Given that nearly two and a half years passed between the original local release of Baltimore duo Wye Oak’s debut album, If Children, and its Merge Records follow-up, last year’s The Knot, it’d be reasonable not to expect a new record from the band for a while. So it was a delightfully unexpected surprise to hear word of a new Wye Oak record just 8 months after The Knot, even if it’s just an EP. And the 18 minutes of My Neighbor / My Creator are as meaty and substantial as fans should have come to expect from anything the band does, in fact possibly surpassing the band’s last full-length in terms of moment for moment quality.

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My Neighbor / My Creator marks the first time Wye Oak have worked with outside producers, and that collaboration is the key to why its 5 tracks signify an exciting new direction for the band. The brothers Chris Freeland (best known as a member of the Baltimore band Oxes) and Mickey Freeland (who raps as Bow ‘N Arrow or Mickey Free) recorded the 4 new songs on the EP after a Mickey Free remix of The Knot’s “That I Do” appeared on the SpliceToday.com compilation Baltimore Does Baltimore, Part 1 last October. And while that remix is reprised on My Neighbor and sticks out like a sore thumb with its drum machine beat and guest rap verse, the new songs represent far more subtle and intriguing ways that the Freeland brothers have helped Wye Oak push their sound forward.

The EP tumbles out of the gate with “My Neighbor,” a beautifully shimmering array of Jenn Wasner’s guitar overdubs and vocal harmonies cascading over Andy Stack’s hiccuping 3/4 groove and tom-tom fills. It’s closer to the Wye Oak of If Children than the darker, slower The Knot, and the upbeat tone continues with “Emmylou,” perhaps the band’s fastest song to date. The harmonica on “Emmylou,” as well as the elegiac saxophone solo on “I Hope You Die” that  helps the song bring to mind Springsteen ballads, are just a couple examples of the new colors Wye Oak are painting with on these songs. Wasner and Stack have always displayed musical ambitions larger than just making the most of a 2-person band setup as a marketing angle. And with the help of the Freeland brothers, it looks like their sound is poised to become bigger and more varied than ever before.

Sri Aurobindo are what’s often referred to as a ‘guitar band,’ the kind of act whose records are dominated by swirling overdubs of noodling leads and effects pedal textures. But that kind of characterization would diminish how key bass guitar is to the Baltimore quartet, who have one of the best bass sounds going: fuzzed out and high in the mix, but round and appealing, like a foghorn cutting through the otherwise trebly mix. On Cave Painting, their first release for Friends Records, Sri Aurobindo’s bass is in your face more than ever, hooking you even when the lyrics are impossible to make out and the psychedelic songs’ shaggy structures are hard to follow. In fact, that massive low end may be what ultimately sets  the band apart from the pack of similar psych rock acts currently crowing the indie scene.

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In 2009, Sri Aurobindo released two albums that both skated just past the half hour mark: a 6-song self-titled debut, and the ambitious Return To Earth, which consisted of just one long track. Cave Painting isn’t much longer, but packs in nine songs all of varying lengths, from 2-minute miniatures to epics that run as long as 8 minutes. Of the latter, “Don’t Know” is a particular standout, with the band’s instrumental workouts once again outshining their songwriting when the ineffectual refrain of “and I just don’t know” blasts off into a killer guitar freakout.

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One song that effectively splits the difference between the brief vignettes and the long jams is “My Luv Is Stoned,” a sunny summer jam that features the album’s most memorable chorus. It’s hard to say what direction Sri Aurobindo will take on future releases, or if they’ll keep churning out albums at such a breakneck pace, but Cave Painting leaves some pretty encouraging signposts pointing toward where the band could be headed.

J Roddy Walston and The Business, a group of old-fashioned rock’n'roll bruisers from Tennessee, picked up and made Baltimore their hometown in 2004, quickly becoming one of the city’s most exciting live bands. In 2007, they cemented their growing local following with a killer first album, Hail Mega Boys, and continued touring the country and eventually catching the attention of  Vagrant Records. With their self-titled Vagrant debut due out on July 27th, the label has issued a 3-song digital EP on iTunes as an appetizer for the full length. And while that 11-minute primer may not be a full meal, as the first new music from the band in 3 years it’s still an exciting prospect.

