Name: The Love Language
From: Raleigh, North Carolina
Story: Merge Records' latest Love
Sound: Lo-fi wall-of-sound pop

When Merge Records announces a new signing, people take notice. Yet, when the Chapel Hill-based label announced the recent inking of Raleigh-based band the Love Language, the world seemed to shrug. Who were these unknown locals? Most didn't know. But a devoted few already did.

Early this year, the Love Language released a really great record on tiny Bladen County Records. To this point, it's garnered only a cult following, but has absolutely begged for a wider audience. The self-titled set finds songwriter Stu McLamb making a thick, fuzzy, lo-fi platter pealing with chiming pop-songs.

Slugging out jukebox-friendly ballads built on saloon-bar piano chords and heavily-reverberated vocals, McLamb has a wondrous way with melody. On "Manteo" he commands over a tender waltz-time tune that sounds for all the world like it should be coming from oldies radio, if only because of its sweet Phil Spector-styled showers of sleigh-bells.

Making its grandeur all the more impressive is that McLamb recorded these tunes whilst living in his parents' house, in the wake of a relationship gone sour. The seven-piece Love Language live-band was assembled only after the album was finished, but all hands will be on deck for the second LL LP, due on Merge in 2010.

• Listen: The Love Language, "Lalita"

Photo © Nathan Pazsint

The Year: 2002
The Album: The Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Who It Influenced: Passion Pit, MGMT, Evangelicals, the Minus Story, Band of Horses, and, um, Coldplay

For a certain generation, "Do You Realize??" isn't just a song, but an anthem; a gleaming, glorious, slightly-psychedelic power-ballad that sees the exquisite, aching beauty in being but a tiny, frail, mortal figure standing on this rock hurtling through space, desperately trying to fill a life with wonder and love before the inevitability of death comes along.

The centerpiece to 2002's utterly-beloved Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is something more than just a killer single on a classic record. It's like an alt-rock answer to "Imagine," or something; a tune so universal and transcendent that, for example, the State of Oklahoma named it its Official Rock Song. A tune that finds thousands upon thousands of people gleefully screaming along, every time the Flaming Lips play, about how everyone they know will, someday, be but food for worms.

In such, this song —this anthem— is the song that defines the Flaming Lips. Since releasing The Soft Bulletin in 1999, the band have turned their ridiculous liveshows into seize-the-day-spectacles exploding with as much joy as confetti; life-affirming celebrations of love and positivity. In other hands, that sounds like so much empty Oprah rhetoric, but the Lips' don't airbrush out the death and decay, and come out looking all the more poignant for it.

• Full review: The Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

2009 has been a strange year for Los Campesinos!: they haven't released a single album!

The hyperactive Welsh indie-pop posse did the deed twice-over last year, first releasing their debut disc, Hold on Now, Youngster... (one of '08's best albums), and then six months later issuing their second record, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed; thereby cementing their status as one of 2008's breakout bands.

Now, after the band kept discographically silent this year, 2010 will be bringing with it the third LC! LP. The magnificently-titled Romance is Boring will be released on January 26 in North America via the Broken Social Scene-bankrolled Arts & Crafts, and on the 1st of February in the EU via Wichita.

Writing on their website, Los Campesinos! call Romance is Boring "a record about the death and decay of the human body, sex, lost love, mental breakdown, football and, ultimately, that there probably isn't a light at the end of the tunnel."

Helping them explore the darkness are a bunch of super-special guests, including Jherek Bischoff of the Dead Science, Xiu Xiu mastermind (and sometime Former Ghost) Jamie Stewart, and our old pal Zac Pennington of Parenthetical Girls. Indeed!

Romance Is Boring Track List:
1. "In Medias Res"
2. "There Are Listed Buildings"
3. "Romance Is Boring"
4. "We've Got Your Back (Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #2)"
5. "Plan A"
6. "200-102"
7. "Straight in at 101"
8. "Who Fell Asleep In"
9. "I Warned You: Do Not Make an Enemy of Me"
10. "Heart Swells/100-1"
11. "I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know"
12. "A Heat Rash in the Shape of the Show Me State; or, Letters From Me to Charlotte"
13. "The Sea Is a Good Place to Think of the Future"
14. "This Is a Flag. There Is No Wind."
15. "Coda: A Burn Scar in the Shape of the Sooner State"

Los Campesinos Play Four Shows Supporting The Cribs, Just So You Know:
December 2: Birmingham, England - O2 Academy
December 3: London, England - Brixton Academy
December 5: Doncaster, England - Dome
December 6: Edinburgh, Scotland - Corn Exchange

Spoon have announced the imminent, early-'10 release date of a new album, named Transference. The Austin-based rockband's sure-to-be-rockin' seventh LP will be released on January 26 (Invasion Day!), on the powerhouse that is Merge Records.

