The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad are a spectacular force of perversity and tastelessness, even in the context of a Baltimore music scene known around the world for its eccentrics and iconoclasts. Or perhaps I should say they were, since the band announced that it was calling it quits in November, shortly after the release of their second album, Boneslinky! And that’s sad to hear, because the album stands as a document, for better or worse, of all the strange things the band were capable of that nobody else has the balls, or the utter shamelessness, to even think of trying. During their lifespan, The Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad’s biggest claim to fame was a brief run on the FOX reality show “The Next Great American Band.” And the band, who play primitive butt rock with absurd lyrics while wearing bizarre costumes, inevitably became darlings of the anti-reality show website VoteForTheWorst.com, which the band seemed to embrace even more than actually appearing on the show.

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At the end of 2010, Twin-Hand Movement by Lower Dens took me by surprise as it suddenly appeared to be the most acclaimed Baltimore rock album of the year. And at first, I couldn’t quite understand why; the band’s hazy, reverb-heavy sound, downtempo grooves and ethereal, almost androgynous female vocals brought to mind a variety of other Baltimore bands, from Beach House to Wye Oak to Celebration. But the more I heard, the more all the praise made sense, and not just from one listen to the next, but from the subtle, low key first side to the more arresting second side.

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Eureka Birds, the songwriting vehicle of Justin Levy, has been a favorite band of the folks at Mobtown ever since their 2008 self-titled debut album and subsequent visit to the studio for a microshow. And while their follow-up release, the Eureka! EP, runs only about 20 minutes, it feels like a substantial work in and of itself, not just a minor stopgap release. The EP’s 6 songs represent a variety of sounds and a satisfying arc as well as many albums, and producer Tyler Watkins, who also plays bass on the recording, helps guide the songs to a clear, full-bodied sound.

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J Roddy Walston and The Business have been becoming Baltimore rock’s latest success story in the last few months with the release of their self-titled second album on indie powerhouse label Vagrant Records, which was preceded earlier in the summer by the Don’t Break The Needle EP. But that success has been a long time coming, since the band relocated from Tennessee in 2004, won a dedicated following in Baltimore with their frantic live shows, and self-released their great debut full-length, Hail Mega Boys, in 2007. And given how well that album established the band’s sound and captured their energy on record, it’s appropriate that J Roddy Walston and The Business doesn’t mess with a good thing, putting the same straightforward production sheen over the same kinds of boogie woogie piano rockers and guitar licks. Even a re-recording of one of the band’s most popular songs, “Used To Did,” sounds as perfectly at home here as it did on Hail Mega Boys.

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When singer/guitarist Jon Ehrens first recorded an album as the Art Department in 2005, it was just one solo project of many, including Repelican and the Hypnic Jerks. Nearly five years after The Art Anthology, however, the band is a fully operational gigging trio, rounded out by drummer Mike Meno and bassist Jason Howe, who have helped Ehrens both expand and refine the Art Department’s rewardingly unusual sound and uncompromisingly narrow aesthetic boundaries.

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The rock trio Pontiak, comprised of the brothers Van, Jennings and Lain Carney, have quietly become some of an unstoppable force of late, with a surprisingly prolific output via Thrill Jockey Records, which in the past two years along has yielded four full-length albums and one split LP, 2008’s Kale with likeminded Baltimore pals Arbouretum. But while 2009’s Maker and the vinyl-only tour release Sea Voids were knocked out relatively quickly, their latest album, this year’s Living is the band’s first attempt in a while to slowly, patiently assemble an album over the course of a few months.

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