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The title track of the Don’t Break The Needle EP is one of The Business’s classic boogie woogie piano rocker, starting at a patient midtempo before Walston throws some Jerry Lee Lewis whoops into the first chorus and the thing gets rolling along. “Brave Man’s Death” is a guitar-driven midtempo track with a great careening guitar solo and some of Walston’s most inspired lyrics. Neither is a frenzied anthem on the level of Hail Mega Boys favorites like “I’ll Tell You What,” but both are reassuring signs that the band isn’t changing up its style or polishing it too much for a national audience.

The one exclusive track on the EP, “Don’t Get Old (Acoustic)” is a bit misleadingly labelled — the track is driven by an acoustic guitar, but also features electric guitar and bass and a driving drumbeat. In fact, it rocks about as hard as anything by the Business, unless of course the electric version on the album manages to top it. We won’t know until July 27th, and until then these songs will do fine to tide us over.

Ever since I interviewed Gary Barrett, Jr. a few months ago and he noted Jonathan Richman as one of his personal songwriting heroes, comparisons to the Modern Lovers frontman keep springing to mind every time I listen to Gary B & The Notions‘ latest album. Like Richman, Barrett has a voice that’s an acquired taste and a certain air of perpetual adolescence, a romantic innocence inextricably tied to a fascination with older forms and tropes of rock. Even the title of the album, New Twist & Shout, is a nod to early rock’n'roll, though it doesn’t quite feature anything close to an actual rewrite of “Twist & Shout.”

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Of course, Gary B’s songs are thoroughly modern in some senses; the album’s standout, “Jenny,” is an ode to Jennifer Lopez’s hot pants. But even musically, the song is an effective microcosm for how a former record store clerk like Barrett can condense musical history in his own compositions without coming off too blatantly retro, with springy power pop of the song’s first half contrasting nicely with a slower outro that almost feels like a ’50s ballad. New Twist & Shout is both the Notions’ first full-length and their debut release for The Beechfields, but at 34 minutes it wisely gears itself towards short attention spans and humble ambitions much like their enjoyable two early EPs, 2007’s promising Get Those Crazy Notions! and 2008’s brief but jam-packed Let Yourself Out.

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In contrast to the amiable throwbacks that dominate the album, “New York Jet Set Garbage” is jittery and aggressive, the kind of divisive song that might be one listener’s favorite and another’s least favorite. But either way, that penultimate track builds up a nice tension that’s soon released by the laid back closer “Landscapes & Skylines,” showing once again how Gary B knows his rock history, and uses that knowledge to craft a satisfying and well sequenced album.

Night Falls, the title of the second album by Baltimore quartet Thrushes, seems to mirror the title of their 2007 debut, Sun Come Undone. And in many ways the album feels more like a companion piece to its predecessor than a new chapter for the band, with similar production and faithfulness to the shoegaze guitar sound of the early ‘90s. But the more you listen to the two albums and compare them, the more it becomes clear that the new songs do represent some subtle but notable steps forward in the band’s songwriting and arranging.

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Night Falls demonstrates this mix of old and new ideas almost immediately, with the jarring false start of the opener “Trees,” which would fit in seamlessly on the band’s first album if not for that attention-grabbing trick. Each member of Thrushes seems to be coming into their own, with drummer Matt Davis and bassist Rachel Tracy gelling as a more formidable rhythm section than before. Guitarist Casey Harvey is still crafting Spector-esque walls of sound, but there’s a darker undercurrent to songs like “Juggernaut” and “Skywave” that recalls Sonic Youth circa Evol more than anything else.

