Instant Playlist - August 2 2012

Crystal Castles

The Meatmen
Punkerama (Meat King)
Sure, it’s older than your dad, but what better way to celebrate the Meatmen’s first local performance than with this un–PC blast of old-school hardcore, featuring immortal lines like "His hobbies include beating off while watching videos of himself beating off."

Miguel
Use Me (RCA)
Need one last track for that moping-after-midnight R&B mix tape, to slot between the Weeknd and Frank Ocean? Miguel’s your man. Sex has never sounded like such an emotional minefield!

Cory Woodward
Fallout (Independent)
Imagine Bruce Springsteen backed by the world’s most joyous gospel singers and a band that firmly believes that there’s no such thing as too much ’80s synth in a heartland pop song.

Saint Diablo
Smiley Face on the Rocks (Eclipse)
Even though the drummer’s snare sounds like an upturned pickle bucket, Virginia’s Saint Diablo have pretty much mastered the art of what was known, back in olden times, as  "crossover".

Dublin Death Patrol
Welcome to Hell (Mascot)
Ride-the-lightning riffage and brain-searing solos add up to the kind of grinder you’ve spent the last 20 years wishing Metallica would make. Don’t forget to save us a seat near the fire.

Teapot Hill
Carol Anne (Independent)
Talk about lovely. Off-kilter guitars, back-porch fiddles, and honey-dipped vocals make this perfect for that road trip through rural Virginia you’ve always meant to take. It might even take the sting out of the fact you’ve never gotten beyond White Rock.

Gojira
Pain Is a Master (Roadrunner)
And that master commands you to listen to this machine-gun blast of epically punishing postmetal until crimson rivers of blood flow out of your fucking ears.

Sunflower Dead
Halo (Bloody Bat)
Question the black-metal bona fides of a corpse-paint-sporting band that has "sunflower" in its name and covers a song written by Sting? "Halo" should boast enough throat-clearing grunts to convince you.

Dirty Radio
Holiday (Trickery)
Dirty Radio’s "Holiday" might be sun-splashed reggae, or it could be a fuckstep remix of a Madonna hit. We have no idea, because it came in on a cassette. Why not send us a wax cylinder next time, boys?

Passion Pit
Cry Like a Ghost (Columbia)
You know how Ween used to slip into various genres so well that you could barely tell they were just fucking with you? Passion Pit does that with synth-studded R&B, only Michael Angelakos might not be kidding.

Crystal Castles
Plague (Last Gang)
If you asked Timbaland to remix a Grimes song, it might sound a little like this, but only if you let the chicks from Myths screw around with it afterward.