Nine Inch Nails Ghosts I-IV (The Null Corporation)

Nine Inch Nails

Ghosts I-IV (The Null Corporation)

Nine Inch Nails' Ghosts I-IV, a 36-song instrumental opus written in 10 weeks and released without the aid of a label, is quite a departure from the band's angst-ridden industrial sound of the past. Trent Reznor is even giving the first nine tracks away for free on the band's Web site. Dubbed by Reznor a "soundtrack for daydreams," the album certainly is meditative. The tracks don't even have individual names, just numbers. The first three tracks are very mellow, with soft lilting guitars and a smattering of piano here and there. The fourth track, "13 Ghosts II," brings in some of Reznor's trademark distorted guitar work but comes across as more ominous than aggressive.

DeVotchKa A Mad & Faithful Telling (Anti/Epitaph)

"24 Ghosts III" integrates more traditional Nine Inch Nails with a danceable industrial beat and flows immediately into a slow solo piano creating an atmospheric mood. "19 Ghosts II" brings in more drumbeats and distorted guitar to create something that resembles the old Nine Inch Nails, but doesn't quite reach the mark. New instruments are employed in many of the songs, and bells and chimes as well as what sounds like a xylophone all make appearances. Once you get into the album, all the tracks start to sound the same: slightly ambient and spooky. Surprisingly down-tempo and mellow for a band known for brash anguish-filled rants, this album is full of surprises, the biggest one being that you could actually play some of these songs in an elevator or at a yoga class. Reznor has accomplished his goal of making a "soundtrack for daydreams," but the underlying question is whether you could get through the whole thing without nodding off. - Lois Elswick

DeVotchKa

A Mad & Faithful Telling (Anti/Epitaph)

Although DeVotchKa is one of the hottest new bands in the country, it's actually been around for a decade, playing music that sounds like a mash-up of drunken revelers at an Eastern European gypsy wedding, a Mexican folk tent revival and an indie rocker's world-music iPod on speed shuffle. DeVotchKa's success couldn't have been any more grassroots if it had been grown by seed. The Denver quartet, supplemented by a veritable kitchen-sink orchestra of strings, horns, accordians and what-have-you, self-released a trio of acclaimed albums and a quirky covers EP, then nabbed the plum job scoring the indie hit film Little Miss Sunshine and earning a Grammy nomination along the way.

Be Your Own Pet Get Awkward (Ecstatic Peace)

For A Mad & Faithful Telling, its high profile Anti/Epitaph debut, DeVotchKa doesn't depart much from its previous homegrown albums, retaining its unique sonic perspective, galloping through encyclopedic musical influences with a studied charm and eclectic abandon. From the careening, carousing opener "Basso Profundo" to the Slavic Moody Blues-isms of "The Clockwise Witness" and the Tijuana Tom Waits tilt of "Head Honcho," dervish frontman Nick Urata and his merry band of exotic musical reconstructionists erase all musical borders to craft pop music that transcends the very genres that have been lovingly Frankensteined. In 1973, Bryan Ferry warbled "all styles served here" in "Do the Strand"; 35 years later, DeVotchKa bullhorns that sentiment like a futurist's manifesto. - Brian Baker

Be Your Own Pet

Get Awkward (Ecstatic Peace)

When we last left the members of Be Your Own Pet, they were the cheeky sugar-rush darlings of Thurston Moore's record label. They were four teens who had the very un-teen ability to turn their sarcasm, angst and middle-finger-throwing into a volatile, yet song-centric garage band. Frontwoman Jemina Pearl managed to throw "ums" and "likes" into her lyrics without seeming ironic, while the boys in her backing band could manage some snarling, jackhammer fuzz rock. Well, now a little older and survivors of the hype machine, Be Your Own Pet has returned with another brash and snarky rocker of an album.

The Kills Midnight Boom (Domino)

Songs like "Heart Throb" and "Zombie Graveyard Party" are spunky takes on psychobilly, while "Blow Yr Mind" and "Food Fight" are scrappy punk numbers, and standout "Becky" is a '50s rock-laced tale. All of the songs, like those on the band's debut, are nonstop energetic assaults held together by Pearl's fierce melodies and domineering attitude. The big question seems to be how much longer Be Your Own Pet can keep up this pace. Get Awkward might be a good album, but it feels too much like an extension of the band's debut, meaning the group's going to need to rework the formula in order to deliver a great album. - Matt Whelihan

The Kills

Midnight Boom (Domino)

When the book is finally written on the early 21st century's garage/blues rock revival, the Kills will certainly go down as one of the more interesting and consistent bands born out of the scene. Instead of churning out the kind of verse-chorus-verse, guitars-bass-drums-vocals rock that inclusion in the genre seems to demand, the Kills have managed to perfectly marry that garage skuzz with electronic fuzz for two full-length records. But while a majority of the other acts that rode the White Stripes' coattails to success got complacent, the Kills seem like they're still coming up with relevant material.

Son Lux At War With Walls and Mazes (Anticon)

None of the dozen tracks on their third record, Midnight Boom, sounds like filler. In fact, like the Kills' previous efforts, this one is a tidy affair, clocking in at a lean 34 minutes. From the Lee-Hazelwood-and-Nancy-Sinatra-inspired singing on the second-circle-of-hell-like "U.R.A. Fever" to the scattershot stream-of-consciousness lyrics atop thumping bass beats of "Cheap and Cheerful," the Kills never feel like a color-by-numbers act. And that's their best trait. Singer Alison "VV" Mosshart has clearly upped the performance ante this time out. Where previous albums featured more of a whiskey-and-nicotine-soaked conversational tone, Midnight BoomJeremy Willets

Son Lux

At War With Walls and Mazes (Anticon)

At War With Walls and Mazes is a seamlessly gliding album that pours forth in placid liquid perfection despite its often-propulsive drumbeats. It's a record that features the sort of production that entices and surprises because of its scope and dichotomy. Tracks organically mutate from opera-hall-sized compositions with car-speaker-rattling hip-hop beats to the sort of bare-all dim-lit bedroom intimateness you'd expect from a band like Xiu Xiu. What makes this all even more amazing is the fact that it is the work of one man, experimental composer Ryan Lott.

Lott - who resided in Cleveland for a time and was awarded two Ohio arts grants - pieces together his own delicate instrumentation of scrambled samples, Radiohead-like beats, and unobtrusive vocals with grace and precision. The result is an album that recalls everything from fellow Anticon act Why? to trip-hop pioneers Portishead. But while Lott recalls these artists, he also pushes things further by creating an album that manages to be both massive and intimate. It's a surprising achievement that yields fulfilling listens on headphones or speakers. Starting Son Lux was an interesting, and perhaps even dangerous move for Lott, but the result is a superb and multifaceted album. - MW