The first taste of Transference turns out to have already been offered up, back when Spoon knocked out the Got Nuffin EP in June. For those who dug the short, sharp, no-gimmicks attack of "Got Nuffin," well, there's 10 more Spoon tunes awaiting for you to hear soon.

Transference Track List:
1. "Before Destruction"
2. "Is Love Forever?"
3. "The Mystery Zone"
4. "Who Makes Your Money"
5. "Written in Reverse"
6. "I Saw the Light"
7. "Trouble Comes Running"
8. "Goodnight Laura"
9. "Out Go the Lights"
10. "Got Nuffin"
11. "Nobody Gets Me But You"

Photo © Autumn de Wilde

After last week's countdown of the Top 10 breakout acts of 2009, I thought it might be apt to take a look at the brand new bands whose debuts may not have been the biggest of the year, but, rather, the best.

Bands like Mi Ami. Their totally great Watersports LP seemed to get lost in the shuffle from the moment their record-label, Touch & Go, shut up shop right after its release.

Formed in San Francisco by guitarist/vocalist Daniel Martin-McCormick and bassist Jacob Long, former members of shouty, post-punk-ish DC noiseniks Black Eyes, Mi Ami play sprawling, rippling, polyrhythmic music that sounds like a particularly loose take on punk-funk. Played underwater.

Watersports was, for my money, one of 2009's most striking first albums. And here's a bunch more: 10 Great 2009 Debut Albums, for your perusin' pleasure.

Photo © Jonathan Snyder

Name: Surfer Blood
From: West Palm Beach, Florida
Story: Not actually beach bums
Sound: Surfer Rosa gone surf music

Last week I introduced you to New Yorker hipsters The Drums, a hype-gathering outfit whose scandalous marriage of surf-rock and twee-pop has cemented them as one of the breakout bands of 2009.

Now, meet Surfer Blood. They hail from West Palm Beach, Florida (a town I'll always associate with a classic, Viva Last Blues-era single by Will Oldham), and, sure enough, there's a downpick'd twang to their shootin'-the-curl guitar stylings. But, it's surf-guitar by way of The Pixies: Surfer Blood making undeniably anthemic indie-rock replete with quiet/LOUD dynamic shifts.

On the band's forthcoming, January-due debut, Astro Coast, JP Pitts and his crew play dynamic guitar-music summoning early-'90s summers with its six-stringing crunch. The LP has already caused quite a ripple due to its first single, "Swim (To Reach the End)," the most crank-it-in-your-car-stereo-and-yell-along song this year not found on that Japandroids album.

Speaking of Japandroids, Surfer Blood will be touring with them in the coming weeks (from November 20 to December 1), as well as playing a run of shows supporting Art Brut (Nov. 6-14). All known shows below...

• Visit: Surfer Blood on MySpace

Surfing the Highways:
November 6: Denver, CO - Bluebird Theater
November 7: Lawrence, KS - Bottleneck
November 8: Omaha, NE - TBA
November 9: Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock
November 10: Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall
November 11: Oberlin, OH - Dionysus Disco
November 12: Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church
November 13: New York City, NY - Brooklyn Bowl
November 14: Baltimore, MD - Ottobar
November 20: St. Louis, MO - Billiken Club
November 21: Omaha, NE - Slowdown
November 25: San Diego, CA - Casbah
November 27: Los Angeles, CA - Echo
November 29: San Francisco, CA - Rickshaw Shop
November 30: Portland, OR - Holocene
December 1: Seattle, WA - Chop Suey
December 7: Phoenix, AZ - Trunk Space
December 9: Lubbock, TX - Bash Riprock's
December 10: Dallas, TX - Granada Theatre
December 12: Mobile, AL - Alabama Music Box
December 13: Orlando, FL - Backbooth

The Year: 1971
The Album: Michael Hurley, Armchair Boogie
Who It Influenced: Cat Power, Jolie Holland, Devendra Banhart, Vetiver, Will Oldham, Jason Molina

When it comes to musical legacies, sometimes it's not how many people you inspire, but who you inspired. Michael Hurley is a still-going-strong songwriter (who just released his 18th (I think) LP proper, Ida con Snock) who was, perhaps, the original vanguard of the New Weird America.

