Pitchfork says: Ganglians.

Sometimes taking it outside works best. Ganglians, a beardo four-piece from Sacramento, do just that. Their brand of psychedelia is the latest offering from Woodsist, a Brooklyn label putting out records by what could be considered lo-fi's new guard: Kurt Vile, Wavves, Woods, Crystal Stilts, Vivian Girls, and Blank Dogs, to name a few. (Many of which have enjoyed a considerable amount of ink in this corner of the musicnerdiverse.) Though each of these acts roughs up music a little differently, all sound at home in the bedroom or basement. But Ganglians are wild men-- they make music that gets fresh air all up in your teeth and gums.

Like a former labelmate of theirs, Ganglians have released two equally robust records almost simultaneously. Their self-titled EP appe-teaser comes within whistling distance of a full-length and is the more prickly and scrambled of the pair. Opener "Hair" is surf rock slicing through filthy water, a standout whose melodic scope is somehow lost in the instant crash and fray of "Rats Man". Such jarring transitions, while never draining life from the EP's songs individually, typify the scattershot nature of the record as a whole. Take the synth-and-shout of "Never Mind" and "Snake Eyes", both nicely disjointed in a way that would have made the more cohesive Monster Head Room topple. The latter kicks off with a snippet of a dude letting a pretty weak burp loose, a sampling choice that's in grody contrast to the field recordings peppered throughout the full-length. Crickets sound great almost anytime, right?

Monster Head Room is a stronger set of songs from top to bottom. Polished-up holdover tracks from the EP-- "The Void" and "Candy Girl"-- round out a playlist that's remarkably languid. Outhouse acoustic numbers like "Cryin' Smoke" and the iridescent "Lost Words", both stupidly beautiful, fold in with meatier, more groove-oriented tracks like "100 Years" and "Valient Brave". The latter is a near seven-minute highlight that opens itself up entirely, rolling through a few minutes of pastoral down-strumming before the low-end arrives and transforms the song into an epic pow-wow with the Kinks. But those two stripes of jam interact with one another with an organic ease that most records in this vein sorely miss, a quality that more than compensates for Monster Head Room's lack of variety. Fidelity aside, that's a feeling punctuated by the wonderfully damaged vocal harmonies of closer "Try to Understand". It's a bike-ride of a song that puts its own spin the Beach Boys or the psych-folk-pop-argh of Grizzly Bear. But while Grizzly Bear manicure and cloister their psych folk in the parlor, Ganglians slather and cake them in mud. Then they set them free.

Rome-Phoenix......................Phoenix-Rome

Who’s the boy I like the most
Is it is teasing you he’s underage
Could he be waving from a tropical sunset
Static silhouette somehow
Single in his bed someday
Quiet til he fall fall falls

Rome Rome Rome Rome
Focus looking forward the coliseum
Oh no what did I say
What can I say
Rome Rome many tears have fallen here
I’ll be driving you look the other way

I am easy to ignore
Shutters open all the way
When the scandal that I see I’ll go insane
Distant silhouettes somehow
We shared a cigarette somewhere
I looked to the fall fall falls

Rome Rome Rome Rome
Focus looking forward the coliseum
Oh no what did I say
What can I say
Rome Rome many tears have fallen here
I’ll be driving you look the other way

Always and forever more
I called to say I’m on the way
1,000 years remain in the trashcan
I burned the cigarette somewhere
Ashes still it fall fall falls

I stand outside under broken leaves
I know I can’t do without
The future’s drowned away

Ah I never loved you
And if I loved you
I wouldn’t say I’m sorry oh no
I stand outside under broken leaves

Always and forever more
And together getting lonely
I thought I couldn’t do this without you
Single in his bed somewhere
Ashes still it fall fall falls......

"I'm the stranger in the holy land"...nice to meet you.

