In between the steady stream of singles with his day job, Cook has released his own army of EPs and seven-inches as Young Governor, the Bitters and Marvelous Darlings, the latter of whom gets the compilation treatment on Single Life.

Formed in 2007 and rarely playing live, the quartet released half-a-dozen seven-inch slabs of punked up power pop, in the vein of the Exploding Hearts and White Wires, each performed with the abandon of a band playing for its life. Cook proves to be a formidable singer; opener “I Don’t Want to Go To the Party” bubbles over with bratty energy while “Teenage Targets” shows-off his knack for complicated arrangements without losing the band’s visceral edge.

Cook and co split the record in half, with A-sides at the beginning and B-sides at the end, meaning that the Single Life’s back half is a tad weaker (emphasis on “a tad”) than its front. But the overall quality of material will leave listeners hoping this isn’t this group’s swan song.

“I’ll Stand By Her”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImrKUHd9G5A

Playing exclusively new material is a ballsy move, even for the most established artists. So when Toronto-based musician Eamon McGrath announced he’d be playing his forthcoming album, Young Canadians, in its entirety, in order, it seemed to indicate that he was either extremely confident in the new songs or lacked basic business sense.

The ploy seemed to pay off, though, as the bar was packed by the time McGrath and his three-piece band took the stage around midnight. “This is Young Canadians,” he announced as they launched into album opener “Eternal Adolescence.” While McGrath could be seen flitting about the bar chatting with friends and supporters before the show, once at the mic, the 23-year-old maintained an incredible focus, his raspy vocals cutting through his overdriven guitars.

The record’s more upbeat numbers, such “Rabid Dog” and the title track, were unsurprising crowd pleasers. McGrath’s years in Edmonton’s punk underground reared their head as he leaped and thrashed around the stage. His backing band did a good job of toughening up the slower, more delicate compositions, the lap steel/keyboard player seated to McGrath’s left doing and excellent job delivering some of the album’s more subtle textures.

“Auditorium,” a haunting paean to the concept of punk, proved to be the evening’s highlight before the band finished their set with album closer “Saskatoon, SK.” McGrath and co. started to pack up but were quickly coaxed backed to their instruments for a three-song encore that included covers of Neil Young’s “Like a Hurricane” and “Fuckin’ Up,” and ended abruptly when the drummer hopped over his kit to tackle McGrath to the stage floor.

The night proved that McGrath has the rare combination of both talent and ambition with a stellar album in the can, and the driven personality to deliver it to the masses. When Young Canadians drops at the end of next month, it’s hard to imagine the singer not graduating to larger venues as his star rises on the Canadian music scene. Best get in on the ground floor now — you’ll thank yourself for it later.

No matter how much we want them to be, Islands are not the Unicorns. Since Nick Thorburn and Jamie Thompson struck out on their own, the group have been viewed as an extension of the famed Montreal trio, rather than a separate entity.Thorburn, in particular, spent the band’s first three records simultaneously embracing and running from that expectation, but fourth time out finally finds his voice.

A break-up record written on a keyboard, A Sleep & a Forgetting features some of Thorburn’s most personal songwriting and it’s difficult as a listener to decide where the line between band and reality lies ― is “Never Go Solo” about his lost love or his music? Islands have always had an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to their arrangements, but here the group hold back, peppering songs with splashes of horns, handclaps and what have you only when necessary, allowing individual tracks to stand on their own instead of smearing the album with a wall of noise. Their brand of quirky indie pop runs throughout, but the slower numbers are as effective as the upbeat tunes.

There’s a streak of R&B and even soul buried in these songs ― “This is Not a Song” could easily find new life as a torch song to a leaving lover. The press release explains that Thorburn started writing A Sleep last Valentine’s Day and is releasing it this Valentine’s Day to bookend the process. Gimmicky? Yes, but given the subject matter, not altogether inappropriate.

“This is Not a Song”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi4RgOszst0

Brooklyn’s The Men (not to be confused with Le Tigre-related band MEN) hit my radar sometime last year with their excellent sophomore release Leave Home, a record that blended the best bits of hardcore, psychedelia and general noise. So its no surprise that I’ve been eagerly anticipating their next album Open Your Heart. 