Hurley has been, for most of his career, a complete obscurity, a genuinely underground oddball known on only the most cult-like level. But, his albums have found their way into some notable hands, and Hurley has had some notable fans. Most obvious is Cat Power, who's covered three of his songs. Acid-folkies Espers have also covered Hurley. As have the Violent Femmes.

Devendra Banhart and Andy Cabic of Vetiver release Hurley's new albums on their Gnomonsong label. Tara Jane Oneil and Ida have played on his recent records. Jolie Holland just took him on tour. And then there's just those who've sung his praises, a glittering litany that ranges from country starlet Lucinda Williams to jam-band weirdos Sunburned Hand of the Man.

Out of the 20+ records that come bearing Hurley's name, none is better than his second; 1971's Armchair Boogie. It captured a mood that the songwriter would sustain throughout his career: simultaneously goofy and poignant.

• Full review: Michael Hurley, Armchair Boogie

Sub Pop Records have announced the signing of Baltimore duo Beach House, and the January 26 release date for their third album Teen Dream.

The pairing of vocalist/organist Victoria Legrand and guitarist Alex Scally, Beach House have won an audience of ardent admirers for their slow-burning dream-pop, which owes an obvious artistic debt to antecedents like Nico and Mazzy Star.

Following on from the band's acclaimed first two records, 2006's Beach House and 2008's Devotion (both for DC-based Carpark), Teen Dream marks their first work for their new label. Produced by Dave Sitek associate Chris Coady (Celebration, TV on the Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Architecture in Helsinki), the album will be released with a bonus DVD featuring a video-clip for every one of the LP's songs.

Teen Dream Track List:
1. "Zebra"
2. "Silver Soul"
3. "Norway"
4. "Walk in the Park"
5. "Used to Be"
6. "Lover of Mine"
7. "Better Times"
8. "10 Mile Stereo"
9. "Real Love"
10. "Take Care"

Photo © Elena Johnston

This year, Belle and Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch unveiled his new project: God Help the Girl. Conceived as a screen musical, GHTG soon grew into a set of songs, which grew into a record. And, now, months after Matador dished up the self-titled God Help the Girl LP, it's grown into a few live shows.

And, yes, the emphasis is on the few. For three ultra-exclusive shows, Murdoch has assembled a nine-piece band and three of the singers that're part of the God Help the Girl 'cast': Catherine Ireton, Celia Garcia and Alex Klobouk.

To go with the shows, the 'band' --if we can call them that, now-- have a new five-song EP, Stills, which has just been digitally released. These cuts date from the God Help the Girl LP sessions, and have the same sense of swing.

And, if you've read this far but haven't read my interview with Stuart Murdoch about God Help the Girl, then, you really should go read that.

God Help the Girl Help You:
November 20: The Hague, Netherlands - Nationaal Toneel
November 21: London, England - The 100 Club
November 29: Edinburgh, Scotland - The Usher Hall

With the fun, frolickry, and hype-startin' of the 2009 CMJ Music Marathon already but a flickering memory, and the end of the year suddenly looming mere weeks away, it's time for list-making season.

And, with CMJ so fresh in the collective mind, I thought a great year-end list to dish up first would be the Top 10 Breakout Acts of 2009; those bands who, over the past year, came from nowhere to suddenly be, like, everywhere.

One of those bands has been Girls, a duo from San Francisco whose fondness for the simplest of names --their debut LP is called, simply, Album-- befits their back-to-basics approach.

They play rock'n'roll stripped down to unadorned melody, and do so with a surprising lack of snark: earnest, hopeful, flirtatiously silly. Sure, they're hipsters, but they're not hiding behind irony, nor are they preservationists out to sound like some lost Nuggets cut.

In the spirit of the band at hand, we can keep this simple: Girls are good. And, so are the other ten on this list...

Girls Gone Wild:
November 2: Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's
November 3: Washington, DC - Black Cat
November 4: Philadelphia, PA - Kung Fu Necktie
November 6: New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
November 7: Boston, MA - Great Scott
November 9: Montreal, Quebec - Il Motore
November 10: Toronto, Ontario - El Mocambo
November 12: Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
November 13: Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
November 14: Minneapolis, MN - 7th Street Entry
November 17: Seattle, WA - Nuemo's
November 18: Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge
November 20: San Francisco, CA - Swedish American Hall
November 21: San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill
December 5: Los Angeles, CA - Troubadour