Despite sharing their name with a cold-war era attack submarine,

LA band Sea Wolf are as far from hard and aggressive as you could get. Their polished blend of gentle acoustics, rolling rhythm and soft melodic vocals follow in the footsteps of Ryan Adams and Bright Eyes. Reminiscent of Damien RIce, only less plaintive, Sea Wolf state their influences to be purely wolf-related. If X-man Wolverine had covered Leadbelly, I think it would maybe be their myspace favorite. Although similarities can be drawn to other artists, Sea Wolf are interesting and worth listening to. If you are a fan of the fore mentioned bands then you will definitely like this. Sea Wolf provide a new approach to tender acoustic indie-pop and revel in their sparkly type of musical melancholy.

Light percussion, atmospheric instrumentals and bitter-sweet lyrics create a subtle and intimate atmosphere. Even amidst the bustle of the magazine office, with music ed Christel's big head phones on, I feel as though Alex Brown Church is singing just to me. Long cello notes and picking guitar sets the base for Church's lamenting vocals. Sung with heartfelt longing and yet with resignation. Despite claiming to never write another sad song, this is what Sea Wolf do best. In fact, they are masters of the genre. The songs are by no means 'happy' but they are strangely uplifting.

The afternoon light streams in through the window and results in my conclusion that this would be perfect music for walking along to, headphones on, feeling good about the world. Or maybe listened to late night when you're by yourself, volume turned down low. Maybe fix yourself a dry'n'rye, close your eyes and imagine you just stepped off the greyhound bus heading down some empty highway. I'm getting sentimental but these songs are sentimental to the core. Sweetly mellow but not saccharine. And coming from Los Angeles, a city famed for the superficial, Sea Wolf write songs that are emotive yet honest.

I might've heard something like this before, but for this category of music, Sea Wolf really does the do.

And anyway, can you ever really have enough sad songs?

Imagine you’re watching one of those American hospital dramas on TV. Perhaps it’s the Christmas episode or season finale, either way something is bound to go wrong. And when the shit hits the fan it breaks down into a montage of various characters in their scrubs, remorseful, head in hands. Then, think of the music that accompanies those tearful medics. It’s emotive, driven by acoustic guitar and piano, with mildly folky vocals and a healthy dose of strings. Deadman, by House of Brothers, is one such track. Both sad and uplifting, this song has been strictly tailored in the studio to drag listeners up to peaks and down into troughs.

House of Brothers is Andrew Jackson’s solo project and is vastly different from his work with Scarecrow and The Death of Rosa Luxemburg. When I read the name of this EP I instantly thought of Jim Jarmusch’s film of the same title. House of Brothers’ release has little in common with the black and white western. I suppose you could say it’s lyrically bleak but the upbeat arrangements prevent Jackson from plumbing the depths.

Although lacking the polish of the title track, the other material has the same guitar/piano/strings, or indie-folk, sound. They are too long and it’s hard to maintain any kind of enthusiasm by the final track, correctly named The Last Ballad.

This EP is also aptly titled, because it retreads a musical style, which doesn’t have much life in it. It feels a little tired, as though most of the effort went into the first track. And was that effort worth it? As Jackson sings, “Don’t want to rise and shine for the second time. Just leave me be.” Perhaps we should.

Modernaire are tight. There aren’t many emerging bands in this genre of electro disco pop that are doing it this well. And at first glance, Modernaire may be misconstrued as pretentious in their motifs, with all their pop noir chic going on; but on further scrutiny there’s most definitely a sense of humour, along with their razor sharp wit and a tidy vocabulary.

After seeing Modernaire one rainy evening at what was described to me as the ‘asshole of Manchester’, they have been on constant rotation in my playlist. This EP named Velvet Never Dries is full of brilliantly composed electro pop; perfectly balanced in it’s juxtaposition of dirty bass/dark deep use of strings and light lady vocals, which are sexy and slinky. That said though, I hesitate to call them 'girl vocals' as they're far more mature and well rounded to be so simply labelled; despite the deceptively innocent timbre of Cruella de Mill’s voice, just take a listen to what she’s singing and it’s far from sweetness and light, the saucy minx.

