From the beach to the mountains, Seamonster’s Two Birds echoes utmost pleasantries through the audible channel of lo-fi psychedelic folk-pop. Its pop charm is masked by the static white noise of immense distortion, mixed down to a satisfactory non-overpowering level, and warped with the sounds of summertime. “Oh Appalachia” is a beachgoers ode to the mountains. “The Philosophy Of Andy Warhol” will paint a pop-culture picture on the back of your eyelids while you lay, back on grass, facing a clear blue sky.

San Francisco garage-noise-pop outfit Railcars dropped their new record yesterday, a mystical collective of ferocious bouts of electro noise dubbed Cathedral With No Eyes. You may remember Railcards from our debut/premiere of “Passion Of St. Edmund (Rebirth)”, or maybe even our premature review of Cathedral With No Eyes from a month and a half ago. Frontman Aria Jalali takes noise and throws it through a lollipop dreamboat; its almost unbelievably upbeat pop nature is something that simply must be heard.

Fingerprints are an interesting thing. They’re a hard thing to lose, and even harder to identify without the proper know-how. In a way, they’re symbolic of the influences that inspire musicians, and Railcars is no different. Their latest, Cathedral With No Eyes has the undeniable fingerprints of Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart in both the eccentric noise instrumentation and the vocal shouts.

I love stumbling across great acts by mistake. Recently, elsewhere, I posted a brief rant on the Joy Division film about Ian Curtis called Control. In the post, I noted that my true introduction to Joy Division’s music stemmed from a cover of “Celebration” Xiu Xiu included on Chapel Of The Chimes. Well, when I saw a post by Railcars titled Xiu Xiu fans rejoice… I had to check them out.