Album: White Denim, Last Day Of Summer (Downtown)

Before recording this year's acclaimed album D, the prolific White Denim snuck into drummer Josh Block's home studio one last time to initiate second guitarist Austin Jenkins into the band.

The result wasLast Day Of Summer, a typically diverse collection first offered as a free download, now retrospectively available as a CD. There's the usual complement of fizzy, polyrhythmic math-rock - including a couple of surprisingly delicate jazz instrumentals in which the musicians' individual parts intertwine ingeniously - augmented by some bracing lysergic country-rock akin to the Meat Puppets, whimsical cowpoke fare like "Some Wild Going Outward". Elsewhere, the guitar curlicues and high vocals of "Champ" recall the Grateful Dead, while the quirky pop charm of "Home Together", with its sweet harmonies and surging guitars surfing over an organ bed, brings to mind a tranche of '60s West Coast pop from such as The Beach Boys and The Association. 

Download this: Home Together; Champ; Some Wild Going Outward; Tony Fatti