Velvet Never Dries opens with Bloodshed In The Woodshed; and at this point I wondered whether they were squandering their best first. But as Rain relived my own experience of Manchester, with a tongue in cheek cry of despair/homage to the city that birthed Modernaire, before moving onto the sea shanty that is Bonnie and Reade, I was more and more impressed. Then Scalpel storms in with it’s ridiculously infectious and dirty beats, lit up by glicks and cuts with laser guns beaming. “Your love/Cuts like a scalpel/Your kiss/Sweet like Calpol/In the grip of your infection/My only hope is a quick dissection.” Like I said – saucy minx. Followed by Nosferatu with it’s undulating bass and tinny 80s toy guitar sample (that in other hands could have gone so, so wrong) alongside the swashbuckling, plundering cello solo. Stabby and pulsing September rolls into Terry, with more of that lush cello as well as gorgeous harmonies. Nothing is surplus on this EP - it has intelligence and class in (grave digging) spades.

Modernaire are as serious as a heart attack, but don’t take themselves too seriously.
Deliciously dark, a tad eerie and a little haunting if it wasn’t so damn catchy.
One of my favourite bands for the past six months and a mainstay on my playlists for whatever the occasion; from death to divorce, discos and drama all the way to delerium and a fully blown dance. Forget new rave, this is new grave (forgive me), and despite being one of Modernaire’s ongoing themes, their music is far from deathly, unless under the context of being dead good.

Despite their credentials and that Robot Man song, the Aliens just aren't cutting it. Black Affair, Steve Mason's new incarnation, is at once audacious and amazing but probably won't please the faithful. So what are those once enamored with and still lamenting the demise of perhaps the only British band of the last decade to actually be any, er, good, to do? I'm mean fans of the Beta Band, of course. Easy now. You'd do well to investigate this stone cold gem of an EP by Peter Hedley a.k.a. Beneath Fire and Smoke.

Sounding not unlike a Romanian folk band free-styling over the best bits of the Beta's first three EPs, this has much to commend. No surprise then that Hedley is a sometime collaborator with whacked-out-folk genius, Voice of the Seven Woods. His music is shot through with the same rustic romance and bleary eyed wooziness...but it's so much more. Opener, Smoke and Flames, is the finest cut. It uncurls, ebbs and flows over euphoric flutes and strings, electro-acoustic beats, monastic, loved-up vocals and down right cheeky Fairport’s style bass. Hot damn! Songs from a Slipway is how A Hawk and A Hacksaw wish they'd sound whilst The Iceberg Waltz deals in the same desolate and disconcerting piano led melancholia last heard on a Beach Boys Smile bootleg circa December 1966. Closer, So It Came To Pass, contorts celestial psychedelic string parts over minimalist bass and heart broken lyrics of unrequited love: So it came to be/That you and me will always be/Apart...

Beautifully packaged vinyl courtesy of the bespoke Battered Ornaments label, this is what it's all about. No downloads. No guerilla PR campaign. No hype. Music for music's sake. And don't doubt it, pal - this is fucking music.

Three years young and buoyed by the glowing acclaim heaped upon their second LP, 2006’s Yellow House, Brooklyn’s own Grizzly Bear offer up something of a celebration of their talents with the release of Friend – a ten track compilation of covers, collaborations, new material and reworked favourites. Having invited the likes of Band Of Horses, CSS and Zach Condon (Beirut) to contribute, Grizzly Bear have managed to avoid notions of ‘shameless cash-in’ and produced an offering of merit. Indeed there is lots here to enjoy.

