4/26 new arrivals

A classic American Music Club record, more from the Blow and a few more indie names.

American Music Club, Everclear: One of the biggest Eitzel records, released in 1991, AMG calling it a “masterpiece.” In terms of gloomy singer-songwriter stuff, this is pretty much the benchmark.

The Blow, Poor Aim: Love Songs (Remixes): This is an odd K Records release, a collection of remixes of songs from the Poor Aim EP — the Blow’s best output after last year’s fantastic Paper Television — but with the original recordings left out. There is some fun stuff here — at times it’s very reminiscent of recent Gwen Stefani — but none of it stands up all that well to the original recordings, “Hey Boy” being perhaps my favorite Blow track ever.

Here’s “Hey Boy” live:

Fucked Up, Epics in Minutes: Along with Snowden and Young Widows, Fucked Up signaled the masterful re-branding of legendary emo label Jade Tree back into relevance. Fucked Up are everything their name implies, and this compilation of early EPs and seven-inches is a fun mix of nostalgic hardcore and punk rock.

Hefner, The Best of Hefner: Bright and cheery indie pop from the UK, the goofy and melodic favorites of the Warped set.

Merzbow, Electric Dress: I’m not familiar with this piece — still stuck on disc 92,928 of the Merzbox — but this new recording does offer quite the bargain: 52 minutes of Jim O’Rourke collaborating for only one track.

Turbonegro, Party Animals: Definitely a big fall-off from Scandinavian Leather, but still another boisterous collection of goofy ’80s metal.

Wagon Repair: Todd will be chiming in later today with a post dedicated to this electronic label. He was very excited about this arrival.