Dierks??

Dierks Bentley - Come A Little Closer

Valentines Day must be coming up, because I swear this is the best song ever recorded and not a sentimental, over-produced eye-roller. I'm sorry I can't even find a stream of this song-- if you trust me at all you should just go buy it.

The Garden of Anguish

Rickie Lee Jones - Gethsemane [mp3]

"Gethsemane" is the second song on Rickie Lee Jones' new album, and it's absolutely lovely. The production's loose and percussive, which makes the tune's transition from its lumbering beginning to the effortless, breathing ending feel perfectly natural. I love these songs, with the space between sounds an instrument in itself; the awareness and the interaction in each dissipating sound.

Visit Rickie Lee Jones and buy The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard (New West).

Deathbot

Tim Biskup's "Deathbot Axe"

Deathbot - Patiently [mp3]

I've only just realized that, for how many times I've listened to this song, I don't remember the lyrics. Probably because there's a (rather impatient) guitar that whines over the singing, and probably tells me more than the words would anyway.

I don't know anything about Deathbot. A little help?

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Pitchfork has an exclusive video of the virtuosic M. Ward backstage, playing a medley of "Rag / Duet for Guitars #3". Ward has become for me what Fahey was to him-- except I'll never get that good.

New Kings of Leon? I think I could get into this. (thx FUEL/FRIENDS)

Arpeggio

"Sleeping Lessons" has quickly become my favorite Shins song, slyly but confidently surpassing its logical predecessor, "Kissing the Lipless". In the way that song's tensely strummed acoustic opening anticipated the noise to come, Mercer's impressive vocals in "Sleeping" preempt its lively second half. This is how I like my Shins: loud and fast and, dare I say, thrilling. Too bad these songs only come at the beginning of their records.

The Shins - Sleeping Lessons [mp3]

visit the Shins and buy Wincing The Night Away, if you haven't already

As for the new Clap Your Hands, I just don't know.