A Band to Check Out: Crocodiles

Even without "Neon Jesus" -- the single that garnered Crocodiles quite a bit of web attention just before this release -- Summer of Hate stands strong as a tremendous debut: one that pays heavy tribute to its influences while never seeming overly derivative. Crocodiles' band name, which references Echo & the Bunnymen's 1980 album, is a telling clue that Charles Rowell and Brandon Welchez are well-versed in neo-psychedelia, British post-punk, and noise pop. The crunchy guitars bring to mind Spacemen 3, the tremolo keyboards and drum machines show reflections of Suicide, and the production style of cavernous vocals masked by sheets of white noise comes straight out of the Jesus and Mary Chain handbook. While many other bands out there have attempted to rehash the scummy sounds of yesteryear (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club comes to mind), rarely does anyone take it to another level so successfully. Summer of Hate manages to simultaneously revitalize the old and be relevant amidst modern trends, with the duo bookmarking themselves neatly into the increasingly popular lo-fi/noise resurgence alongside similar-minded bands Crystal Stilts, Vivian Girls, and their labelmates Wavves, whose album was released on Fat Possum several weeks before Summer of Hate. Hipster appeal notwithstanding, Crocodiles are more than just a band with the right sound at the right time. Under their raw demeanor, they're surprisingly adept at creating sweet melodies. "I Want to Kill," the "Just Like Honey" of the album, grinds nihilistically over a sugary pop hook that recalls the Crystals, and wild swirling feedback propels the mesmerizing seven-minute wash of "Young Drugs."

Stolen from Jason Lymangrover, All Music Guide

The Guardian.co.uk says:

Who: The Big Pink

Where and when: John Peel stage, Saturday, 1pm

Dress code: Black and plenty of it. Frontman Robbie Furze is wearing Berlin squatter attire, new singer Valentine Fillol-Cordier has big boots and auburn hair all over her face, and bass player Leopold Ross is wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Safe in Heaven, Dead". It's not a Jacko tribute – he's been wearing it all week, apparently.

What happened: A band with a party animal reputation, critics including our own Alexis Petridis expected the Big Pink to be more wrecked than the crowd, but in fact they're completely together and in control after a good night's sleep (no wonder – this is the second of three gigs they're playing here today). They precision-blast songs that combine pop and white noise to the most intoxicating effect since the Jesus and Mary Chain, as black and white patterns flicker on a giant screen behind them.

Who's watching: Everyone who reads the music press, which has been going on about the Big Pink for the last eight months.

High point: Lonesome, country-tinged ballad Velvet is their anthem and a crowd favourite, but it's one great song among many in their arsenal.

Low point: It's music for the wee small hours rather than a sunny afternoon by the hog roast stall.

In a tweet: Early to bed makes for band on the rise.

The Big Pink ... Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space-folk.

Who hell is the stranger?

Never underestimate the power of the perfect guitar effects unit. The Jesus and Mary Chain's landmark Psychocandy would have sounded vastly less godlike without its use of a discontinued (and allegedly broken) Japanese fuzz pedal. Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis dredged his mythic decibel levels from road-worn Marshall amps, but his stoner racket wouldn't have been the same if he hadn't funneled it through the grinding fury of a Big Muff. In the right hands, one little black box can mean the difference between pummeling and decimating.

Few people understand this better than Oliver Ackermann, frontman for thunderous Brooklyn three-piece A Place to Bury Strangers: Under his catch-all company name Death by Audio (it's also a music venue, recording studio, and collective), he custom-builds and designs his own hand-wired pedals, which are used by everyone from Lightning Bolt and Serena Maneesh to Wilco, Spoon, and TV on the Radio. Not coincidentally, anyone looking for a quick description of his own band can look to the names he gives these things: Interstellar Overdriver, Supersonic Fuzz Gun, Total Sonic Annihilation.

With a bandname that's linked to both the Gospel of Matthew and the writings of British occultist Aleister Crowley, A Place to Bury Strangers represents something of a second coming for Ackermann. He was previously a member of defunct Fredericksburg, Va., dream-pop revivalists Skywave, whose records were all but baptized in the drones of (don't jump out of your checkered Vans!) the JAMC and My Bloody Valentine. After their breakup, Skywave's remaining members formed the like-minded two-piece Ceremony, and Ackermann moved to New York where he hooked up with drummer Jay Space and bassist Jono Mofo, turned up the volume, and began masterminding the wrecking-crew colossus that would become this album.

Compiling mastered versions of the band's early CD-Rs and mp3s, A Place to Bury Strangers' self-titled debut LP sets tinnitus-inducing noise-pop against a tension-wracked Joy Division-meets-Ministry backdrop. Plenty of bands have tapped the trebly, ecstatic side of shoegaze in recent years, but none have imbued it with this band's frustrated aggression or lacerating feedback.

