Quirky yet often brilliant electro poppers make timely bid for the big time. Forget the quirkiness. And the brilliance.

Teenage Swedish Sisters. An Alt-Folk act, in case you had other ideas….

Specialising in melodic indie-rock, but with a penchant for experimentation, new Glasgow four piece El Dog debut album The Lamps of Terrahead hits stores from Monday. What better time to ask singer Bob Rafferty about the band’s Christmas single plans? Warning: Contains some nudity and occasional “pretentious, name-dropping numpty”-isms.

Ah, Sunday drinking. The last refuge the weekend has to offer those of us determined not to acknowledge that we have jobs until the reality slaps us in our hungover faces at around half seven the next morning. September 27th sees me partake in this occasional ritual of mine at Think Tank, and experiencing my second visit to Holy Joe’s Infernal Cabaret.

Emotive Indie combined with bursts of heavy rock from this Glasgow five piece. According to their press release they met during a spot of naked breakdancing. Always a good start.

Phibsboro based five-piece You Kiss By The Book’s debut is an album which sets its sights firmly on the other side of the Atlantic. Drawing heavily on the alt-folk of Conor Oberst and at times recalling the slow burning atmospherics of Sparklehorse, Bear Leader comes steeped in old-timey Americana, as the group paint a rurally blissful picture of a world of chopping wood, fishing, and of course, contending with the odd bear trap.

The music of seventies English folk legends John Martyn and Nick Drake is often perceived as traditional and even rather twee. Which, for those unfamiliar with the canons of each, is a rather tragic misconception, as there was more to it than that. Far removed from the bland niceties of today’s batch of singer-songwriters, these men were boundary pushers; their music informed as much by jazz, rock, avant-garde and even funk as by traditional folk. It is a credit to Markland Starkie, aka Sleeping States, that he manages to make music which is indebted to both, yet maintains the duo’s pioneering spirit.

Long before the eighties were cool, they were shite. So much so in fact, that the music which we came to call “indie” and “alternative” evolved as an antidote to the overblown schmaltz of the era. So as countless indie pretenders today mine the decade’s dodgy synths and dodgier quiffs, an excavation of the underbelly of eighties rock could prove more than welcome.

Modest Mouse’s fifth album We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank boasted the talents of Smiths’ legend Johnny Marr, who was at the time trumpeted as a “full-time member”. Since he’s apparently now a “full-time member” of The Cribs, where they go after Johnny is a crucial question for Modest Mouse. For now though, we’re treated to this EP, gleaned from offcuts from the group’s last two full length offerings. Which, as it is therefore a product of some unreleased Mouse’n'Marr moments plus some glimpses into their sans-Johnny past, probably isn’t the best barometer to use to answer that question. Nevertheless..

Hailing from Wasilla, Alaska, the small, god-fearing town that gave us Sarah Palin, you might think Portugal The Man would risk ruffling some local feathers by calling an album The Satanic Satanist. But while the blood of America’s favourite political punchline might well run cold at the thought of a satanist so downright evil as to require an additional adjective emphasising their satanity, there is little to bother Palin and her lynch-mob here..