There's no reason to like the Mystery Jets.

From southwest London, the band has chiseled into the profitable niche between the post-punk revival of Bloc Party, The Rapture, and Arctic Monkeys and the vague new wave stumbling about of Maxïmo Park and Franz Ferdinand, all while managing to avoid a point or personality.

For their second album, last spring's Twenty One, Mystery Jets roped in the ultracool-but-swell Erol Alkan for production, which was a smart thing to do even if it could only do so much.

Except for a song called "Two Doors Down."

On the surface, it's everything arch and obvious about indie's misuse of the '80s. There are bored vocals and those cartoon keyboards you hear everywhere. White ties and horrible hair. And then, whoops. Out of nowhere.

It's excellent.

Is it the chorus?

After such an ordinary start, the vocals, at least, shift onto a high rock, bright and desperate, while a melody like crystal twinkles away, rising and falling in odd-pop fashion. Erol Alkan's blatant production makes me smile. It's easy to like the way the song reminds you of Aztec Camera, Madness, and Haircut 100, and that, just when you're about to give up on it, the whole thing blooms like it was being colored in by a closest romantic with crayons.

So now there's a reason.

What'd they do that for?

In a weird way, I'm kind of Sam Mickens' boss. (In another way, as a freelancer, he is a lone wolf, a loose canon, a vigilante, and I'm merely Commissioner Gordon to his Batman.) In any case, he had little choice but to consent for an interview for this week's music feature about the Dead Science's forthcoming album Villainaire, which is being celebrated with a "Week of Culture" starting on Monday and culminating with an album release show at Neumo's on Sunday September 7th.

As I make plain in the piece, Villainaire marks the first time the Dead Science has caught my ear more than merely in passing. It's lyrically dense (in the good way), musically deft, and conceptually ambitious—one of the most interesting albums to bubble up out of Seattle this year. I think a lot of people are going to hate it. There's a lot going on—you should just read the whole article—but here are a few highlights:

"I think a lot of my points of reference as a kid are kind of the same as [Wu-Tang Clan's]."

"I am sort of a classist dude. That's the one prejudice or unhealthy hatred that I've held throughout my life—I have real reflexive problems sometimes with rich people, and in some ways I think that's good. Those ideas are somewhat present on the record. But there's not a lot of content that's like, 'Being rich is evil,' even though I feel like that often may be the case."

"There are a million metaphorical things you can drape on [black and white] beyond good and evil, black and white in the Star Wars sense. There's the tension between ecstatic abandon—nightlife, being real fucking drunk and dancing at the party—and its aftermath. That's just real basic soul music stuff. Saturday night versus Sunday morning."

The Dead Science has posted a mixtape, School of Villainy on their website today in advance of their forthcoming album Villainaire (due out 9/2). I had some trouble downloading the first mixtape, but the "originals" have downloaded just fine; the excerpts of Sam Mickens' Stranger interview with the RZA are particularly curious.

School of Villainy (The Digga Crates Real Deal) Mixtape:

INTRO
MODERN VAMPIRES
VILLVILLE
DAYS OF FUTURE PAST
GREY DIAMONDS
MAKE MINE MARVEL (CRAIG DUB PLATE) FEAT. CRAIG WEDREN
THRONE OF BLOOD RMX FEAT. ZAC PENNINGTON & KATRINA FORD
INTERLUDE
GARDEN WALL
MAKE MINE MARVEL RMX FEAT. CARLA BOZULICH
HEAVEN ON THEIR MINDS (EXCERPT)
CLEMENCY (FREDDY RUPPERT HOUSE MIX)
ADRIAN DESCANT
IMPLIED VIOLENCE RADIO PLAY-"A GHOST ON THE BOAT"
MAKE MINE MARVEL (REMIX)
THE APOLLONIAN
OUTRO

also available for free download:

School of Villainy (The Originals) Mixtape:

