Why You Should Check Them Out:

The next proud member of a burgeoning brood of Scottish indie rock bands, We Were Promised Jetpacks is riding high off the release of their debut full-length. The band will be spending most of 2010 bringing their heartfelt tales of love and loss across Europe, the US, and beyond.

Background Check:

Is it the weather? The single malt scotch? The haggis? Whatever the inspiration, Scotland has produced some darn good bands this millennium–Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad leading the bunch. Now we can add We Were Promised Jetpacks to the canon, after the 2009 release of their highly-acclaimed debut, These Four Walls [Fat Cat].

The band—vocalist and guitarist Adam Thompson, guitarist Michael Palmer, bassist Sean Smith and Darren Lackie on drums–formed as school boys in Edinburgh. The young men entered—and won, unsurprisingly—their high school battle of the bands before migrating to Glasgow to ply their wares and join an already vibrant scene. Like country- and label-mates Frightened Rabbit, WWPJ don’t do anything to obscure their Scottish accents. Quite the contrary: the band emphasizes their native tongue’s rolls and angles, using a pronounced vocal delivery as another weapon in their arsenal.

These Four Walls, the culmination of years of rock-and-toil (the band started up in earnest back in 2003), features driving rhythms, emotive guitars, and even a little glockenspiel, all anchored by rock-solid drums. The tunes vacillate between energetic rockers and dreary—but not too dour—downers, all filled with shimmering cymbals and insistent jangle. The album feels like a release for the band, and a catharsis for the listener.

Where you can find them in cyberspace:

MySpace

Wikipedia

On Tour:

JamBase

One thing is clear about Bradford Cox: the man is a music obsessive. Whether promoting artists through his self-released mixes, churning out tracks of his own with bands Deerhunter and Atlas Sound, or playing countless shows each year, Cox’s life is one immersed in sound. His energy is abundant and infectious, resulting most recently in Logos, perhaps his most interesting artifact yet.

Athens-born Bradford Cox is a freak of a man, often eccentrically-costumed and always preternaturally thin (as the result of Marfan syndrome). He’s also a gifted and prolific songwriter, whose output cannot be contained by one band alone. Atlas Sound is his “solo gig”—a project born in the wake of a self-imposed hiatus from his experimental noise band, Deerhunter.

Atlas Sound’s second album, Logos, was almost abandoned after an unfinished version prematurely leaked from Cox’s MediaFire account. Now, Cox has been known to willfully release exclusive songs through his blog, but this was an accidental—and devastating—ooze. Luckily, he soldiered on to complete the work, buoyed by excellent vocal contributions from Stereolab’s Laetita Sadler and Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear).

Logos is full of lucid, joyful concoctions: a culmination of a lifetime spent culling LPs from dusty stacks. Its tracks gleefully pile up layers of electronics and guitars and hazy vocals, meandering from dreamy shoegaze to rock bliss. Standout cuts like “Walkabout” and “Sheila” marry 60s pop confection with Lilys-inspired indie psychedelia. With Logos, Cox has artfully constructed one of 2009’s best listens: a heart-felt tribute to the music he loves.

Atlas Sound plays the Noise Pop Festival on Friday February 26th at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.  Tickets are on sale HERE

Cold Cave is a testament to the benefits of experimentation. The brainchild of Wes Eisold has produced a debut full-length that is both stark and emotional, filled with plenty of catchy melodies and inventive samples to keep it interesting throughout.

Wes Eisold formed Cold Cave after a run as singer of a few well-loved hardcore bands (Some Girls, Give Up the Ghost) and as front man for some more electronic-based bands like XO Skeletons and Ye Olde Maids. He decided he wanted to start making music on his own, but a lack of facility on guitar forced him to experiment with synths and effects pedals, and the results were dramatic. Edgy, dark electronic pop emerged: a winning mix of new wave, goth, experimental noise, pop and indie rock.

For 2009’s Love Comes Close , Eisold teamed up with Caralee McElroy (Xiu Xiu) and Dominick Fenrow (Prurient) to craft a collection of syth-driven numbers that speak to the tortures of modern life and love. Noise, samples and programmed rhythms make Cold Cave’s tunes sound simultaneously otherworldly and danceable.

Layering harshness and odd recorded sounds with melody and beats results in an edgy, intoxicating whole. There’s a little jangly New Order guitar mingled with Whitehouse-esque noise and Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis’ deep baritone. One of the real treats here is the great female vocals of McElroy as counterpoint. Cold Cave’s trippy, brooding debut presents a project truly rounding into form.

Where you can find them in cyberspace:

MySpace

On Tour:

JamBase