Still going largely unnoticed here in the US (get with it Pitchfork, CoS, SPIN, etc!), while publications like The Guardian and The Quietus swoon, singer-songwriter DM Stith’s side project with The Earlies’ member John Mark Lapham, The Revival Hour is every bit deserving of ink concerning their debut full-length Scorpio Little Devil. The record totes a more textured, dark, electro-pop-oriented tinge compared to Stith’s folkier solo work, but it drips with the sonic nuance and sweeping gloom that cloaked Stith’s haunting 2009 record Heavy Ghost, which was released on Sufjan Steven’s Asthmatic Kitty label.
Since releasing his solo record, Stith has toured with Sufjan during the indie cult-artist’s schizophrenic Age of Adz tour, playing piano and dancing his neon-tape-wearing-ass off for countless nights throughout Europe, North America, and Australia. While they've remained pretty tight since the tour, it took a while for Stith and Sufjan to eventually collaborate. They met by way of Shara Warden (My Brightest Diamond), another Asthmatic Kitty signee and Suf-friend who Stith had met when he moved from his native Buffalo to Brooklyn for a stint some years ago. Steven’s has supported Stith ever since, astutely describing the artist's music as being "light on its feet so as to defy gravity.” 
Stith now happily works out of Rochester, and has come a long way to arrive at a comfortability with his creative endeavors (he’s also a very talented graphic designer) as the content of his songwriting has largely clung to an angst ridden religious upbringing--his family are Weslyan, a Christian sect that Stith desribed as a “cult-like environment” to grow up in. Stith has also recently come out that he is gay, and while he still loves and talks to his family, they have refused to accept this fact, and it has in turn carved-out a deep chasm between Stith and his childhood spirituality. But as one huddles before a deep and impressive canyon, Stith cannot help but be influenced by all the hues and colors of Biblical and supernatural imagery of his past.
All of this built-up angst seems to finally be released via Scorpio, as it wastes no time exploring images of trepidation with the lush and serpentine opening track “Control”. Stith’s vocals waft over Lapham’s folk-tronic instrumentation as he coos, “Struggle for my own control / I want out, I want out.” Stith’s lyrics are unswerving and declarative, but they remain ever-poetic and shrouded in opaque images and meaning.


“Hold Back” revels in Stith and Lapham’s love of 50s-era soulful rock, as Stith’s piano rippled vocals send chills. “I am the loneliest climber of them all” is definitely one of the more memorable lyrics on the record. “Pyre” is where the album grows darker. The track cuts to the bone with writhing guitar riffs and heart-wrenching percussion as a choir of phantoms wrap around Stith’s weight-of-the-world mantra: “Baby you’re stuck in your little game / but open your eyes to the sight and see / nobody else is praying, nobody else is praying.” “Riverbody” is a languid and effervescent masterpiece that could easily be played solo acoustic, while “Run Away” is an electro-pop oriented ditty, with washes of crisp percussion and reverb-drenched vocals.

Scorpio is an album that is continually digging. It wields a deep-rooted passion that's on hands and knees, sweating, and tunneling both sonically and lyrically, shaping itself as a wellspring in a drought-ridden indie landscape. Stith and Lapham have crafted a near flawless ten-track album that takes an experimental approach to older soul and pop music. The Revival Hour are certainly channeling a hip, nostalgic era of music, but not like most of their surf-rock, neo-doo-wop contemporaries. Instead, they've upended the dream-pop format with bubbling, soulful vocals, convoluted percussion, and shadowy guitar and synth that get past all the indie fluff and directly to the core of expression.

Grade:  A-

10. Spectral Park - Spectral Park
While Spectral Park aka Luke Donovan will be releasing his debut LP on the 29th of this month, you shouldn’t expect any greater production level than the blotchy, coarse 60s rock they offered on his two-track demo from 2011, Gratis. The first cut from the self-titled record, “L’appel du Vide” is equally as dusty, and could even come off as a demo, but its corrosive energy carries the group as it does lo-fi artists Ty Segall or Ariel Pink. It might also help to know that Donovan’s recordings are, as Mexican Summer puts it, “Borne from the trash, literally sourced from a box of records the Southampton multi-instrumentalist found on a walk by a council block’s curbside garbage.” But seriously, he did that. By chopping-up clips in a sampler and adding vocal tracks Donovan has set out to reconstruct a cacophonous ghost of pop-music past.

9. Ra Ra Riot - Beta Love



8. Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold
 


7. The Revival Hour - Scorpio Little Devil 


6. Yo La Tengo - Fade

5. Foxygen - We Are 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic

4. Ducktails - The Flower Lane

3. Christopher Owens - Lysandre

2. Local Natives - Hummingbird


1. Toro Y Moi - Anything In Return

Hurricane Sandy might have messed with your midweek mojo, albeit via mild wind and rain (better safe than sorry) that we WNY-ers have been callused to, but it wouldn't dare mess with this month's list of new album releases! And while you still have all day to slug down one last Octoberfest or dress up for one more costume party, the inevitable truth is that November is here and its chill is steadily approaching. This time of year tends to fly by, but please find some time to wind down and check out some great new music this November. Do it before the holiday rush overtakes your soul!

Brace yourselves, there is still more experimental music to talk about--that is Brooklyn outfit Oneida. If there's one thing that is certain, it's that Oneida makes consistently great and distinctive music, and that their latest album, based on a sample track, will continue in the trajectory of minimalism and psychedelia. The album, entitled A List of Burning Mountains, is the follow up to last year's Absolute II and will be released on November 13 via Jagjaguwar. Listen to the sample mix off the new LP here.
6. Dirty Projectors - About to Die EP
Whether it's releasing excellent full-length LPs like this year's Swing Lo Magellan or churning out a short film for said record (Hi Custodian) you can be sure that lead singer-songwriter of Dirty Projectors, David Longstreth, is never running short of brilliant ideas. In fact, he is brimming over with them. So much that when he initially constructed Swing Lo he had reportedly devised over 70 songs worth of material, and thus we have the About to Die EP, a four-track gem which is due out November 6. 



5. The Revival Hour -  Clusterchord EP


Dropping the first single off their latest self-titled album, (III), the Toronto blog-house duo Crystal Castles is only boosting the synths, cranking the bass kick and inflating lead singer Alice Glass’ coarse vocals. “Wrath of God” is the continuation in the group’s ability to evoke non-stop dancing, but also seeks to increase their sonic degree of tension that we've come to love about the duo. (III) is sure to be an a step-up for the group, even as they follow-up their excellent sophpomore record of 2010, (II). The album is out Novemeber 12.


1. Sufjan Stevens - Silver & Gold