze fan. He directed one of their music videos and Karen contributed the song “All is Love” to the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack.
• You watch Gossip Girl. Their first single off It’s Blitz!, “Zero,” played during the finale of the second season.
• You went to Lollapalooza. They filled the very large shoes of the Beastie Boys to headline Saturday night after MCA was diagnosed with cancer.

You may like them if you like: The White Stripes, Interpol, The Strokes, The Kills, Franz Ferdinand or TV on the Radio.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs came into being nine years ago in New York City. Three albums later, they have found themselves featured on major prime time television shows and headlining Chicago summer festival Lollapalooza. That’s a lot of popularity for a so-called indie band.

The band sees themselves descending from the New York rock lineage with influences including the still-relevant Sonic Youth. Their punk discotheque vibe remains persistent in both swagger and song. Meanwhile, Yeah Yeah Yeahs are evolving with both identities sounding, perhaps a bit more radio friendly, but without losing their edge.

They also posses a Blondie-esque attitude, featuring standout female vocalist Karen O in a signature bob and (usually) red lipstick, remaining feminine yet fierce. With her raw energy and simultaneously enamoring vocals, Karen O is a dominant symbol of female power that would make even Margaret Sanger proud. She is fearless both on track and on stage — a true force to be reckoned with. And, almost as daring, the gentlemen backing her up (drummer Brian Chase and guitarist Nick Zimmer) throw in their own incredible talents while allowing Miss O to display her mastery of performance. Chivalry is not dead.

Their perfect relationship reaches new heights on It’s Blitz!. For fans who may have loved “Maps” and “Y Control,” but been put off by the strong indie-punk vibe off their earlier work, It’s Blitz! is the album for you. Adding poppier elements has definitely made them more appealing to a wider audience, but never fear, they do not alienate their indie fan base.

They’ve tapped into that something more (dare I call it substance). Yes, they’ve had a couple of great songs and Fever to Kill was a pretty good first album, but It’s Blitz! is the first album to encapsulate their full potential to be listenable and fun, while still staying adventurous and playful.

They’ve hit a nice balance, and after listening to the album at least 20 times I’m still not sick of it. And I guess there’s just something about albums that unfold like a narrative, no matter how much of a stretch that claim may be.

It starts of fierce and fun, with “Zero” and — my personal favorite “jump up and down song” — “Heads Will Roll.” Both are high energy and definitely have Keg of Evanston potential. The next couple of songs seem to be set in a bedroom (not necessarily one’s own) and convey a solemn sense of emptiness of the night before, perhaps harping back to “Zero.”

Karen regains her form and proclaims her mistakes and independence in the subsequent roller coaster of “Dull Life.” This is one of the best examples of the guitar and drums working perfectly to give Karen’s voice even more power and prominence especially as she exclaims “The beast that I lie beneath is coming in.”

Once you get to the softer “Hysteric,” things tend to turn around as “you suddenly complete me in a perfectly bouncy yet peaceful declaration of perfection.” Finally, “Little Shadow” draws the album to a tender close, building on the completeness of “Hysteric” to establish the reality of some sort of unbreakable bond. The lullaby sends the listener to dreamland with thoughts of something a bit deeper than sugar plums.

There’s something in It’s Blitz! for any mood you may be in and while there are highs and lows in energy, there is no one song you’ll have to skip over and over like some other albums might have.

It’s been an excellent year for Yeah Yeah Yeahs and I expect we’ll be seeing and hearing great things from them really soon.

Passion Pit, Manners

Boston-based electro-pop outfit Passion Pit is quickly becoming the MGMT of 2009, but unlike Oracular Spectacular, the non-singles on Manners don’t suck. Lead singer Michael Angelakos’s falsetto soars over poppy danceable electronic beats to push the album’s singles forward, but it’s on the songs that won’t get any radio time — like “Moth’s Wings” and “Little Secrets” — where Passion Pit really hits their stride. You can also expect to hear “Sleepyhead,” the bands biggest single, pounding into your eardrums this year at a few parties as the band is gaining more attention in the mainstream.

Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest

Veckatimest, the second full length from Grizzly Bear, may be the best album of the year so far. Grizzly Bear can sound like a college glee club trying to be a rock band at times, but those glee club harmonies sound damn good on songs like “Cheerleader” and “While You Wait For The Others.” Most of the time, though, the Brooklyn four piece just sounds classic. The bouncy “Two Weeks” is an old fashioned piano pounding pop song that you will be struggling to get out of your head for about the next week and a half (with a music video that kicks ass).

The Smith Westerns, The Smith Westerns

I wasn’t alive in 1960s, but Chicago teenagers The Smith Westerners can make me feel that way. Their warm, fuzzy garage-pop recalls a time before bloggers and iTunes, but the album hardly does justice to the band’s live performance. The vocals on the album are much more muffled and distorted and you miss out on the boyish charm that frontman Cullen Omori exudes on stage. At their core, the Smith Westerns are actually just a bunch of horny teenagers, and it shows in their music. They do have a little bit of class though, something that’s absent from much of contemporary music. “I wanna take you home,” the key line in the single “Be My Girl,” is a bit easier to swallow than when Lady Gaga sings “I want to take a ride on your disco stick.”

Mos Def, The Ecstatic

Hip-hop icon turned actor Mos Def stuffs good tunes, fresh rhymes and worldly vibes into his first solo release since 2006, and it seems like he is trying to expand the reach of rap music as well. Mos Def starts off the album with a cut from Malcom X’s 1964 speech at Oxford setting the tone for this cosmopolitan record. “No Hay Nada Mas” is rapped entirely in Spanish and many of the songs are injected with a bit Indian or Middle Eastern flavor. Mos Def really displays how versatile he is on The Ecstatic, but he also shows us that he still knows how to lay down a rhyme.

YACHT, See Mystery Lights

YACHT’s follow-up to 2007’s I Believe in You, Your Magic Is Real brings on Claire L. Evans as a permanent voice. And when her sweet and innocent vocals are draped over layers of bubbly synths on See Mystery Lights, it just makes you feel happy inside. The album is teeming with sunshine pop jams like “Psychic City (Voodoo City)” and “The Afterlife” which makes See Mystery Lights a perfect summer album. Unfortunately for those of you who missed it when it was released in early August, you might have to wait until next summer to blast it from stereo with the top rolled down.

The time between albums was not idly spent. Fantasies, the band’s first self-financed release, is a refreshing step in a completely new direction, or rather, many new directions. The album is all over the place, which manages to showcase Metric’s versatility without detracting from the continuity of the work. It draws from some unexpected genres — “Twilight Galaxy” has what appears to be a trip-hop beat, and the chorus of the wonderful “Gimme Sympathy” can’t decide if it belongs in a power pop single or a dance-hall house number.

Despite the range in sounds employed, the progression of the album itself is entirely standard — anyone who’s ever seen an English teacher map out a novel’s plot structure will be familiar with the various peaks and valleys of Fantasies. The crescendo-laden exposition of “Help I’m Alive” sets the stage for the rest of the album. Standard Metric fare, like “Sick Muse,” provides the rising action, with the more serene tracks, like “Twilight Galaxy,” showing traces of tension that help move things along. The record hits its climax with “Gimme Sympathy.” More than anything, it’s the album’s intensity rather than its organization that is noteworthy and largely unseen in the band’s previous efforts (but hinted at by the darkness of Haines’ 2006 solo release). Still, it is undeniable that the story-like quality contributes to a feeling of completeness at the record’s end.

There is a deep driving force behind every song on the album; even “Collect Call,” a track that serves as a respite from “Gimme Sympathy,” pushes on inexorably with undeniable energy. “If somebody’s got soul, you’ve gotta make a move,” pleads Haines, in one of the album’s most hushed, evocative numbers. The beautiful “Blindness,” which has the feeling of a sad girl singin’ her blues away, would have made a logical denouement, but that would have been too easy. I guess the band figured that ending an album as grandiose as Fantasies on a less-than-bombastic note would have been a total letdown, so they threw in the aptly-named “Stadium Love” (which indeed has enough sound to fill a stadium) as a resolution to the unhappiness framed in the preceding track. The song is overblown, but it works, bringing the album to an end with an overwhelmingly positive mood.

