Ten August Albums Worth Checking Out

August: It’s a movie starring Josh Hartnett, an inspiration for the best Counting Crows album and the bane of at least one writer’s existence. But for our purposes, it’s a month with 31 days, on five of which new music is released. In fact, one of those release days has already passed. Quick, to the list!

Arcade Fire – The Suburbs [Merge, Aug. 3]
Paste review (8.3/10) excerpt: “In the annals of recent Important Rock Bands, the ‘90s had the self-destruction of Nirvana, the slacker ethos of Pavement and the glorious noise of Sonic Youth, and the early 2000s had the willfully obtuse experimentalism of Radiohead. We now live in the age of Arcade Fire.” Andy Beta

Wavves – King of the Beach [Fat Possum, Aug. 3]
Paste review (9.1/10) excerpt: “No one would have blamed Nathan Williams for retreating deeper into his quivering fortress of 4-track distortion. But for Wavves’ follow up, he’s come out swinging.” Raymond Cummings

David Dondero – # Zero With a Bullet [Team Love, Aug 3]
Paste review (7.3/10) excerpt: “If the world doesn’t need another folk singer, it could do with a prophet or two, and Dondero is the semi-crazed advocate for the bored stripper, the downtrodden employee and every other out-of-vogue, road-weary musician a million miles from the Billboard charts.” Josh Jackson

Kathryn Calder – Are You My Mother? [File Under: Music, Aug. 11]
Paste review (8.0/10) excerpt: “Members of The New Pornographers, Ladyhawke and Frog Eyes chip in, but Calder’s confident voice and commanding presence anchors it all; she’s the one mourning, but she’ll likely wind up comforting you.” Raymond Cummings

Lissie – Catching a Tiger [Fat Possum, 8/17]
Paste review (8.8/10) excerpt: “‘Stranger’ is a twinkling takedown of a dud suitor that would make Lesley Gore proud, and ‘Cuckoo’ steers the newer songs out of boy-trouble territory with its giddy remembrances of growing up a square peg in small-town Illinois. ‘I fell in love with being defiant / In a pickup truck that roared like a lion,’ she sings over lightly-charging guitars, sounding less like a rough-and-tumble troublemaker and more like the next beloved new artist we’ll soon to have to get used to hearing on whatever radio stations are left in this world.” Rachael Maddux

Matthew Dear – Black City [Ghostly International, Aug. 17]
Paste review (8.3/10) excerpt: “Black City overall is lean and upbeat, and Dear’s gift for making an arrangement jump within snug confines continues to evolve” Michaelangelo Matos

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin – Let It Sway [Polyvinyl, Aug. 17]
Paste review (6.7/10) excerpt: “Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin nimbly carries their post-punk torch on their hook-laden third studio LP. Let It Sway is a feast of musical comfort food for the nostalgia-tripping slacker-chic children of the ’90s…the perfect soundtrack to cruising the streets of Seattle in your 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee.” Michael Saba

Portico Quartet – Isla [Real World, Aug. 31]
Paste review (8.6/10) excerpt: “Considering their implementation of unconventional instruments like the hang (a slightly more temperate-sounding steel pan) and consistent but subtle electronic inducements, the four piece’s genre-bending appeal is certainly warranted.” Jennifer Ross

Bill Frisell – Beautiful Dreamers [Savoy Jazz, Aug. 31]
Paste review (7.6/10): “[Frisell’s] latest effort maintains his signature genre-meshing qualities in its reimagining of six classic ballads dating as far back as the Civil War (which sit nicely among Frisell’s 10 original compositions).” Jennifer Ross

The Weepies – Be My Thrill [Nettwerk, Aug. 31]
Paste review (7.0/10): “Be My Thrill is sweet—really sweet—and there’s very little sour to balance it out. But Talan and Tannen are disarmingly unapologetic: They’re in love with each other, they have an adorable little boy, the weather’s amazing in California, life is beautiful and they write mushy-gushy pop songs about it.” Kate Kiefer Lee