Grand Hallway has created quite a unique place in pop music. Their songs are an interesting medium between baroque orchestral pop and traditional Japanese music. Given their prior releases, hearing the sounds on Promenade is no surprise. Led by master songwriter Tomo Nakayama, Promenade finds Grand Hallway expanding on their musical abilities.

Upon first hearing “Old Lives”, the opening track to Daniel Francis Doyle’s upcoming LP, We Bet Our Money On You, I contemplated what the chances were that Doyle was actually Dismemberment Plan’s Travis Morrison backed by Battles. Doyle certainly has a Morrison-esque vocal styling; that perfect pitch that sounds just a bit off-kilter. And his percussion and accompanying guitars absolutely have the math-y noise elements of Battles.

A few weeks ago, I got a note from Cari Palazzolo of Austin keyboard-pop group Belaire. The reason was her new project, School Police, a similarly poppy group that this time around found her splitting vocal responsibilities with a band member of the opposing gender.

Denmark’s Mew is prepping to drop their third studio album, this time via Columbia Records. No More Stories… is its name and “Repeaterbeater” is the second track now available from the release. For fans of …And The Glass Handed Kites, the group’s sophomore release, you’ll be happy to hear that, at least on “Repeaterbeater”, the traits that made Glass so great remain in-tact.

When I think of indie-pop in the states, I think of a few key labels: Matinee, Magic Marker, Happy Happy Birthday to Me and TwentySeven. These four make up some of the best US released pop music I know. It’s on the second, Magic Marker, that The Faintest Ideas now call home. The Faintest Ideas hail from Sweden, a country I adore and admire, but their name and sound signifies something completely different, removing much of the Swedish pop influence for those a bit more British, circa C86.

Cold City finds the Larimer siblings that make up Eux Autres maturing as musicians and songwriters. Where Hell Is Eux Autres included many viable tracks, the recordings were stiff. Still, despite the slightly lower production value, many of those older songs remain true favorites; and Cold City packs in several new favorites as well.

It appears this little album by David & The Citizens was originally released in 2003 under the BMG Music Publishing Scandinavia label and was licensed to Friendly Fire via Adrian Recordings in Sweden. It is good to know the history of an album—the roads it has traveled to reach its current destination here in my hands. Listening to Until the Sadness is Gone, it is apparent why the album was released here in the states. It’s pretty good. While it probably won’t hit mainstream, it definitely has the potential …

Oh man, this takes me back to the gritty rock of the late 90s. Following the loud, raucous punk-ish path of groups like No Age, Japandroids feature wild guitars, intense percussion, and dual screams. The band is Brian King and David Prowse and their music is Canadian genius. “Young Hearts Spark Fire” is absolutely brilliant.

Chimneyheart is Henrik Svenlund. Svenlund creates dark, new wave-y indie pop from his home in Berlin, Germany. Their sound is bigger than your standard indie-pop group, a trait heard in the power behind Henrik’s vocals as well as the strong percussion so prominent in the songs of Chimneyheart. It should be no surprise that Chimneyheart is influenced by artists like Joy Division and literary geniuses like Charles Bukowski.

Always one to champion the latest fuzzed-out pop group, I cannot help but talk up Je Suis Animal. Their songs boast the heavy guitar distortion and pointed percussion so rampant in some of today’s greatest artists, with a soft and smooth vocal styling not typically found in groups such as this. And that’s what makes them special.