From Up & Coming:

The Hidden Cameras, Gentleman Reg

(Triple Door) You kind of dig yourself into a (glory-)hole when you open and close your breakthrough album of choral pop with songs about water sports (and I ain't talking about synchronized swimming!). Do you attempt to up the dissonance factor with yet raunchier lyrics set to even more delicately baroque ditties? Do you just try to gracefully back out of the bathhouse? Well, if you're the Hidden Cameras—the pride of Ontario—you opt more or less for the latter. The band's songs are still as joyfully sung and artfully arranged as ever, but they've gradually dialed down the naughtiness and winkingly inflammatory politics of songs like "Ban Marriage" in favor of maybe more sincere but certainly less uniquely striking pop songs. Still, they're just adorable live. ERIC GRANDY

Talk Normal, Wet Hair, Broken Water, King Dude

(Josephine) What if early Yeah Yeah Yeahs subsisted on a steady diet of Ut and Siouxsie and the Banshees LPs, and then heavily immersed themselves in the No New York comp? Something like Talk Normal would emerge. The young project of drummer/vocalist Andrya Ambro and guitarist/bassist/vocalist Sarah Register, Talk Normal play a vital strain of nervy, veiny rock that wreaths your head in barbed wire. Mostly tart, but a little sweet, the songs on their Secret Cog EP and Sugarland full-length induce a lot of beneficial pain and agonizing pleasure for a two-woman unit. Within Talk Normal's music, noise and melody engage in plenty of hate-fucking, and everyone leaves the scene thoroughly drained. DAVE SEGAL

And there's always more in our complete music calendar listings.