Philly is going through one of its up cycles -- they come about every ten years. There are many good bands about. Can’t say great ones, but definitely good ones. And since I was actually sent some recent releases I might as well piss off a new bunch of people.

Cordalene, a basic four-piece, has been around about two years now. They’ve evolved from an early R.E.M.-tinged, alt.country kind of thing to a lightly seasoned Pop-Rock kind of thing. There might have been a previous release of the first nature, but what I have here is a d.i.y., eponymously titled, six track EP of the latter. It’s front-loaded with the most appealing tunes. "Isn’t The Sun" is a bit wobbly, but prepossessing with its firm chording, straining vocal and snippets of backing harmonies, not to mention its brevity. "Headlong" is my favorite tune of the bunch, the opposite in tone lyrically from the preceding though it’s also a mid-tempo rocker. The melody is nicely flowing with a bit of bounce. It has tangy double-tracked vocals, an exuberant chorus and a focused, controlled change of pace instrumental break. The third rocker in a row is "Kinda Love You," similar in style to the two before with a bit more yearning and a "building" arrangement that is accentuated by the false ending after the break. They overreach themselves some in stretching the ballad "Not So Pretty" to almost 5 ½ minutes. And the repetitious riffing of "Drugs" wears away my attention even with a shift around the two-minute mark.

Then there are the latest local kings of jangle, the Bigger Lovers, and their second album Honey In The Hive (Yep Roc). It has a lighter, more shimmering sound than their debut. Add in the wispy reverb used and it brings to mind early Brit-Pop as a named sub-genre -- i.e. the first couple of Auteurs albums, mid-period Blur, etc. -- mostly without the British accents (not that American bands haven’t been known to stoop so low -- see OK GO, GBV, etc.). While the band has two singer-songwriters, Bret Tobias and Scott Jefferson, there is a solid coherence to the record.

Opener "Half Richard" rides on a firm, semi-martial beat, courtesy of Patick Berkery, as chiming guitars dance about and Tobias’s nasally, reaching vocal wafts. I have no idea what he’s going on about, but I do know the handclaps and Ed Hogarty’s guitar solo add the nuts and cherry on top. The following "A Simple ‘How Are You?’" with Jefferson’s airy, breathy vocal, the keyboard bleeps & faux-horns and its overall texture reminds me of nothing so much as Ian Broudie’s guise as the Lightning Seeds. "Ivy Grows" chugs along like Velvet Crush in their brief multinational phase. While the echoey ballad "They Haunt Me Still" whispers that band’s mentor for that moment, Mitch Easter, or is it Chris Stamey. From all these ingredients they’ve made one tasty bowl of goulash.

Not too many people know this anymore, having been over a decade ago, but the original singer for the previous Philly kings of jangle, Jim Hostetter, plays cello -- one of two now -- in Matt Pond PA. Just out is their fourth album, The Nature Of Maps (Polyvinyl), a delicately arranged grouping with a more overt British tinge. What I hear is the Pink catalog (June Brides, Wolfhounds, McCarthy, etc. -- see Pinky 15) thinned, aerated and doleful (not that I’m willing to bet that Mr. Pond has ever heard of that label, but Peter Gabriel isn’t obscure enough and I have a reputation to uphold). I’m sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that I find myself partial to the tersest tunes, particularly the middle triptych "New Kehoe NJ," "Close Map" and "No More (Again)" (1’36", 2’38" & 1’43" respectively). The first is the closest to Rock that they get with its 4/4 rhythm, thick guitars and semi-power chords mixed in with the backing vocals, tambourine, vibes and shifting structure. One could say the second is almost upbeat and jaunty. The third is a bifurcated instrumental with the first half a lovely, affecting duet between guitar and cello, while the second, coming after an eight-second gap is just a long warm up intro to the next song. Mr. Serpa wants to put in a word for the closing, decidedly understated, British Folk-Rockish "Athabasca," You would think after reading this I’d be quite the fan. But I have to say that as soon as the record stops playing any sense of it is gone. It’s like a ghost, you walk right through it without any effect. Oh, and those previous KOJ were the Wishniaks, who equaled the capital destruction of my idiotic investments in PSInet and Broadvision, but at least, I guess, I have two hundred copies of Nauseous &Cranky cluttering up my vestibule.

