RIYL58

The record companies continue their slow pre-summer period, so yet another week of very few notable new releases. And by "very few" I mean "one."

Immaculate Machine Fables Just a couple weeks ago I noted that now would be the perfect time for a band to sneak in their take on the Song of the Summer. It might already be too late - I'm betting on Feist's "1-2-3-4" and/or Peter Bjorn and John's "Young Folks" to be blaring on all the hipsters' car radios downtheshore this year. Canada's Immaculate Machine doesn't get the press that Feist and PB&J get, but they do have a great summer song of their own on their new disc. "Dear Confessor" does a nice job of showing off the trio's strengths - the boy-girl interaction, the harmonies, the driving drumbeat, the chiming 80's keyboard, and the urgency that comes from three very talented musicians trying to cram as much music as possible into a three-minute rock song.

Interspersed between the album's more energenic songs are a few slower, softer, and more experimental numbers that sometimes work well with the other tunes and sometimes do not. But overall, a great disc to have in the car for that long drive down the A.C. Expressway this summer.

Immaculate Machine - "Dear Confessor" [mp3]

This week's list:

1. WILCO Sky Blue Sky
2. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Live in Dublin
3. THE NATIONAL Boxer
4. VOXTROT Voxtrot
5. AU REVOIR SIMONE The Bird of Music
6. PETER BJORN AND JOHN Writer's Block
7. THE CLIENTELE God Save the Clientele
8. FEIST The Reminder
9. IMMACULATE MACHINE Fables
10. RUFUS WAINWRIGHT Release the Stars
11. GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS Ongiara
12. THE SHINS Wincing the Night Away
13. ROSIE THOMAS These Friends of Mine
14. LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III Strange Weirdos
15. TRAVIS The Boy With No Name
16. THE ROSEBUDS Night of the Furies
17. WARREN ZEVON Preludes
18. BRIGHT EYES Cassadaga
19. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
20. BJORK Volta
21. FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE Traffic and Weather
22. RICHARD THOMPSON Sweet Warrior
23. WHEAT Everyday I Said a Prayer for Kathy and Made a One Inch Square
24. JOE STRUMMER The Future Is Unwritten
25. ANDREW BIRD Armchair Apocrypha
26. SON VOLT Search
27. GOLDEN SMOG Blood on the Slacks
28. THE AUTUMN DEFENSE The Autumn Defense
29. ALBERT HAMMOND, JR. Yours To Keep
30. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife

Dropping off the list this week:

• PATTI SMITH Twelve

RIYL for the week beginning June 11, 2007. Backstory here.