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The Thrushes’ most notable evolution, though, may be that of singer/guitarist Anna Conner. Before, she’d sometimes fade into the band’s shimmering squall of guitar, like just another piece of the whole. But here, her vocals are mixed more prominently, and her performances are more emotionally engaging. The halfway point of the brooding standout “Used To You” is the moment where Conner commands the listener’s attention like never before, as the song’s opening groove is stripped down to foreground the central lyric: “noone has ever broken your heart/ it isn’t how you want to live/ I think someone should break your heart/ so that you know how much to give.” And as the song builds back up to a swirling climax, it becomes clear that the 2010 Thrushes have tricks up their sleeve that the 2007 Thrushes were never capable of.

The self-titled second EP by Lands & People establishes the trio as one of Baltimore’s most intriguing young bands. In the space of just 20 minutes, Caleb Moore, Beau Cole and Amanda Willis manage to combine simple ingredents like guitars, synthesizers, percussion and vocals in several distinct ways that suggest different future directions for the band with almost every song. After a couple of sleepy soundscapes open the EP, the standout “Awake” kicks in with a muffled snare and kick drum beat and a low, decaying synth tone foregrounding the chorus’s soaring male/female harmonies. And as the song comes to an end, that synth line comes front and center, its beautifully distorted texture washing over everything.

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Later, Lands & Peoples come back down to earth for the folky, languorous “Isabella”’s acoustic guitars and tambourine accompaniment. The closing sixth track, “Cars Like Waves,” is actually two songs: a hazy guitars-and-cymbals instrumental, and a strangely jaunty, keyboard-driven hidden track that, once again, adds a new sound to the band’s arsenal. And if their most recent track, “In Living Colour” from a Friends Records compilation, is any indication, Lands & Peoples is getting louder and even more confident in their work since the EP.

One of Baltimore rock’s best kept secrets the last few years has been Thee Lexington Arrows, a garage rock quartet formed in 2004 by members of the Alphabet Bombers and the Shakedowns. Led by the bluesy wildcat yowl of frontwoman Kathleen Wilson, the Arrows may mix some surf guitar and rockabilly twang into their riffs, but their appeal is largely in just how unapologetically no-frills and old-fashioned their idea of punk rock is. And they’ve captured the sound of their killer live shows just about perfectly with their latest album, Cut Me Loose.

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Thee Lexington Arrows’ bread and butter is anthems delivered at ramming speed, and “Cherry Beamer” is arguably the best and most immediate track on an album full of relentless rockers. Still, Cut Me Loose‘s 32 minutes, as quickly as they go by, don’t get too monotonous thanks to a few midtempo tracks slipped in along the way. Some songs, like the tambourine-driven swing of “Better Without You,” work better as a change of pace in the context of the band’s live sets, than on the album. But “What Am I Supposed To Do?” is a surprisingly confident retro ballad, with Wilson turning in a vocal performance that dials down the snarl just enough without losing her natural charisma. And for the album’s last hurrah, the band mixes things up with a percussion-heavy cover of “Ban Ban” by the ‘60s Japanese rock band The Spiders.

Five songs on the album are re-recordings of tracks from the band’s earlier CD-r, Get Thee To A Drinkery (although sadly that record’s highlight, the live staple “Don’t Come Around,” isn’t among the songs reprised here.) Cut to 8-track tape by the Oranges Band’s Roman Kuebler, Cut Me Loose is just a little bit more polished than the Arrows’ earlier recordings, without smoothing out the edges or taking the band out of their element. Some tracks, like “As Long As,” display the band’s occasionally choppy and stilted rhythms, but those imperfections are all apart of their garage band charm.

The Baltimore duo Beach House’s first two albums were fairly popular on an indie level, and made a good number of year-end lists. But that all seems like a prelude now to the massive reception that the band’s Sub Pop debut, Teen Dream, has enjoyed since its release in January, as one of the most universally acclaimed albums of 2010 so far.

To be sure, Teen Dream is a marked step forward in quality from 2008’s Devotion, but the aesthetic differences are subtle. New producer Chris Coady removes some of the hazy gauze of reverb from their earlier work, and it sounds like he’s moved the musicians closer to the microphones and captured more precise performances. But there’s still a thousand yard stare quality to Beach House’s songs that makes them more enjoyable as background music than active listening. It’s slow, pretty music, but it never hits you upside the head with striking beauty or haunting emotion. Victoria Legrand’s throaty, almost androgynous voice is still one of the band’s most distinctive traits, but aside from her impassioned performance on “Real Love,” she rarely projects a strong persona or emotional state.