Meanwhile back from whatever way station they have been hanging around for the last handful or so of years, is the Strapping Fieldhands, with a substitution or two, and the otherworldly The Third Kingdom (Omphalos). It strikes me as less Bob Malloy and more group oriented than in their previous incarnation. Their skewed version of Psychedelic, British Folk-Rock comes this time swamped in a pot of reverb filtered through a Bonzo Doo-Dah Dog Band in a particularly sullen mood -- you know, like they’ve been at sea way too long. I have no idea what to make of it all. Plus, being the king of negativity I don’t need an external source to overflow my well of the stuff. But you, my dear reader, could probably use a nice dose to accompany G. W. Bush’s version of the Inferno we are presently being entertained with

For all the years they’ve been around I don’t think I had heard or seen the Burning Brides before this summer. From the various things I had read I just figured they were another Grunge/Metal, Growling, Power Trio. And I’m not far wrong on that, at least live. On record they’re still a watt eating machine, but the flexibility of the studio permitted them to add textures and gave them the space to enhance their base grooves, which they don’t have enough hands to do live, nor a second voice. In addition, they show remarkable restraint in this the CD age by bringing in the ten tracks here in only thirty-three minutes.

V2 has just reissued their debut album, Fall Of The Plastic Empire, with just a remastering. While it’s all heavy, almost all the time, the echoes of things past wonder through a field of Nirvana, a bluesier Oasis (lead-off track "Plank Of Fire"), early Soft Boys (the rhythm and stretched vocal phrasing of "Rainy Days" and part of the epic "Plastic Empire"), Radio Birdman with bits of the Fun Things and Stooges (the concise (1’44"), rip-roaring "Glass Slipper"), Mono Men & later Cynics ("Stabbed In The Back Of The Heart" and the grinding, first segment of "Elevator"), Dionsaur jr. (the bouncy, quite cool "Artic Snow") and early Metallica (ending of "Artic Snow" and other bits of "Plastic Empire"). As to those textures I mentioned, key are the handclaps in "Glass Slipper," the subtle shaker in "Plank OF Fire," and the overlapping vocals of "If I’m A Man" and, again, "Artic Snow." At its heart "At The Levity Ball" is almost Pop-Sike, at least until hitting the instrumental break. And it’s all done with a firm grip and tight rhythm play (though that herky Indie drumming rears its head in spots).

Finally we come to Philly’s latest "great white hope," Marah. Kind of like the Nasdaq, they hit unsustainable highs in enthusiasm from the local criterati when the last album came out, so this one brought a backlash of an intensity not seen in ages. (Not that Dave Bielanko’s big mouth didn’t help things along.) For Float Away With The Friday Night Gods (E²/Artemis) the boys packed up and headed to the legendary Rockfield studios to work with Owen Morris (Ash, Oasis, Verve, etc.). And they got what they paid for: lots of echo, particularly on the snare, a cleaner, more focused vocal performance from Dave, an abundance of keyboards & electronics/efx and a loss of their sense of place. I think it’s that latter point that was the most contributory to the backlash, because it was the details they incorporated that elevated their material above the crowd for our hometown lot (sort of what makes the difference in Hack being slightly more than another "cop" show -- besides the fact he’s an ex-cop taxi drive -- though they do screw it up occasionally). Don’t know if the Bielankos were precognitive or what, but they address this backlash thing in their final track, the epic length "Out In Style." And I guess they can both share in the blame for an average song length of almost five minutes.

Basically (hey, that’s the way I talk), what you’ve got here is a decent Rock album. The songs are still recognizable as being by Marah. (Much was made, initially, about Bruce Springsteen contributing a guitar solo and some backing vocals to lead off track "Float Away," but if you weren’t aware of that and unless you put your head deep inside you’re left speaker you’d be oblivious to that fact.) You know, I’m not that hard to please really. I like the prominent use of handclaps on a number of tunes. "Leaving" is a good, straight up, chugging rocker. "What 2 Bring" benefits from the relative lack of adornment on its slashing guitars, its rousing chorus and its cute, acknowledging Clash quote ("Lost In The Supermarket") in the solo. However, possibly my favorite number --it’s a close race with the previous tune -- is "Revoltuion." It is not perfect in any sense. It’s too long and has very stilted choruses. But at its core it’s a sparkling slice of T.Rextasy: those Glammy rhythms & handclaps and that thick, sharp-edged, chopping guitar. (I don’t know, maybe it’s because my maternal grandparents were Felds, but I’ve always had an affection for Bolan in all his guises.)

Between the previous album and this one the Bielanko brothers lost their rhythm section. So this summer I went down to see what the current version of the band was like. I found they had abandoned the folk instruments -- Dave’s banjo and associate Mike Brenner & his dobro -- and had also added keyboardist-about-town Mark Boyce’s organ. And they rocked. They were tight, with an enveloping sound stripped of all that suffocating gauze (née reverb) and seemed to be having fun. Still, I must say that their unexpected cover of the Jam’s "In The City" stood out as the best song of the evening.