Buzz Bands

Arm ready to pitch

Is naming your first single “A Brilliant Debut” anything like calling your novel “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”? The Blood Arm already had a reputation for kicking swingers’ cosmos off the bar before a July-long Monday residency at Spaceland, and now it has a self-released CD. “Bomb Romantics” isn’t as brooding as a four-song demo from last year -- though mop-haired singer Nathaniel Fregoso still likes to pour his broad, well e-nun-ci-at-ed tenor overtop of the gentle piano, skritchy guitar and tribal drums. Fregoso is chuffed by the big turnouts at the Mondays so far -- they are free -- and hopes to catch the eye and ear of A&R; soon. He went to Princeton High School in North Hollywood, met pianist Dyan Valdes at UCLA and pulled together the band there with guitarist Zeb Carlisle and drummer Zachary Amos. Now they’re out and, hopefully, off, preceded by their manic stage presence and songs about “love lost and gained.”

On wings of Hope

With Radiohead, Coldplay, Doves and the like having seeded the U.K. clouds full of epic rock, young Chichester foursome Hope of the States comes wafting into town on swollen string sections for a teaser Tuesday at the Troubadour. Their debut, “The Lost Riots,” has been transporting the British press to ever higher superlatives over such instant anti-anthems as “66 Sleepers to Summer” -- downtrodden, self-effacing lyrics plucking that emo note, but all of it pushing up and up on a guitar-piano-strings roar. The band is extra concerned that their songs not be taken as suicide notes from guitar player Jimmi Lawrence, who took his own life while they were wrapping the album. They’ve barely mentioned the incident in interviews, but singer Sam Herlihy says in a press release that lyrics dealing with depression are his, not Jimmi’s: “Singing these songs has always been a really positive thing to do. I’d be devastated if every time I was singing these songs I was thinking about Jimmi.”

Fast forward

Yes, it’s true, Silver Lake piano pop monsters the 88 are fiddling around in the studio with indie legend Jason Faulkner. Nothing serious yet, just tracking a few cuts to see if they jell. The 88 will unleash their new tribute-band identity as the Dukes of Silverlake at a July 27 Spaceland set as part of the International Pop Overthrow festival, covering songs of XTC’s psychedelic alter ego, the Dukes of Stratosphere.... The nervous, art-garage jet noise that will be coming from the Fold on Tuesday can be credited to Les Messieurs du Rock, a jarring Texas rock triumph all about sweaty sex.

-- Dean Kuipers