Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, 'Beat the Devil's Tattoo' (Abstract Dragon/Vagrant)
Six albums in, BRMC still seemingly pick their songwriting styles by throwing darts at a rock'n'roll genre chart. Tattoo offers deeply committed re-creations of bleary balladry ("Long Way Down"), stoned Americana ("The Toll"), distorto-pop ("Bad Blood"), and spacey trips into wah-wah oblivion (the ten-minute "Half-State").
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Laura Marling, 'I Speak Because I Can' (Astralwerks)
Laura Marling is just 20 years old, but unlike another singing 20-year-old (say, one with blonde ringlets, a sparkly acoustic guitar, and several Grammys), Marling doesn't write about fairy tales and cute boys.
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Love Is All, 'Two Thousand and Ten Injuries' (Polyvinyl)
With her piercing squawk, Love Is All frontwoman Josephine Olausson could be a disruptive preteen deserving of serious medication, or a stretch in after-school detention. But her aim is true on the Swedish quintet's third full-length, a fizzy, exhilarating hybrid of bubblegum pop and bratty punk.
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Kleenex/LiLiPUT, 'Live Recordings, TV-Clips & Roadmovies' (Kill Rock Stars)
As an addendum to 2001's double-CD release of these post-punk Swiss misses' remarkable studio catalog, Kill Rock Stars digs even deeper for an appropriately lo-fi 1979 concert and a tighter late-career gig from 1983. Historically obscure?
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Kaki King, 'Junior' (Rounder)
Listening to Junior, it's apparent that if Kaki King hates her ex this much now, she really must have loved her then. The instrumental virtuoso claims a backing band on her fifth album, and the new rhythm section adds aggression to tangles of guitar and post-domestic disgust.


