In a way, the continued existence of The Death Set doesn’t really make a lot of sense after the 2009 death of one of its two founding members, Beau Velasco. Not that remaining frontman Johnny Siera shouldn’t have pushed forward, but the band’s hyperactive fusion of hip hop and dance beats and pop punk sugar rush hooks simply doesn’t seem like a creative vehicle that can handle that kind of sadness hanging over it, and even the Death Set’s name feels awkward and perhaps even in poor taste now.

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White Life is something of a departure for Jon Ehrens, the prolific and chameleonic singer-songwriter previously best known for indie bands like the idiosyncratic Art Department and the lo-fi Repelican. For one of the first times in his career, Ehrens is sharing vocal and production duties on White Life’s self-titled debut, which was recorded with Chris and Mickey Freeland at Beat Babies, and features several lead vocal performances by his sister Emily Ehrens. But more significantly, White Life is a big stylistic left turn for Ehrens into the world of synths, drum machines and unabashedly pop vocal performances.

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Rjyan “Cex” Kidwell has been consistently revising and switching his modus operandi for recording and releasing music since his career began in the late ’90s. Early Cex releases featured instrumental IDM, before he began rapping, then singing, and later returning to making beats without vocal accompaniment. His first handful of albums tended to run an hour or more, before he began to favor concise 40-minute albums and even shorter EPs. And after beginning his career with high profile national releases on the trendsetting IDM label he co-founded, Tigerbeat6, Kidwell has released much of his music in recent years on deliberately low key vinyl or cassette-only releases, while remaining as prolific as ever. And since some of his best music yet has been on less heralded records like the 2007 Steely Dan sample collage Dannibal or the 2009 experimental club music of Bataille Royale, it’s proven worthwhile to give every new Cex record close attention.

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Civilian is Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack’s third full-length album for Merge Records. But it feels more than anything like the continuation of a collaboration between Wye Oak and another duo, brothers Chris and Mickey Freeland of Beat Babies Studio, who began producing the band on last year’s My Neighbor / My Creator EP. The four songs debuted on that EP pointed toward possible new directions for the band, including a wider variety of instrumentation and some of their most lively and upbeat songs to date. Ultimately, however, the ten new songs on Civilian are closer in sound and mood to 2009′s The Knot, another dark and subtle album that gradually unfolds and reveals its charms over several listens.

Holy Holy

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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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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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