UH OH! TODAY IS HUMP DAY!  You know that means it’s time for part three of our countdown.

It’s Easier to be a Hypocrite – The Sour Notes
The Meat of the Fruit (Self Released)
With an exiled pedigree that’s as rich as the production on this, potentially the best sounding release to make it onto our countdown, we’re willing to take the title on ourselves to be sure this song, band and EP gets a wider audience (technically, this doesn’t qualify for the countdown as not a single member of the band lives in Houston anymore). There’s nothing particularly shocking or world music about the instrumentation, just judicious use of keyboards, background content electric guitars and fader levels that don’t stay in the same place the entire song (hello mute banks!). Again, a disheartening example of local talent putting out their best work after moving away and a reminder that by not opening ourselves up to a wider world, we’re leaving far too much aural pleasure on the table come desert.

Jazz June – The Tontons
Sea and Stars (Self Released)
Some people get the Tontons right away, and some people need a bit of a lense from which to view it. There was, for us, always something that kept us listening to their debut EP and sticking around for their shows long after we decided we didn’t really know how to approach either from a critical perspective. It’s clearly unique around town, worthy of its numerous accolades, and fires the same synapses that has us instinctively acquiring every Daptone and Stax track we can get our hands on, especially ‘Jazz June’ with its latin percussion and bright guitar chord work balancing out the bubbly leads that fill out the second half of the song. If we asked to pick a starting point for The Tontons evolution this would be it, cause we really feel this track and look forward to having a second chance on explaining how they register in our register on their next outing.

Lazy Bones – Papermoons
New Tales (Team Science Records)
Just last night, a friend of ours made the comment that coverage of local music was in grave danger of jumping the shark (we’d give them credit, but they’re not the type that’s into backlash) and we had to kind of sit there for a second and let it soak in that we were pretty culpable in that extremely truthful statement. Later, as we sat staring at the ten empty best records slots on the Village Voice’s Pazz and Jop ballot, we realized that there wasn’t much overlap between what we would tell you the ten best records this year were and what we were going to tell them. Now granted, we have a deliberately narrow editorial scope (we don’t even take into consideration for review most of the records that people outside the city would even know, such as I am..Sasha Fierce). But it was pretty gratifying to be able to type the name of this record in alongside the Fleet Foxes and Girl Talks and She & Hims of the world. Maybe we don’t have the momentum anymore to make it over the shark tank, but as we fall, too small not to fail, discovering records like this along the way certainly made it worth the ride.

Lead Skin – Buxton
A Family Light (Mia Kat)
We won’t hazard a guess as to how the members of Buxton ended up with a post-doc mastery of touching melancholy so early in their lives or catalog, and it goes without saying that their approach to it is neither hamfisted, corny, angsty or insincere. On ‘Lead Skin,’ for example, it’s clear they don’t actually have one, even if you block the lyrics out (which are great, btw). The song’s cripple creek acoustic guitars, lap steel specter and forceful piano are a sterling example of the outfit’s updated Americana and a reminder that quite a few acts in the city should be looking to their own backyard rather than the coasts for inspiration. A+ Very Fast Shipping Would Buy Again. No Shark.

Long Brown Hair – Welfare Mothers
Long Brown Hair 7″ (Self Released)
If 2008 was anything, it was the year of the return of the rawkus garage 7″, and this Sweatbox-recorded debut from the Welfare Mothers is decidedly part of that wave. Featuring an economy of sound and plenty of OH YEAHs, this ode to having a “sexy friend” doesn’t break any new ground but is a splendid gateway into an entire subgenre of good times, pull tabs, and the best satellite (or terrestrial) radio station going on right now. If you’re looking to get a bit of the throw-back feel without coming across as skate dad, catch this 7″ if you can and one of their shows like your button-up dickies top depends on it.

