What a fabulous album.

This is the tenth time Jay Nash has walked into a studio and recorded beautiful songs. “I am just a patron of the arts,” he says on “The Art Thief,” a song about struggling for his love and his craft. And it’s true. This is a man who writes visually about feelings–he tells stories with sadness and truth, songs that make you want to stop and sit still and listen. Music means something to Jay Nash–he’s not jsut doing it because it’s fun, he’s doing it because he has to.

“Sometimes you want to go home…Just a little bit of hope, you carry on.” he sings on “Sometimes.” And that’s exactly what this album feels like.

Available on May 14th here and on iTunes.

Don’t judge The Purrs by their album title, “The Boy With Astronaut Eyes.”  This is not a navel-gazing or contemplative album.  This is Seattle rock and roll.

And it’s good.

At the same time, the title track seems to go a little down the shoegaze road, but it doesn’t lose it’s grinding edge–a relentless rhythm guitar crunch that sounds like Velvet Underground.

It’s got some previously released material, like “You, The Medicine and Me,” as well as a bunch of new songs.  I can’t find too much info on a release date–the label sent me the album, and I’m assuming it’s an advance–but I can tell you that if they’re coming to your town, run don’t walk.

This is album #2 for indie rock duo Whitehorse returns (husband-and-wife team Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland), and all I can say is: Please don’t get divorced.

This is a terrific album with a unique sound and style, great guitar work and rhythms,and vocals that sound a little like The Sundays with more soul. It reminds me of Mazzy Star and The Beatles, all at once, not because it’s shoegaze (it’s definitely not) but because it soars, and not because it’s retropop (even though at points the guitar solos feel like it).

I’m loving this!

Courtesy of Six Shooter Records.

I’m not sure how these Aussies found their way into my inbox, but I’m oh-so-grateful.

Good rock and roll–muscular and tough.

Music to fight to.

From R.I.P. records.

I like this. It won’t change your life or anything, but it’s a good listen. I bet they’re a lot of fun live.

Gritty bluesy ’60s style rock and roll.  Like Mountain, Black Mountain, and so many great Jagjaguwar records.  Speaking of which, I seem to have fallen off of Jag’s mailing list.  Oh, well.

I dig every bandcamp band I post about here, but most sound raw, unpolished, unfocused.  I like listening to them because they sound like works in progress.  Like developing artists.  Or like demos.

But the guitar work on California X completely blew me away.

Yeah, it’s a little derivative of ’90s rock like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr., but this is damn good stuff.

Weird video, though.

Detroit Rebellion are from Providence, RI.  No idea why these two guys named themselves after the Motor City.

Whenever you get a rock-and-roll duo of drums and guitar, you always get shades of crunch, smidgens of The White Stripes…But there’s not too much of that here.  Dirty Boots and The Fire, The Devil, and Desire taste a bit like that, but the lead track–Fork in the Road–sounds a lot like Talking Heads.

And the simple lo-fi creep of Nothing To Lose is tight and mournful.

Great, great stuff.

The single is free, and well worth your eartime.

You got a problem with DIY lofi rock and roll? Then don’t download this.

You into good musicians learning their craft and offering some free tunes?

This is for you.

Lee Harvey Osmond, who looks a little like Mandy Patankin playing Jim Morrison in a movie about sweat and drugs, is really Tom Wilson–who has been making music since the 1990s.  And his investment in craft shows on this, his latest album.

The title, “The Folk Sinner,” is perfectly apt.  At times, it feels like the music Bob Dylan would have made if he could sing and play guitar like Mark Knopfler: Bluesy, croony, deceptively simple, gritty and tough.

Produced by Michael Timmins and including a guest spot by Margot (yes, the Cowboy Junkies Timminses), as well as appearances from Hawksley Workman, Colin Linden, Oh Suzanna, Andy Maize, Paul Reddick, this is the first must-have record of 2013.

They’re pushing Devil’s Load as the single–and it’s a perfectly fine tune–but don’t judge this record by it. There are more soulful, painful cuts like “Break Your Body” and plaintive love songs like “Oh Linda,” and there are sad-but-uptempo songs like Big Chief…I could praise every cut on the record. They’re all great.

Don’t sleep on this.