Ah, the glorious sounds of jangle, in all its diversity. That’s what we keep showing up for. You can make jangle Thursday all your own with these five fabulous flavours of reverb-heavy tune-age.

The Young Sinclairs may not be as young anymore but their first LP in seven years Cycles Turning still exudes the wonder of youth. Title track “Cycles Turning” conjures every 1980s Byrdsian jangle revival motif. And that wobbly echo-laden lead guitar break is outasight. Then “Evergreen Ln” offsets its sparkly lead guitar lines with ghostly ethereal vocals. By this point the mood of this LP is definitely set. From there the vibe alternates between the psychedelic pop of “Own Two Feet” and “Don’t You Know” and the more spacey atmospheric feel of “You are the Reverie” and “Emerald Green.” The band do rock out on occasion. You can hear a very Stones rhythm guitar strumming on “Deceit Again” or just a garage rock growl defining “Tunnel Walls.” Should-be hit singles for me include “Never Find a Reason” and “Patience,” the latter acing a 1980s indie rock pop sheen. Standing apart, “The Great Unknown” works against the grain of much of the album with its clean, crisp contemporary sound. Seven years away has allowed this band to solidify their unique sound and the results are pretty jangle great.

I’ve covered a lot of The Junior League releases over these past ten years and they never fail to grab me. The new album The Moon Neither Noticed Nor Ignored is no exception. The secret is main man Joe Adragna’s superior song-writing. I’m pretty confident you could strip down nearly any Adragna song and bash it out on an acoustic guitar without losing any of its melodic depth. Of course, Adragna also knows how to dress a song, and his stylistic choices reflect a command of many decades of familiar rock motifs. Opening cut “Sunset Park” showcases this nicely, combining a dirty jangle with a 1980s indie rock sensibility. Or listen to how he adds a country-ish tang to the otherwise rocking “A Matter of Time.” The jangle on this album is often subtle and carefully chosen to suit each song. “Just as Long as I Have You” is delicate, in a Peter Case solo sort of way. “The Naked Lunchbox” offers languid lead guitar lines to decorate a ballad with an aching heart. On “Never Quite the Same” the spacey jangle guitar work sits somewhere in the background, allowing the focus to shift to the vocal and a more upfront Harrisonian lead guitar. And not everything is jangle-centric. “Waiting For You” is a tight rollicking tune where the distinct rhythm guitar anchors the sound. Or listen to how “I Am Going To Fight” is practically a masterclass in how to use bass to tie different elements of a song together, with great Beatlesque jangle too. Departures abound here as well. “The Sun Will Rise” sounds like a classic of indeterminate genre while “Forget Forget Me Nots” offers up a more sombre, acoustic guitar workout. I’d nominate the poppy Well Wishers-ish “Until You Get It Right” as the single.

Seattle’s TV Star have got their own buzzy guitar, wall-of-sound thing going on their new long-player Music For Heads and it’s a trip. It’s kinda shoe-gazey and jangle and spooky, all at the same time. Opening cut “The Package” is a slow waltz into all these elements. Check out the guitar reverb drenching “Reality Cheque,” you can practically body surf the rising tide of guitars. “Two Revolutions” is defined by a pristine, almost English folk kind of vocal that rises up out of the swell of electric guitars. Then “Texas Relation” pairs a striking electric guitar lead line with a cello and viola. The guitar/vocal interplay really defines this record in a distinctive way. “Greener Pastures” floats an ethereal vocal over jangle guitar. Melodically “Lodestar” evokes a Gordon Lightfoot thematic quality, channeled through an indie rock filter.  “Koresh Me Down” is like a jangle torch ballad while “Out Of My Bag” has a sixties psych pull to it. The record closes with slow, drone-y “Strawberry Hero,” a seductive mediation on taking it easy. Now that’s the way to end things.

In their Vapour Trails guise Kevin and Scott Robertson know how to load up on jangle guitar. But on this side project, dubbed simply Robertson, they expand the stylistic focus without quite letting go the jangle thread. The record has got fifties pop, country, folk and hybrid versions of all of the above.  “Everything I Wanna See” launches the set, evoking a laid back 1950s ‘cruisin’ the streets’ feel. Then “Don’t Know What It Means” immediately pivots into a sunshine pop jangle. By track #3 we’re in familiar Robertson territory as “Get In The Parlour, Jean” falls somewhere between British folk and Crosby, Stills and Nash. Not surprisingly, folk rock figures prominently in this collection with “Birdie in Window” and “Is It Wrong,” the latter adding drama to its folk feel with strings. “Noon and Night” crosses over from folk to country just like the Byrds once did, with the aid of some striking pedal steel guitar. “Sticking Around” also leans on pedal steel but with a more country pop demeanor. Some tracks defy easy genre type-casting, like “But Today” and “Wasting The Day Away.” Others like “Illusion To Me” are straight up jangle. My personal fave here is “To You.” It’s just beat-group delicious. Remarkable how this record manages to cover so much style but still retain a distinctive Robertson family stamp. And that’s a very good thing indeed.

A lot of people throw Beatle-isms around like candy. But the problem is that any overly familiar quotes quickly sound stale and hackneyed. That makes what Oliver Flanagan does very special. With his Sorry Monks project he cranks out tracks that exude a mid-period fab four essence. The effect is to conjure something reminiscent of any number of great Beatles songs without aping the original. Now with that claim in mind, it might seem cheeky to open his recent LP Nowhere Man with a song also named “Nowhere Man.” It’s not a cover but, as the album presser describes it, a ‘postmodern deconstruction of a famous Beatles tune.’ It’s like he’s reduced the song to a collection of puzzle pieces thrown in the air and somehow fit together in a new way. Most other Beatle riffing here is more brief and subtle. “Tiny Bird” opens with the distinctive “Please Please Me” chord changes before moving on to do its own thing in a more Rubber Soul vein. “Wine and Crying” also aligns with Rubber Soul given its dalliances with folk rock. Sometimes the effect is more about the song’s atmosphere. “King of Misery” has a Lennon-esque quality while “Goodbye Everybody” is very McCartney. “Eight Arms To Hold You” uses possibly the greatest Beatles title reject for a song with a “Drive My Car” vibe. “R Stevie Moore” is something different again, as might be expected given its title (though the track would not be amiss in the White Album orbit). I also hear a strong Kinks influence on cuts like “Freak of Nature” and “Pretty Little Head,” the latter evoking shades of “Tired Of Waiting For You.” Ultimately Nowhere Man’s Beatles aura is just a pleasant bonus. The album succeeds because Oliver Flanagan knows how to write great tunes.

Jangle Thursday doesn’t slide by every week. Jump on these jangle suggested hyperlinks right away to make sure these producers keep up the supply.

Photo ‘Guitarman’ courtesy Thomas Hawk Flikr collection.