On the other hand

Much as I love the new Pandoras.box, and I do- I had to drive to the motor vehicle administration yesterday, and Monomeet was the ideal soundtrack for driving a country road in Maryland on a grey early spring day, I listen to a lot of music, and so I have listened to other music in the past week or so, but much of it will unjustifiably get the short end of my attention span because there's been so much good music in the past three or four weeks. So, if these come across as negative, it's only in comparison to stuff as great as Pandoras.Box....
Young Widows-In and out of Youth and lightness. It's decent post-metal. It's not as great as Pelican, or Isis, but still for stuff that's more sophisticated than Sludge, but not exactly "Metal"- yet still holds the Doomy-ambience of pound and crawl, it's decent. Strangely, it reminds me of Cop Shoot Cop, a bit...
Royal Bangs- We Breed Champions. Pop Math? A hybrid of Radiohead and Blink 182? I'm not quite certain. It's noisy indie rock with some odd bloops on keyboards. Yeah, I'm behind on them, but what do you want? I'm not hip.
Amateur Party-Truncheons in the Manor. My first impression? A very Garage rock version of the Kaiser Chiefs. Which isn't a bad thing. The Kaiser Chiefs are a good band to see live- the records are disposable. Likewise, this band, if they can bring the energy to the show seems like it'd be a fun show. I wonder if they'd tour with Capsula? That seems like it'd be exhausting, but worth it.
Lotus Feed- A Savage Breath within our Lives. Wow, these guys really LOVE the 80's. I mean REALLY. It's like Shriekback meets the Call to play a gig with Wire Train. Decent in a black eyeliner and costumes of ambiguous gender kind of way. I also get the feeling like English is a second language for these guys. A kind of Eastern European vibe, makes me think they play gigs in Poland and Austria....
The Lazy Cowgirls- Somewhere down the Line. And now for something completely different... I've been a fan of the Lazy Cowgirls since the late 1980's. They played a garagey form of Cowpunk, like a mix of the Ramones, early 1970's Rolling Stones and Waylon Jennings. By the early 1990's there was a pretty awesome "party Rock" scene going in Los Angeles; These guys and the Cadillac Tramps and Social Distortion, and the Hangmen, and a bunch of others. So, it's still nice every once in awhile to blast one of their records, and drive fast down a sunny Highway.
The Wails- EP. What's going on in Texas? Another great Shoegazer kind of band. A bit more Lush than Ride, a bit more Chapterhouse than My Bloody Valentine- but still really nice, pretty stuff.
Warm Widow- Widower. Sorry. I've already heard Chrome/Six Finger Satellite/Brainiac styled trebley Art damage punk. This just doesn't do much for me.
The Boxer Rebellion- The Cold Still. Ummm, it's better than Coldplay and Keane? Not really my deal.
Oh Land- Oh Land. Really Bjork-ish at times, as absurd as that might sound. What I mean is that it's pretty, sophisticated and avante Garde Dance pop. I might get into it sometime later, so I'll hang on to it.
White Lies- Ritual. Hmmm. It's very indebted to both the "coldwave" set, and Interpol, and Joy Division. It's good, but very... Naive? Raw? I'm not sure what the word is- the production is well done, and the musicianship is good, but there's something a bit juvenile about the songwriting, and the execution- not in a playful sense, far from it, but in a sophomoric, way too self-serious way. I think that given two more records they should be really excellent....