Voyager One, Hopewell, This Blinding Light
(Comet) While it's not Hopewell's most consistent record, Good Good Desperation, the Poughkeepsie psychedelic-rock quartet's sixth full-length, boasts some undeniably powerful passages. (There's a reason they just toured with My Bloody Valentine.) "Stranger" is a hallucinatory gallop of swirling organ, ocean-sized feedback, and pummeling toms. "Island" sounds like the work of a psychedelic big band rather than four dudes with standard rock instruments, and the title track is the delirious soundtrack to your next morning-time, life-altering revelation. Just how all this big sound will fit inside the Comet remains to be heard, but hell, if Dark Meat can fit in there, anyone can. GRANT BRISSEY

Kinski, Eternal Tapestry, Purple Rhinestone Eagle
(Funhouse) Portland's Eternal Tapestry can sound like Loop at their most lackadaisical or Endless Boogie at their most cosmic; their psych rock is so downered, it comes out the other side as uplifting. They're on that Terrastock festival tip, brandishing passports for astral travel. Also, any band that draws frequent comparisons to Swedish trance rockers Pärson Sound demands inspection. If you don't know Kinski by now, you need to check out these Seattle mainstays, whose rock continues to bulk up even as it becomes catchier. Their latest inclinations find them enacting a swift breed of heavy metal with hooks and hairpin dynamics aplenty—plus, the occasional Oasis cover. DAVE SEGAL

Mayhem, Marduk, Cephalic Carnage, Cattle Decapitation
(Studio Seven) A quarter century ago, Mayhem spilled the seed for the beast known and feared as Norwegian black metal (experts mostly agree that it don't come no blacker than the Norwegian brand of it). Injecting a malevolent chaos into metal, Mayhem blasted all the hammy camp out of it and forced it to wear a perpetual grim and gruesome expression. As an outsider to the genre, I confess that Mayhem and their black-metal ilk mostly sound like copious vomiting in a war zone while a warped Wagner LP spins forlornly in the distance. But in a live setting, there's no denying the unifying power of nihilism, blasphemy, and gore worship translated into sound and channeled through massive amps. DAVE SEGAL

If Bears Were Bees, Dylan Morrison, Generifus, Hurricane Lanterns, Novalis, Tony Kevin
(Q Cafe) If Bears Were Bees' lead singer, T. J. Grant, has the kind of nasal voice and lyric-heavy delivery most often connected with those annoying nerd-rock bands like They Might Be Giants or Ben Folds Five. It's hard to love that sort of thing, but when Grant really rears back and belts it out, that weird, ironic, smart-guy delivery gets delightfully lost in real emotion. It's probably amped up for theatrical purposes, but it's genuinely affecting. I defy you to listen to "Clean Getaway" and not get a little choked up. It's a ballad that you can imagine someone like Jack Logan really sinking his teeth into. That's something They Might Be Giants never managed to pull off, and that's why If Bears Were Bees' ironic quotation marks are so powerful: When they come down, you feel like you've been hit in the chest. PAUL CONSTANT

Typewriters, Mighty Tiger, Tim and the Time Machines
(Blue Moon) Hasn't there already been a band named Typewriters? And weren't they really good? And didn't they sound just like this band called Typewriters? It probably only seems like that, because this band is one of those weird musical mixes—a blend of Eastern-European oom-pah-pah beats and Violent Femmes—style quirky pop—that seems so obvious in retrospect. Typewriters come from a long, uncelebrated tradition of Seattle music exemplified by Presidents of the United States of America: It's poppy, and the musicians aren't afraid to do things like make weird, scat-like noises with their mouths to get a point across, but it feels like they're been making their music forever. In a really good way. PAUL CONSTANT

Kids and Animals, Ambulance, Piko Panda
(Piecora's) Of course I'm going to like Kids and Animals—the Seattle quartet have been known to perform with stuffed animals displayed onstage and, c'mon, that's just cute. The music's not bad, either—singer Lee Corley has a voice that's warm and familiar, but I can't put my finger on whom it reminds me of. While the more quaint pop songs are enjoyable, my favorite Kids and Animals songs are the ones that rock out a little, like "Family Meal on the Green Mile," which starts with a plunking piano and turns into a full-on guitar onslaught by the chorus. MEGAN SELING

Handsome Furs, Cinnamon Band, Feral Children
(Neumos) Handsome Furs' new sophomore full-length, Face Control, is a startling, awesome album. Startling because while their debut, Plague Park, highlighted Dan Boeckner's quavering yet resolute voice and a certain brand of grim (North) Americana, it hardly hinted at the blood-pumping power displayed on Face Control. Boeckner and wife/bandmate Alexei Perry wed the former album's dour, sometimes folky rock to cold pulsing drum machines and increasingly electrified guitars, and the effect is frequently anthemic on an arena-ready scale. "Legal Tender" is raging, electronic, hand-clapping blues that sounds like a karaoke version of Bruce Springsteen in the best possible way. "All We Want, Baby, Is Everything" is the best Canadian appropriation of New Order's "Temptation" since the Weakerthans swiped its bridge for "Wellington's Wednesdays" (Handsome Furs instead reinterpret the verses.) ERIC GRANDY

Lesbian, Patrol, Bronze Fawn, Wildildlife
(Sunset) Tonight we celebrate the release of Patrol's second full-length, Zirconium, which is a must-hear for fans of Helmet, Tool, and/or Deftones. The most gripping song on the record is the turbulent "Summer of Violence," which is (at just under five minutes) also the shortest song on the record (there are at least three songs over 10 minutes long—you ADD suffers have been warned). Speaking of new albums, opener Bronze Fawn will probably be releasing something before the end of the year, too. They're currently in the studio with local super-producer Matt Bayles, who'll no doubt make their technically proficient and fluid instrumental tunes sound even more vivid. MEGAN SELING

Plus, Jens Lekman plays the Croc again, and Underage suggests L.A. Lungs. You can always find so much more In our calendar.