The title track hit the internet at the end of last month and revealed that the band had turned themselves into an SST loving punk act without losing their core identity. Now “Ex-Dreams” ups the anti further, wrapping the band in the swirling noise and catchy hooks of Hükser Dü’s Zen Arcade.

Open Your Heart drops March 6 on Sacred Bones.

Chattanooga, TN (yes, that’s a real place) crew Moonlight Bride have found a nice middle ground in the indie world walking a thin line between the slinky post-punk of Joy Division and the swirling shoegaze of My Bloody Valentine.

“Lemonade” is the first song released off the band’s forthcoming EP Twin Lake. On top of perfectly showcasing the band’s musical dichotomy it’s got a nice anthemic quality to it, and kind of feels like the soundtrack to a deleted  One Tree Hill Scene (in my world, this is a compliment).

Twin Lake is out  Feb. 28.

Odd-ball pop auteur Spookey Ruben has been releasing material since the mid-90s to varying degrees of popularity, and unanimous critical acclaim.

The eclectic Torontonian has been rather silent over the past couple of years, but he’s back with a bang in 2012, offering up his entire discography for free via his Bandcamp page.

Its all there including the original version of “Wendy McDonald,” which was featured semi-regularly on MuchMusic back in the day when they used to play music videos, and 2009′s trés excellent Mechanical Royalty.

You can grab it all here. Stream 1995′s Modes of Transportation Vol. 1 below.

Cousins have been flopping around the Halifax DIY scene for a while now delivering some garagey pop gems on a number of releases, including their cleverly named split cassette with Duz He Knew, DUZ/CUZ. 

Sophomore full-length The Palm at the End of the Mind should help raise their profile outside Atlantic Canada. It drops March 20 via Saved By Vinyl.

Check out/download “Jules” below.

Evan Dando’s reconstituted Lemonheads line-up haven’t sparked his creative juices. Instead of new material, this latest release offers a collection of demos from the height of the band’s early ’90s popularity.

Recorded to four-track while on tour in Australia, Hotel Sessions is billed as the Lemonheads at their most stripped down. These 14 tracks find Dando, then still riding the first wave of alt-rock fame, laying down demoes for what would becomeCome on Feel… for the band’s manager. Come on Feel… would be their most elaborately produced effort, but its glossy style isn’t far removed from these surprisingly fleshed out sketches.

More than two-thirds of the final record is already here and most of the tracks sound more or less as they appear on the finished product. Dando delivers two songs that didn’t make the cut (“Superhero” and a track written by at-the-time bass player Nick Dalton, “And So the Story Goes”), while “Dawn Can’t Decide,” which Dalton also wrote, “Rick James Style,” “Favourite T” and “The Jello Fund” are all missing. More than anything, Hotel Sessions sounds like one of Dando’s solo acoustic tours of recent years.

What’s of value for fans is Dando’s commentary, as he intros each song, describing what each is about or his plans for it in the studio. Far from essential, Hotel Sessions is a glimpse of a once great songwriter in mid-process.

“Into Your Arms” (Come on Feel… Version)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-zm2IHPba4

If Vancouver’s indie scene can be said to have a sound, it’s a sure bet that Said the Whale, Tegan and Sara and Mother Mother have had a hand in creating it. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that an act featuring collaborators and former members of those artists have bottled that sound into this surprisingly catchy album.

Andrew Braun and former Said the Whale keyboardist Laura Smith snagged Johnny Andrews and Shaun Huberts (aka Tegan and Sara’s rhythm section) to bring their compositions to life, giving the pair’s dark tunes an indie pop makeover. Manning the boards is Mother Mother frontman Ryan Guldemond, who shapes Braun and Smith’s voices in similar fashion to those of his group, turning tracks like “Empire” and “Weapon” into soaring anthems.

Several reviewers have already noted that Rococode sound more like the sum of their influences than an individual band. While that’s true, at this point it’s unfair to criticize the band for doing something so extremely well, given how many other acts can’t pull off a similar feat.

“Weapon”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GML9B6Ss_Zo