Out of Sweden, via Australia’s Half A Cow label, comes the Savages with their debut EP, Long Live You. Five cuts of 10-40 lubed Rock. Not for nothing do they title the last track "Detroit:" it’s kickstarted by a five second intro drum solo and then the pedal-happy guitars whine as it accelerates, after 40 it shifts gears but maintains the RPMs and heads across hill and dale. The only nick in the teeth is lead singer Daniel Haeggström’s vocals, whose howl rotates like an off-center Wenkel engine between injections of Richard Hell, Iggy and Nick Cave. And unfortunately there are barely any compensatory backing vocals let alone harmonies. But everything underneath moves like a classic GTO at Rockingham.

The revived Bus Stop label has just released a four-pack of EPs. Using an idea I also had been toying with, the packaging is an adaptation of the old "Indie" seven-inch: folded cover in plastic sleeve. John Moremen, current Orange Peels drummer, simply titled his record EP. Here he plays a twangy guitar and sings. His associates include Chris Xefos [King Missile] on bass, and as producer, and DJ Bonebrake [X] on drums. "Never Told You This" is an airy, mid-tempo, jangly pop tune with a wafting chorus and a rootsy, euphonic guitar solo. "From The Outside" is a catchy, cantering rocker. "Time For Everyone" is a concise, tuneful one-man-band effort -- recorded by the elusive Jeff Saltzman [Cerebral Corp]. The final, comparatively epic, "Cemetery Row" (co-written with Scott McCaughey [Young Fresh Fellows] & pianist Alison Faith Levy [Loud Family]) is a plaintive lament heightened by David Immergluck’s [Monks of Doom] pedal steel playing.

Greg Murray’s EP, Edge, is a completely a one-man-band work, by an expatriate Irishman in the UK. Its four songs are Indie-Pop built, melancholy tinged, with acoustic guitar, some percussion, ethereal lead vocal and the occasional layered in harmonies. I have no idea what "sadcore" (or "emo" or a couple of handfuls of other recent sub-genres) mean, but this sounds like it to me, with loneliness dripping from its bytes in an almost sublime manner.

The last two also originate from the UK, Newcastle to be exact. They are tied together even more closely in that each project, the Girl With The Replaceable Head and Bronze, is headed by one of the singer-songwriter-guitarists of the late band Hurrah!. Each also contains three tracks. The former is David Hughes and his wife Sylvia, who is the voice(s) (don’t know if she is also the cover model). The songs are constructed of electronic keyboards and guitar, with a liberal slathering of reverb/efx, and has the tone of the old Sarah label. Discounting the length and repetitious nature of the songs -- such things usually are interrelated -- there is a certain charm to them, particularly the crystalline vocals of the verses of "Ride My Star" and the fervidness, comparatively, of the chorus vocals in "Bobby’s On Fire." The latter combo, led by Paul Handyside, is your more typical Pop-Rock trio (since these recordings it says here they’ve added another guitarist). The title track, "Let It Rain," is a buoyant, mid-tempo slice of pre-Oasis/post-Aztec Camera Brit-Pop, catchy but not particularly deep. The third track, "We Stand Alone," is a similarly tuned ballad. But my favorite is the middle blur (not quite 2 1/2 minutes) of Rock and Roll. "The Statue In The Stone" is a 4/4 headrush of a mid-fi, distorted wall of sound topped by striving, tuneful vocals and underlined with some kind of treated piano.

Tom Erik of Norway’s Sneakers operation keeps the slabs of Rock coming. The Carburetors come out of the blue with "Burning Rubber" b/w "Fast Forward Rock ‘N’ Roll." Both sides barrel down the pike like pre-Country Supersuckers. With a wall of sound on the A-side that levels everything in its way, and a hint of Lemmy in singer Eddie Guz’s growl. While the B maintains speed but takes a sharper angle with a slicing slide guitar, cutting solo and a gaggle of backing vocals.

This issue’s got a number of bands resurfacing after a half-a-decade, or so, respite. Here we find the Cynics with not one but two singles heralding their forthcoming album, "Last Day" b/w "Doin’ Me In" and "Turn Me Loose" b/w "You’ve Never Had It Better" (Get Hip). The As show off different aspects of the album, while the Bs are once more dug out of some obscure corner of Kostelich’s record collection. (I don’t have the energy to chase down who the original versions were by.) "Last Day" is a pretty, mid-tempo, jangly Folk-Rock throwback to the early days of the Cynics, minus the organ; while "Turn Me Loose" is a Stoogesoid grinder, with less bottom, some classic Garage-Rock mouth organ care of Kastelic and a sharp, winding Kostelich guitar solo. It’s a very auspicious hint of things to come. As to the covers, "Doin’ Me In" is a dusky rocker, like something out of 13^th Floor Elevator land, while "You’ve Never Had It Better" winds throw the same pasture lands with more snap to the whip. I tell you, if Kostelich would throw caution to the wind and find a second guitarist for that left channel, even after all these years, the Cynics could still claim that throne of "Most Awesome Rock and Roll Machine in the Lower Forty-Eight."

From Get Hip’s Archive series comes the obscure, Pittsburghians, the Swamp Rats and their readings of "Psycho" and "Louie, Louie" – the A-sides to their first two singles back in ‘66. The former, also found on Vol. 1 of the Back From The Grave series, is equally as crazed as the Sonics’ original version, without the sax and organ but with more bottom and weird tape manipulation. The B is equally as raw but takes a more druggy turn to this chestnut.

During my travels in Australia someone gave me a copy of an EP, from a couple of years back, by the Creatures, not the bunch up in Bethlehem, but the "wildest, longest, coloured hair group in Australia." Courtesy of the Top Shelf label you get an EP with their two singles on it, ‘66’s "All I do I Try" b/w Bo Didley’s "Mona" and ‘67’s "Ugly Thing" b/w "Your One And Only Man." The first A-side is a rawly recorded, chiming, quasi-Folk-Rock number with near unintelligible vocals, yet a fair dose of charm. The second A-side, also found on Vol. 1 of Ravens Ugly Things series (as well as obviously giving it its title), is killer: a Psych-touched, Garage-Rock number with stomping, shredded verses and sweetly piquant choruses. How it escaped inclusion in Nuggets II will be one of the great mysteries of modern times. The flip is a pleading, horn powered slab of Small Faces styled R&B -- totally cool.