Today's Hotness: The Cribs, The Couriers, The Stone Roses

>> It's been a long time since we've thrown together an odds n' sods post, mostly due to our increasing use of Twitter to deal with smaller news items. You should follow us at @clickyclicky, yeh?

>> We've never fully gotten behind West Yorkshire, England-based indie rock quartet The Cribs, perhaps because they've never had a domestic record deal? Maybe they have and we're just lazy? Whatever the reason, we've been reading raves in the UK-based blogs we follow, and then there was that business about Johnny Marr -- who is sort of famous, yeh? -- becoming a full-time member of the band. They've covered The Replacements and collaborated with Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo. All that piqued our interest. However, it took the freely available, firestorm of a track "We Were Aborted" to move us from "interested in the band" to "on Ebay to look for their new record." The track -- upbeat, guitar-heavy and with the sort of desperate and shouty vocals that draw us like a moth to a flame -- is a promo cut from the band's fourth full-length Ignore The Ignorant, which was released in the UK by Wichita Sept. 7. The new record entered the UK Top 10 last week, according to the quartet's web dojo, and the band is touring the U.K. to support the record release through mid-October. We think you'll dig the track, so here it is:

The Cribs -- "We Were Aborted" -- Ignore The Ignorant
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[buy Ignore The Ignorant and other Cribs releases from Banquet Records UK right here]

>> Compadre Jimmy Carl wrote us with a tip in recent weeks about a dynamite power pop track he'd heard on MIT's 88.1 WMBR-FM Cambridge by an outfit called The Couriers. This name was new to us, but it only took one listen to concur with Jimmy Carl's assessment. The New York-based quartet's "Time Away From Time" is an insanely catchy rocker that pushes a number of the right buttons, including piling every odd time signature one can think of next to each other while still delivering a lethally melodic attack. The band issued its debut --- and perhaps only -- record Stay These Couriers in 2005. How we missed this track for the last four years is something of a mystery to us, but people we can not be everywhere and hear everything! Which is why we dutifully distribute props to Jimmy Carl for bring The Couriers and their song to our attention. It is unclear whether the band is still a going concern, as the most recent show listed at its Internet Home Page was in December, and that show is referred to as a reunion show. Nevertheless, "Time Away From Time" rocks most steadfastly, it is available for free from the band, and we'll save you a trip and post it below.

The Couriers -- "Time Away From Time" -- Stay These Couriers
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[buy The Couriers' music from the band right here]

>> We are enjoying listening to the expanded reissue of The Stone Roses' epic self-titled debut, but we have a hard time adjusting to the running order not including "Elephant Stone." The song was on the U.S. version of the original release, but apparently not the original U.K. version. A demo of "Elephant Stone" is packaged with the second CD of the expanded reissue, but the absence of the proper version -- which the liners to the U.S. version tell us was produced by New Order's Peter Hook -- is hard for us to get used to.

>> Very alert readers may recall that when we first met The Hush Now the band was recording its sophomore set last summer. During the evening we sat in on the sessions, fronter Noel Kelly and his cohort were tracking a tune called "The Atheist." The track was noticeably absent from Constellations, The Hush Now's sophomore set that will finally be released next month (read our review here). Well, we caught up with Mr. Kelly after The Hush Now's set supporting The Beatings last weekend and asked him what happened to the track, and he said it will potentially be used as a b-side for a forthcoming single. The quintet's single "Hoping And Waiting," taken from Constellations, has already made some waves in the specialty radio charts.