Metric has always been fairly shallow lyrically, mainly employing snappy one or two-liners that carry more wit than meaning. They form vignettes and convey emotions without making statements, which has always been fine — Haines’ voice turns simple and abstruse lyrics alike into ear candy. The album runs the full gamut of lyrical quality, but even poetically weak songs like “Twilight Galaxy” are, if not substantive, at least pleasing to the ear. Overall, though, it seems that the band’s compositions are becoming more pointed; most of the songs in this release do have some prevailing image that they get across. But Metric has never been about the lyrics, or at least about the meaning of the lyrics; the songwriting caters to Haines, allowing her to form the most sultry and appealing vocal patterns possible. Listen to her croon “I can feel you most when I’m alone” on “Satellite Mind,” and you’ll understand.

It’s debatable whether Fantasies eclipses the earlier entries in Metric’s already illustrious discography. Still, it seems that the band has figured out how to tell a complete story rather than simply taking a series of snapshots.

Notable Tracks: “Help I’m Alive,” “Satellite Mind,” “Gimme Sympathy,” “Collect Call”

Fantasies is available on iTunes and will be released to record stores on April 14th.

El Guincho kicks off the album with “Palamitos Park,” a sun-soaked romp that covers all of El Guincho’s tropes — tribal drums, chanting, samples of people talking and cheering, things being banged upon and some catchy Spanish singing. One of my roommates walked in while I was listening and exclaimed how “it makes your feet feel like they’re south of the border.” Awesome.

Alegranza! falls into the category of “hipster party record.” It basically means that people will put this on alone at home and think, “Wow, this would be cool to hear at a party.” But the chances of this record being played at a real party are slim since the lyrics are all in Spanish. Plus, El Guincho is still pretty unknown.

Even though each song utilizes similar tactics in its construction, Díaz-Reixa — whom I think only ever wears red pants — finds a way to give each track its own feel. One of the album’s best, “Cuando Maravilla Fui,” steps out of the usual tropical motif and instead gives off a Middle Eastern vibe. He samples a sitar, which makes you feel like you’re walking through a stuffy marketplace on a sweltering day.

At times the record can be a bit overstuffed — there always seems to be so much going on. Coupled with all the repetition of typical dance music, Alegranza! can become overwhelming. While this record gets countless, but deserved, comparisons to Panda Bear’s Person Pitch, I wouldn’t go so far to say they’re equals. Alegranza! is much less subtle and ultimately lacks the replay value. Overall though, it’s quite good and may even deserve a few spins at your next small, hipster party.

Reatard is strangely reminiscent of old-school punk-rock. He takes bouncy beats, simplistic chord progressions and catchy, repetitive lyrics and packages them into 2-minute song bites. Much like the Ramones did, except with a more lo-fi feel. You can picture Reatard as a one-man outfit, recording on broken-down equipment in his room. It’s that do it yourself feel that gives his songs an endearing quality.

Despite all that, Reatard is definitively different from punk bands past. In “Screaming Hand,” he has you expecting a certain melodic outcome but fails that expectation by throwing in a somewhat awkward but altogether fitting mid-chorus breakdown. “An Ugly Death” starts out slow and serious with an almost tribal drum beat, but a guitar riff quietly enters with increasing intensity, segueing to a traditional punk progression with a cleaner guitar sound and an out-of-character 50s style guitar solo midway. He presents a self-paradox — you know what to expect, but he always throws in something to surprise you.

“Always Wanting More” stands out as the most musical track with an arching guitar line. But the chorus lapses into the traditional Jay-style repetitions that prominently play out in “See/Saw.” Reatard uses a decent amount of synthesizer, evident on tracks like “You Mean Nothing to Me,” with its quasi-funky intro. He operates within a sphere but stretches the limits. It’s amazing what he accomplishes with little more than a guitar, drums and his voice.

Reatard gets you back to the basics of music with this head-bobbing singles compilation. So enjoy the punchy punk-rock and look forward to his upcoming album.