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Screen Shot 2019-11-25 at 8.35.33 AMA Marshall Crenshaw turn of phrase gets our solid-week-of-singles catch-up underway. The backlog of songs was never going to get posted without some serious melodic triage so every day this week (barring week-ends) we’re busting out the tunes in 45rpm increments. First stop: Östersund, Sweden with a track from The Tor Guides new album, Backwards in Reverse. A great deal of this record is tuneful mellow town, which is why “Always Somewhere Else” stands out for me. It’s a bit more peppy with wonderful Rickenbacker guitar accents all over the place. Next stop: Nashville, where punk and pop collide in the indie supergroup Vista Blue. There’s more than a little Beach Boy harmony on the blissful opening to “Big Stars” before the song settles into some guitars-to-the-front poprock. But don’t stop there. The band’s new EP Hit the Floor! has two other beachy hook-loaded tunes. Up north Montreal’s Elephant Stone turn up the psychedelia on “Hollow World,” a single from their upcoming 2020 album Hollow. Dreamy without entering the sleep zone, the song has the band channeling a seemingly effortless 1967 Beatles vibe. Last stop: Bowling Green, Kentucky with Dan Luke and the Raid on “Disco is as Disco Does.” The song is a bit of departure from the rest of their recent LP Out of the Blue, taking their fuzzed out poprock sound and adding some spooky keyboards before breaking out into a great neo-1950s chorus. But the whole record is pretty solid.

Get your Monday started right. Click on the links and make an investment in The Tor Guides, Vista Blue, Elephant Stone, and Dan Luke and the Raid right now.