Brooding, dirty guitars help define opener Alligator, an alternate take on a cut from GB’s debut release. It features the first contribution from Zach Condon, and though it plods and outstays its welcome slightly, a glorious choral burst midway through manages to save it from being the drab opener it threatened to be. Things take an upturn with a brilliantly dark cover of The Crystals smash He Hit Me. It’s sinister tone is offset by a vocal that tips it hat to the late 80’s new romantics, and the sporadic sonic explosions serve to create an unforgettable slice of haunting pop.

The middle of the record then drifts along in a pleasant enough manner, without really exciting – which is a bit of a shame. The bizarrely titled Granny Diner exemplifies the problem. Positively, things are kick-started again with an energised, disco version of Knife courtesy of CSS. It begins, rather unfortunately, with a sample that appears lifted directly from Stereophonics’ Dakota, but soon recovers itself. Punchy, choppy beats and a wave of synths dominate, and the upbeat tempo is just what the record needs. Band Of Horses then take us from disco to country and western with a banjo led take on Plans. It doesn’t quite work, but there are enough quirks – a lovely honky tonk piano solo outro being one - to engage. The record ends in a melancholic way, with a rather dreary Daniel Rossen home recording entitled ‘Deep Blue Sea’. It’s inclusion ill-judged.

Despite it’s flaws there are some lovely moments on Friend. It is diverse, sonically ambitious and at times captivating, which is no mean feat.

Sweet London-based singer/songwriter Emma-Lee Moss, a.k.a. Emmy the Great, finally releases debut EP My Bad. Seems like Ms. Great has been spending more time making her presence known on the live music market, having spent most of her time supporting heavy-hitter acts like Martha Wainwright, Mystery Jets, and Jamie T (to name a few) rather than release a full-length record. Often discovered collaborating with a wide range of other artists as a rather prominent figure of the anti-folk scene, it’s hard to believe that this is merely her debut, but it’s a glowing release nonetheless.

Swedish teen twins Miriam and Johanna Eriksson Berhans seem to posses a talent and knowingness beyond their years. At the basis of their act are their amazing voices. Layered and rich, swaying further towards folk than indie and full of raw emotion with the faintest hint of a rough edge. The music itself is beautiful and incredibly listenable but perhaps lacking a fully formed sound of its own, their debut EP suggesting this will inevitably come in time.

Anyone looking for an album that epitomises British Indie music post -2005 could do a lot worse than investigate the debut release from London quartet Good Shoes. Relentless trawls around the toilet circuit have garnered the band a loyal fanbase already and this has served to fuel feverish anticipation ahead of this long touted release. Thankfully the anticipation has not been without merit.

One thing is certain on listening to Swollen and Small; Viking Moses is utterly in love with Neutral Milk Hotel. He knows the songs inside out, upside down, and has grown up learning to play along with Jeff Mangum's melancholic ponderings on life, the universe and everything.

California holds proud its musical tradition of sun soaked, golden sugary pop. Los Angeles' The Little Ones showcase their efforts to uphold this tradition here on their Debut 7 Track EP Sing Song. Unsurprisingly then the Little Ones' sound is heavily reliant on the brilliant conceived vocal harmonies employed by The Beach Boys in their pomp - but thankfully, there are echoes of many other classic pop acts throughout this mildly enjoyable record that at no point do The Little Ones sound like a tribute act. There is tribute and there is homage - The Little Ones fall into the latter category. This is most definitely a good thing.

The press release for this EP not only offers the terrifying prospect of a “jazz flute” but also the use of something called a “shlang dan”. Thankfully, the prospect of a muso jamming session – high on fannying about, low on actual tunes – fails to materialise. That’s not to say, however, that Born Ruffians are particularly tuneful – they’re not. They play an ultimately frustrating kind of country rock reminiscent of Neil Young at his most MOR. What’s more, Luke LaLonde’s singing voice is so whiny it makes the vocals of infinitely annoying Clap Your Hands Say Yeah front man Alec Ounsworth sound like Johnny Cash.