RZA #1
INTRO
DAYS OF FUTURE PAST
THRONE OF BLOOD RMX FEAT. ZAC PENNINGTON & KATRINA FORD
VILLVILLE
RZA #2
GARDEN WALL
MAKE MINE MARVEL(CRAIG DUB PLATE) FEAT. CRAIG WEDREN
HEAVEN ON THEIR MINDS (EXCERPT)
RZA #3
MAKE MINE MARVEL RMX FEAT. CARLA BOZULICH
INTERLUDE
GREY DIAMONDS
RZA #4
CLEMENCY (FREDDY RUPPERT HOUSE MIX)
IMPLIED VIOLENCE RADIO PLAY-"A GHOST ON THE BOAT"
RZA #5
MODERN VAMPIRES
ADRIAN DESCANT
MAKE MINE MARVEL (REMIX)
THE APOLLONIAN
RZA #6
OUTRO
RZA #7

Download both, and check out the schedule for their "Villainaire Festival of Culture" (9/1-9/7) at http://www.thedeadscience.com/.

Congratulations, Megan.

You're looking good, a little different, with more line-up changes than The Fall, but still young, streets ahead of the rest, and worth your weight in modern, effortless, long-standing, top-shelf, greatest-girl-group-since-the-Spice-Girls pop gold.

What's that?

New single?

Well, that's some big, hands-aloft stuff. Packed with sounds. Strut, strut.

And twenty seconds in! Brass-bursts!

Excellent.

It's better than "About You Now," too, the light garage-rock lead-off bait from the last album -- although it remixed well -- just as it seems to take some over-the-top cues from both Girls Aloud and Diplo's Hollertronix, which spells hope for LP number, oh my, six.

Sorry?

It's lifted from an ad? For a British drugstore?

And Ernie K-Doe's "Here Come The Girls" from the '70s?

Damn it.

Click here and skip to minute 27 to hear my little brother begin the interview by saying:

God came down and told us to form a band that was going to be dark glam rock that shakes its wang in people's faces. But beautifully. Maybe there's a little glitter on that wang.

Classy, Conor. Real classy.

"I don't know about you guys," my mother sighed after listening to the interview. Then she obliquely alluded to this article, which my parents have read, but never mentioned. "Sometimes I wonder whether any of my children are going to heaven."

As Stranger readers are no doubt aware, Sam Mickens loves him some hip hop, especially if it's of the Wu Tang Clan variety. Readers should also know that Mickens, along with Jherek Bischoff and Nick Tamburro, has a little band called the Dead Science. Fittingly, the band's forthcoming album, Villainaire (out September 9th on Constellation) is a Wu-obsessed (and therefore also comic-book obsessed) work—single "Make Mine Marvel" even excerpts a couplet from the Wu's epic posse cut "Triumph." But the album is neither as gimmicky nor as juvenile as such a concept might suggest, instead using these outsized references to explore bleak everyday moral crises. Observe:

The Dead Science - "Make Mine Marvel"

Comeback's Captiol Hill Cock Party will be up at Chop Suey, offering a stiff corrective to Block Party's hetero-normative rock agenda (Truckasauras' Hulk Hogan clips notwithstanding). It is, of course, a big, gay conflict of interest, but there you have it.

Astronautalis moved to Seattle roughly two months ago, hauling his beat-filled laptop and sacks of laundry from Jacksonville, FL, to Cap Hill to set up a new homestead. But this white import is not a southern, swampy Bubba Sparxxx. Total opposite, really. Astro's brand of hip-hop is both foreign and perfectly suited to his new neighborhood: sing-songy, melodic, full of acoustic accoutrement, much less abrasive--and often more impressive--than the stylings of Why?. His last record, The Mighty Ocean & Nine Dark Theaters, is a far cry from his teen years as one of the country's best battle rappers (yep, he's even been to the famed Scribble Jam), though his ridiculous ability to chain freestyle thoughts with indelible rhyme and flow pokes through even in his most recent material (and he proves his skills by taking freestyle suggestions Who's Line style during most concerts).

