If Pink Floyd hadn’t insisted on applying the phrase “the delicate sound of thunder” to their own music when they came up with it, they could have loaned it out to Los Angeles sextet RACES. On “Big Broom,” RACES more than live up to the description by mixing rafter-shaking atmospheric rumbling with ethereal wispiness like a thunderstorm raging in Fairyland.

The song kicks off with a brooding bass line and sketchy guitar part that for the first section of “Big Broom” places it in the dark psychedelic territory of bands like The Black Angels and The Warlocks. Then pianist Breanna Wood drops in to add a soaring harmony to Wade Ryff’s lead vocals and it’s like a ray of sunlight suddenly cutting through the dark clouds. The ominous roar of the song continues on its way, but Wood’s voice slowly moves more and more to the fore until by the end she’s on equal footing with Ryff and “Big Broom” concludes with the feeling that the clouds have parted for good.

Crafting a song that simultaneously stomps and tiptoes requires a band with a sure sense of dynamics, and Races rise to that challenge with “Big Broom.” They sacrifice neither roar nor soar, but strike a perfect balance between the two. “Big Broom” is like a storm that batters everyone below it with hailstones, then paints the sky with a rainbow to make up for it.

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Vanish Valley “Races”

Color of Clouds “Brother”

“Explain it to Me” begins with a screech of guitar feedback. This brief overture sets the stage for the entire song, which is guided by its looping guitar riff throughout the hazy, shoe-gazy tune delivered courtesy of Delaware-based duo The Sky Drops.

Guitarist Rob Montejo (ex-Smashing Orange) teamed up with drummer Monika Bullette; her backing vocals mesh with Montejo on lead, creating a twist on the duo’s otherwise obvious debt to Kevin Shields and his ilk.

“Explain it to Me” has a heady, psych-tinged side as well. The song sets out to hypnotize the listener with tom-heavy rhythms that run just below the surface of scuffed up, gauzy melodies.

Find “Explain it to Me” keeping company with more tracks from the band on their Making Mountains EP, which Fridabear Records released in April 2011. (Want to hear even more from The Sky Drops? The EP is a follow-up to the duo’s debut full-length, Bourgeois Beat (2009), which is also worth a listen.)

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Ringo Deathstarr “So High”

RACES “Big Broom”

If the only thing The Mekons had ever accomplished with their career was to be, along with The Fall, the last band standing from the original wave of British punk, they would still be worthy of respect. Keeping a band together for nearly 35 years without any hiatuses or prolonged absences is not an easy feat, especially with a mostly stable line-up for at least the past 25 years. (By contrast, The Fall survives as a band by employing a line-up that could charitably be called “ever-evolving.”)

However, The Mekons have a lot more than longevity going for them. Since they first surfaced in 1977 as part of the great Leeds punk scene that also spawned Gang of Four and Delta 5, The Mekons have created a rich catalog of intelligent, politically-minded rock & roll, veering between roaring punk and twangy alt-country in the process.

“Space In Your Face,” a track from the band’s eighteenth studio album, Ancient & Modern, finds The Mekons firmly inhabiting the rock end of their spectrum. It’s a roaring barn-burner reminiscent of the classic 1989 album The Mekons Rock & Roll. Jon Langford spits out his vocals in a voice that recalls Joe Strummer’s rasp, with supportive harmony vocals from his long-time foil Sally Timms. It’s a spirited performance that shows that The Mekons have lost none of their ’77-era fire during their long career.

The Mekons are one of the last continuous links to the epochal period in rock & roll history that spawned them. But far from being a living museum piece like many other bands that last over three decades, The Mekons continue to churn out work every bit as vital as they have during every phase of their career. Few people would have pegged The Mekons to be the band still around in 2011 back in 1977, but it’s hard to imagine any other band who could’ve carried punk’s torch any impressively.

Ancient & Modern is slated for a September 27th release via the newly minted Sin Record Label.

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Something Fierce “Empty Screens”

The Whigs “In the Dark”

PS I Love You “2012″

Ringo Deathstarr asks every listener to take a leap of faith–specifically, to plod through past their unfortunate name and give their music a fair shake. Admittedly, I almost didn’t make it that far… but I’m certainly glad I did.

Hailing from the musical hotbed of Austin, Texas, this trio makes music as unapologetic as their name, unabashedly mining the late 1980s/early ’90s terrain of predecessors like The Wedding Present and My Bloody Valentine. Both of these bands, particularly in their early days, took pleasure in grounding a beautiful sense of melody behind ramshackle walls of gritty noise. The formula is one listeners can easily take for granted in this day and age, making it difficult to appreciate a time when such an approach was resplendent with the sheen of novelty.

On “So High,” as with the other ten tracks on the recently released Colour Trip (the British rendition of “colour” no doubt a nod to some of their heroes), Ringo Deathstarr provide a reproduction of that jangly, raucous era. Over psychedelic ripples of electric guitars and the clamoring of the drum kit, dual vocalists Elliott Frazier and Alex Gehring intone “I am so high” as a chorus that is as catchy as it is blunt–no pun intended.

The production on “So High” and the general adroitness with which Ringo Deathstarr tip-toe along the divide between noise and melody makes it tough to believe they didn’t record this song two decades ago. If that is the band’s strongest selling point it may also be their biggest pitfall; the biggest knock here is the absence of originality. However, the band’s knack for punchy songwriting makes up for it in spades. “So High” is the sort of song you can listen to over and over again, a great summer tune with just enough bite.

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Iceage “White Rune”

the morning after girls “alone”

Radical Dads “New Age Dinosaur”