“I’ve always been a good imitator. I love music. But I’m just not that original,” said James Murphy, bandleader and songwriter of LCD Soundsystem, to The New Yorker a few weeks ago. It’s true, Murphy’s music is many things, original not being one of them, but that’s the point. LCD Soundsystem is a great band because, like all great rock bands, Murphy distills his influences (namely Brian Eno, ’90s House, and New York in the late ’70s) and re-formats them in his own unique style.
     Murphy made his creative breakthrough as LCD Soundsystem with 2007’s Sound of Silver, a giant leap beyond his 2005 self-titled debut. This Is Happening, supposedly Murphy’s last under the LCD moniker, doesn’t have as many breakout moments as Silver — it doesn’t reach the peaks of “Someone Great”, “All My Friends”, or “New York I Love You…” — but it doesn’t reach Silver’s relative lows either. The result is a more consistent, though flatter sounding, album.

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Internet buzz can destroy a band just as easily as it can build one up. People begin to form ideas and expectations before they have the chance to properly absorb the music, and overexposure is a constant risk. Sleigh Bells, the duo of songwriter/guitarist Derek E. Miller and singer Alexis Krauss, embody this perfectly. At first I just didn’t understand them, or their seemingly universal appeal. Many of Sleigh Bells’ songs are simple, sometimes to the point of being dumb. I was confused, and wondered how this silly music could be so beloved. And now, listening to Sleigh Bells’ debut — released after a handful of demos and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of blogger buzz — I’m just starting to get a handle on what they’re all about.

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The Fall is not a band; it’s punk attitude turned to music. “They are always different, they are always the same,” said noted British radio host John Peel. Always different, partly because Mark E. Smith has been the only consistent member throughout The Fall’s 34-year career, and the same because, regardless of album or decade, The Fall’s songs always follow the same basic structure, with Smith speak/singing, often in seemingly random spurts, over a repetitive hook. Brash and snotty, a first-time listener could easily mistake any one of The Fall’s countless songs as little more than a looped soundtrack for bandleader Mark E. Smith to sneer over.
    Your Future Our Clutter, The Fall’s 28th studio album, is uncharacteristically concise and fun. It’s also one of their best. Smith, a unrepentant curmudgeon, trades in his sneer for a smirk, making this the Bart Simpson of Fall records. Most of Clutter’s nine songs are built around a rollicking rhythm section, driving toward anti-climax.

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Mi Ami might break your heart. Two of its three members, singer/guitarist Daniel Martin-McCormick and bassist Jacob Long, used to be in Black Eyes — the amazing post-punk band that split just as they were breaking through. The two bands sound similar enough for fans of Black Eyes to imagine what could have been: aggressively polyrhythmic, riotously cacophonous. But Mi Ami is not Black Eyes-lite. Where Black Eyes were a tornado, pulling in and destroying as many divergent genres as they could, Mi Ami look inward. On Steal Your Face, the San Francisco band’s second full-length after a handful of EPs and remixes, Martin-McCormick, Long, and seemingly inexhaustible drummer Damon Palermo have come into their own by devoting an entire record to the exploration of the tensile strength of dub and world music.

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