Migration – Future Blondes
1111 (Self Released)
At some point in the future, people from other planets (to say nothing of internet browsing teens from other cultures) will stumble across the Future Blondes recordings. Because theirs are electronic compositions, there is the temptation for us to think that they may be perceived as somehow more modern, or forward looking (as if the cheap-guitar industrial complex could ever be ground to a halt). But for us, these recordings and “Migration” specifically are so of this point in time and a deafeningly pessimistic short term outlook. The song’s title is randomly interjected into the track, distorted, with the force of strained neck muscles behind the all caps exclamation. Forced. This is the sound of forced, strained migration. Of men fleeing war and genocide. Of children and mothers rushing from broken levies and collapsing ice-shelf floodwater. Of wage-earners hallucinating to death in the desert, moments after begging to drink their compatriots urine just to try and cross a line on a map that will make it possible for them to send their children to school. Of gas running out and white flight from the suburbs and their collapse and ghettoization. Migration is an awful, nasty thing and that is what will make this recording so prescient to those that follow, for our future is their horrid past.

Modern Girl – Something Fierce
Modern Girl (Self Released)
Can these kids do no wrong? I mean, when is it that they’re going to come out with a batch of songs that makes us shrug our shoulders and say “meh” and go back to listen to whatever it was that they recorded before this. It’s like their future selves visited them in a time traveling telephone booth with a guy named Rufus and were like “Dudes. Here is your entire catalog, don’t make the mistake most bands make by not having each subsequent thing be better and more interesting than what preceded it, so go ahead and put it in the right order and get to releasing it” and they were like “That’s chill future selves, but we think we got this on our own” and then they went and setup a show in a Starbucks parking lot, and are so cool they actually ADDED scene points for doing that, and then got bonus mods because the whole thing was busted by the police and decided that rather than sitting on their ass and bitching about gas prices being to high to tour that they would spend the summer recording their next record even though IKE kept their power out for longer than anyone we heard of. So yeah, other bands, be more like Something Fierce.

Moving Pictures – News on the March
Almost Songs (Self Released)
Though Almost Songs was intended as a stop-gap recording just so they had something to get out there and consequently doesn’t feature the full arrangement of their live sets (and their released just too late to be considered for this countdown debut EP), this rendition of ‘Moving Pictures” is almost perfect as is. Sure, we’d like to hear the cello and drums in there, but the crucial elements are all in place: the songwriting and the vocal harmonies. From henceforth (and thank goodness someone finally proved everyone speaking to the contrary wrong) we shall no longer take “the vocal monitors in Houston clubs suck” as an excuse for why the singing in your band does. High fives News on the March, we’re totally stoked on spending some quality time with you in the years to come.

Nixon – Woozyhelmet
Get Down (Soda Pop Productions)
Way back in the day there was this girl in the scene named Jessica Nixon that was monkey barrel fun and for whatever reason we had a secret compact to always drink copious amounts of Goldschlager (ok, maybe just a shot) with her whenever we saw her even if it meant walking up the street to the store and buying a bottle and a flask so that it could be consumed in locations where it was not available and it was just like being back in college except that even in college we were smart enough not to drink that schleck and if there is any upside to her having moved to Austin it’s that we haven’t had to taste a drop of that yeech since she left. Oh, and this song is about that same Jessica Nixon and one advantage California Governor Schwatzeneger has over failed California Gubernatorial candidate Richard Nixon is that is that he can pack a bunch of ideas into a single long run-on sentence and get away with it because of his accent. Why aren’t you into this album yet?

Rickshaw – Sharks and Sailors
Builds Brand New (Self Released)
Not to contradict ourselves, but to completely contradict ourselves, we were actually big fans of all that hipster metal we said Sharks and Sailors had moved away from on this record, so it’s nice that they threw us a big riffed chunky bone of a treat to go bury in the backyard and retrieve when the situation warrants. A complete list of those situations is beyond the scope of this piece, but should be said to include overcooking the chicken during the final step of a long dinner preparation, playing 5 MINUTES OF HATE style video games, driving your tank around the Iraqi countryside, needing something to transition between Queen’s “Tie Your Mother Down” and Rusted Shut’s “Godstrike”on a mix tape, running from super fast zombies, making out with someone with bad breath and taking a quicker shower than you intended before work.