Even if Americana-tinged rock isn’t your first listening choice, chances are it’s the first choice of an old friend or cousin. There’s a pleasant memory in the back of your mind tied to a twangy guitar and a drawling voice.

Yes, this is sweet candy. Some Midnight Kissin’ (Lujo Records), the first full-length CD from Floridian quintet The Dark Romantics, is likely to feel either illicit or familiar, a guilty pleasure or a foregone conclusion. The Dark Romantics aren’t without a certain experimental element, but they flaunt some of the best hooks in indie-pop.

Young James Long – slide guitarist Kirkland James, drummer Taz Bentley, and singer/guitarist P.W. Long – are engaged in an act of compression, pressing entire, fully formed blues-rock emissions into tight pellets of combustible energy, song-bullets fired into the hearts and brainstems of unsuspecting listeners with lethal accuracy.

I’d love to tell you something – anything – about the lyrical content of Heavy International (Aesthetics), but I can’t stop moving to the damn thing. Seriously. I put it on, and I have to dance like a monkey in the living room, or shadowbox, or jump rope.

Ugh. Okay, let’s get some things out of the way, shall we? At his best, Thomas Lunch sounds like Thomas Dolby doing backing tracks for T. Rex.

Some music is timeless because it captures a mood or emotion so perfectly that it breaks through to the fundamental elements of human experience. The music made by Vancouver, Canada’s Winning is timeless in a more mundane, and arguably gimmicky, way – they play music with no time signature.

Loney, Dear is the moniker of Sweden’s Emil Svanangen. As with many other musicians coming out of the blistering cold of Sweden, Emil is a jack of all trades.

Corny piano and trumpet arrangements abound in the second solo album by Sarah Shannon, former lead singer of ‘90s noise popsters Velocity Girl. Her delightful voice, an instrument that can be dainty as a bell or strong as brass, made Velocity Girl unique in comparison to the standard guitar-driven pop of their day.

As if it isn’t evident enough by the title of their album, Titan plays psychedelic, progressive metal, with an unabashed ’70s flair. The influences of Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, and Hawkwind emanate from the spacey, jazz-infused, improvisation-based rock.

A manifesto named for the crabs that dwell in the local swamps created – almost out of nothing – a music scene in Recife, capital of Pernambuco state in Brazil’s far northeast, fifteen years ago.

“I’m trying to be heroic.” The first words sung by vocalist Kele Okereke on Bloc Party’s A Weekend in the City (V2 Records) foreshadow the desperation that permeates the entire album.

Legendary Demo (Hydra Head) is an adventure in hard rock. From ’70s blues-rock riffs to hardcore punk to macho stoner metal, Clouds is equally good at all of it.