Full disclosure--I've known the guy for years through Texas connections. But he doesn't return my calls, and he hasn't sent me a copy of his just-finished new record, produced by John Congleton (Explosions in the Sky, Black Mountain, The Mountain Goats) and featuring members of Midlake and the Polyphonic Spree in the backing band. Which means I'll have to see him for the first time in forever tomorrow to watch him debut new, far-beyond-hip-hop material from his ambitious, two-year recording ordeal. Openers Coconut Bonanza are from a similar school of hip-hop--a lot jokier and sillier lyrically (like, ahem, pissing on a lover), but the group, composed of guys from local rock/metal bands like Lesbian, delivers a prog-ish mentality that keeps their goofiness fresh.

In the meantime, because the pigs can't censor Line Out (and, yes, NSFW as well as blatant self-promotion):

This is the definition of 'a good look'. If you want to know what else would be a good look, I'll tell ya- showing up to the 2nd Edition of The Corner, taking place in the Rendezvous' Jewel Box Theatre tomorrow night. Charles Mudede had this to say about the first installment:

Where is the true hiphop? One spot that has it regularly is the Jewel Box Theater at the Rendezvous. Here, once a month, there is a gathering of local hiphop heads. This gathering is intimate. Meaning, there is a close relationship between the audience and the performers. This closeness (and smallness) is its truth—a truth because this how it all began, in small spaces, in small rooms, in the small hours of the night. What is documented in the bibles of hiphop—Beat Street and Wild Style—is being practiced at the Jewel Box Theater.

Charles couldn't be more correct- that basement flavor was in full effect last time, and it was positively intoxicating to go to a top-tier local rap show in such intimate quarters. And I'm not just saying that because my crew played last time, or because I'm hosting tomorrow's edition; that's just how it was.

If you'd like to see the Unsigned Hype that is Dyme Def, the authoritative voice of the streets D. Black, or Seattle's dusted-savant clown prince Sonny Bonoho, you're just gonna have to make sure you don't miss The Corner tomorrow night. See you then.

Swearengen is the duo of Edge (Iamthethorn, Grievous) and drummer Rob Lovell (Spitting Teeth, Positively Negative). They just recorded a one song, 14 minute demo of heavy, brooding doom metal taking influence from bands like Yob, Engine Kid, Cavity, Sleep, Iceburn and Khanate. They sound as brutal as the murderous cocksucker from whom they got their name.

Also playing tonight are bar rock miscreants Thunderbird Motel. They sound, as their name would imply, like a dirty, semen crusted mattress. Making their way across the mountains from Spokane are another Neurosis/Sleep influenced metal act, Merrick Diaries. And these assholes are playing too. Should be a good time.

I just put up an exclusive interview with Saigon on RaindropHustla, here's a taste:

...One day my little brother walks in the house and he got these Kevin Garnett-sized earrings on. R Kelly joints. Big, diamond earrings. If they were real they woulda cost at least a quarter-million dollars. I’m like the purpose of wearin' fake jewelry is to make people believe it might be real. So if you had the money to afford those earrings, you wouldn't be livin' in this house. He gives me the smirk - whateva. And I know he's gettin' that from the rap videos. I'm like look at how influential this is on my little brother, I'm schoolin' him every day talkin' about how fake most of these gangsta rappers are, but their influence is stronger than me and he knows what I've been through. Rappers are raising our kids. Rappers replaced the black father. Sad but true. You know how many young kids I know that think its cool to sleep wit' as many girls as possible? I'm like AIDS is out there, are y'all crazy? But no its like 'I'm a pimp, I got this many chicks duh-duh-duh-duh-dah.' Rappers don't emphasize safe sex; they emphasize butt-naked women in they videos. Seein' stuff like that made me feel like if I'm gonna do this, I gotta be responsible. I can't send kids to prison, can't do it.

Saigon plays Neumos's tomorrow night with Dyme Def, Cancer Rising, and Mr. Supreme.