What hits first is the reverberating distortion: The brutal textures announce themselves in pangs of blown-out guitar, crunching against the propulsive bassline and distant, static-soaked drums of opening track "Missing You". Thirty seconds in, the tempest recedes, revealing the song's love-wasted verses and murky, chiming guitars (think the Chills' "Pink Frost" and you're close), only to sneak up again for a shattered, metal-twisting chorus. The group's versatile squall can crumble majestically, as on the slow-motion starfighter explosions of "The Falling Sun", or growl like a wounded mountain lion, as during the pitch-shifting tumult of "My Weakness". And on "To Fix the Gash in Your Head", it even evokes the late-80s peak of Wax Trax! industrial bands, fleshed out by treble-heavy synth, buzzsaw guitars, and primitive, pre-programmed drum loops.

For a dude creating such awesome bedlam, Ackermann's uneven monotone comes off Ian Curtis-bummed. The hammering, Factory Records-esque beats and blistering effects-pedal descent of "She Dies" take place on a "white-letter day" ("There's nothing for me now," Ackermann wearily intones). Finale "Ocean" barely glimpses its bassline's steady shore through waves of resigned heartbreak. But the epic atmospheres are rarely as dense as I might be letting on. What matters most is the substance behind the style, and here, even morose falling-out songs like "Another Step Away" are saturated with slender indie-pop melody, notwithstanding the occasional weak lyric about how there's "no photograph that can capture who you are" (totally rhymes with "shooting star").

A Place to Bury Strangers can pull beauty out of eardrum-puncturing bleakness, but the most tuneful offering here, "Don't Think Lover", is gentle and romantic-- when not exploding at the seams. "Don't think lover/ Love lasts forever," Ackermann sings, and it's never quite clear whether the sentiment is optimistic or misanthropic. The stalking "I Know I'll See You" seems to play off the know-my-love-too-well urgency of the Smiths' "Hand in Glove", with Ackermann even warning, "Don't take my hand/ 'Cause I'll take it away." Like the Italians Do It Better label's similarly moody After Dark compilation, A Place to Bury Strangers may not be easy for would-be record buyers to find-- it's currently limited to 500 copies and put out by, um, Killer Pimp Records-- but it's worth every effort.

Woods, a family band.

A couple years ago I listened to the album At Rear House by Woods and really didn’t get into the lo-fi world that they were creating.

Then last year, they were back with a slightly different name (Woods Family Creeps) and a couple wrinkles to their sound, and this time my interest was piqued. Their skewed pop songs were still crusted with fuzz and a back-porch rural quality that imbued them with charm, but the melodies and songwriting was stronger. Now, it’s another year on and they’ve gone back to the name Woods. To my ears, Songs Of Shame takes yet another big step forward and is easily their best work to date. Other than one long ambling track (which still works quite well), the 11 song album is incredibly focused (perhaps due to the group touring most of the songs for months before recording them) and catchy as heck in a ramshackle way.

Again built around the odd, high-pitched vocals of Jeremy Earl (who sounds a little bit like Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse at times) and a varied batch of instrumentation (that ranges from simple acoustic guitar layering to rough-edged basement band jamming), it’s one of those albums that’s a bit sneaky. There are several songs that hit immediately, while others take their time implanting themselves in your subconscious.

One of the former is the 3-minute “The Number,” which is fairly stripped-down as far as the backing music goes. With only a main acoustic guitar melody and some quiet harmonies, it focuses in mostly on the fragile vocals of Earl as he winds through some delightfully evocative words.

“The Number” – Woods

Offsetting this quiet side are numbers like the nearly 10-minute “September with Pete,” which moves with sort of a loose-limbed, moss-coated instrumental forest spaced rock boogie, while “Echo Lake” fuzzes things out even more as some wah-wah guitars and tinny drums all battle in an open-air space (most likely a living room somewhere with thick carpet and the smell of heavy spices in the air).

“Echo Lake” – Woods

One of the reasons the album works so well is this balance between stripped-down, almost introspective songs and others that are a bit more rocking (and in some places goofy and playful, as on “Gypsy Hand”). Clocking in at just over 35 minutes, it’s concise without feeling insubstantial and delivers all kinds of moods without feeling schizophrenic.