5 Albums To Get You Rocking

By Josh Tyrangiel

FRANZ FERDINAND YOU COULD HAVE IT SO MUCH BETTER From the opening chords -- played in glorious, fuzzy mono--of Franz Ferdinand's much hyped follow-up, it is clear this band has a surplus of confidence. The guitars are faster and louder, and the lyrics just as whip-smart as on its debut. You know the band is getting better because the love songs (Walk Away, Eleanor Put Your Boots On) have the courage to be pretty, while the snarling punk-disco romps (Well That Was Easy, I'm Your Villain) codify the lads' idea of losers (the dull, prudish and unstylish) and winners (them). Like all bands that matter, this one is well on its way to becoming a system of belief.

DEERHOOF THE RUNNERS FOUR Some albums are easy to love. This is not one of them. At first, The Runners Four is close to incomprehensible. Songs stop as soon as a hook seems to form; rhythms shift and cut like they're running for their lives. It's art rock, as evidenced by the affectless pronunciation of singer and bassist Satomi Matsuzaki, but when the mystery lifts and the melodies finally stick--and they do--the album has the undeniable power of complete originality.

SOULWAX NITE VERSIONS The Dewaele brothers are the founding members of Soulwax, a competent if unremarkable rock band; in their spare time they also work as 2 Many DJs, spinning out some of the catchiest electro-pop ever to hit a dance floor. Here, 2 Many DJs finally gets around to remixing Soulwax, and never mind the identity politics, it works to great effect. The pedestrian angst of Krack is recast with a tighter rhythm and a jubilant harmony; Miserable Girl is sped up to sound decidedly less like one. The rock soul of their originals remains, but they're more fun with dancing shoes.

THE DARKNESS ONE WAY TICKET TO HELL ... AND BACK It's possible that one day someone will write a more juvenile song than Knockers ("You're devilish and dirty/ They say you're pushing 30"), but one senses that the Darkness, which is about as dark as Richard Simmons and just as partial to spandex, could turn around and top it. The band is proud of its bad jokes, virtuoso guitar playing and the epic British shriek of singer Justin Hawkins, and with songs like Bald, the greatest track ever written about the scourge of male pattern baldness, it deserves to be.

MY MORNING JACKET Z For two albums, the most noteworthy thing about My Morning Jacket was its air of cultivated scruffiness; its members looked like Lynyrd Skynyrd Muppet Babies--and played like them. Here they finally shake off their youthful jam-band fascination and write some songs. From the ecstatic atmospherics of Wordless Chorus to the crackling What a Wonderful Man, singer Jim James is expansive without being lazy. If they still pack in an odd, trippy tune about kittens on fire (Into the Woods), it's perhaps because some jam-band habits are harder to break than others.