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Still, Teen Dream is not without its charms or surprises. “Used To Be,” with its jaunty, lively piano melody, or the pounding climax of “10 Mile Stereo” are things I never would’ve expected to hear on a previous Beach House album. And “Lover of Mine,” with its strong backbeat and shimmering keyboards, is almost the band’s lackadaisical take on synth pop. More often than not, however, touches like the dragging, almost drunken-sounding slide guitar on “Norway” underline how Beach House can find ways to be creative and unique while remaining largely in their comfort zone of pretty background music.

Big In Japan functions as not just a side project or offshoot of the long-running Baltimore quintet Lake Trout, but as effectively a subset of it — all three of Big In Japan’s members also play in Lake Trout, and even the two musicians in the latter who aren’t members of the former have sat in with Big In Japan during live shows. Still, Big In Japan have now been doing their thing, with on-again off-again live residencies full of low key improvised grooves, for over a decade themselves, and have grown into a distinct entity. While Lake Trout focused more and more on song-based studio creations, Big In Japan remained exclusively a live concern, only issuing live recordings as albums.

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Live At 8×10 2009 was released for free by The Biggest Label Ever, the same website that issued Lake Trout’s recent live album. With numerous improvised pieces edited down into a handful of untitled tracks, the structure is identical to Big In Japan’s debut release, 2001′s Goodlove Sessions Vol. 1, but the formal similarities highlight the differences in content. Big In Japan may still be playing at the 8×10, the Federal Hill club that’s been their stomping grounds since the ’90s, but musically they’ve continued to develop and diversify their sound away from the jazzy flute riffs and drum’n'bass rhythms that used to be their signature.

“Untitled 05” is the record’s real gem, with a busy but restrained rim-tapping rhythm foregrounding some evil synth bass and spooky, ethereal vocals. On the flipside, though, “Untitled 06” is vintage Big In Japan, with the bass guitar thumping out relaxed whole notes over a tight, funky beat and a repetitive synth pattern. Still, Live At 8×10 2009 sometimes feels a little too edited down at only 33-minutes, and some tracks, like “Untitled 03,” which starts out with the album’s most raucous noise but quickly peters out, feel like they’ve been cut too short. They do get credit, however, for leaving you wanting more, and “Untitled 07” ends the set on an offbeat note, with what sounds like a harmonica solo, albeit one run through enough delay and distortion effects to make it all sound thoroughly Big In Japan.

As 2009 came to a close, it became clear that More, the third album by Double Dagger, was one of Baltimore’s most acclaimed albums of the year, on both a local and national level. Unfortunately, I’d been attempting since its release in May to identify the album’s appeal, to no avail. The power trio’s Thrill Jockey debut, recorded in a vacant space above the Current Gallery, is as raw and loud as the band’s popular live shows, but for whatever reason, it took a while for me to warm to it.

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Ultimately, it was the More’s second track, “Vivre Sans Temps Mort” that provided my entry point to appreciating the album, with its slow burn groove stretched out over five minutes in contrast to the album’s faster and shorter songs. But of the latter, the frantic groove of “We Are The Ones” is another highlight, bringing to mind Stay Afraid-era Parts & Labor.

Still, I remained frustrated that Double Dagger’s commitment to their punk roots has manifested itself in vocals so perfunctory, and at times inaudible, that I almost wish they were just an instrumental band. Songs with titles like “Surrealist Composition With Your Face” and “Helicopter Lullaby” probably have interesting lyrics, but I can’t make any of them out given how low the vocals are in the mix on More, and “Half-Life” packs the album’s catchiest riff, but the vocals that accompany it completely skirt the melody. Double Dagger are definitely a band to watch, but I’ll be waiting until the next album to see if they make something more up my alley.