A fantastic effort from Cave, his first album with The Bad Seeds since 2008’s Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! finds him in a mellower, more reflective mood than on that record or the two records released under the Grinderman name. Perhaps the absence of long-time collaborator Mick Harvey is a factor here, but either way, this is a slow-burning stunner.

While Pissed Jeans don’t change up their winning formula on this, their fourth full-length and first since 2009’s King of Jeans, I think that this is their best effort yet. The raw power just oozes out of the grooves of this thing and singer Matt Korvette‘s savage yelp and 9 to 5-er lyrics hit a resonant chord with this 30-something aging punk rocker as well.

Those who have been following Mirman from his great 2005 debut album The Absurd Nightclub Comedy of Eugene Mirman up through his current role on the show Bob’s Burgers know that he is one of the funniest stand-ups around and this special is no exception to that rule. The best bit? “My Time Warner Cable Newspaper Ad.”

Faithfull’s 1979 career apex has now been reissued as a 2 CD deluxe edition with 7” and 12” remixes along with some original mixes on the bonus disc. While the bonus stuff is extraneous as none of the versions differ strongly from what ended up on the album, the original album holds up really well.

This may be even better than his first release, 2010’s My Name is Hannibal. My favorite bit is “Masturbation Accusations,” though all of it is hysterical.

After seeing him for the first time at ATP last year, we were happy to find out that Buress was playing here again and so we bought tickets. I’m glad we did as his show was hysterical, culminating in a quasi-rap video/remix with Hannibal onstage with people in Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog costumes. Opener Damien Lemon did a nice job of warming up the crowd as well.

Over the course of an hour and a half and backed only by a backing vocalist and several string players (one of whom he’d met earlier that day!), Stamey played a set heavy on his excellent new Lovesick Blues as well as older solo material and a few dB’s tunes. Most were from their 2012 reunion album Falling Off the Sky, but he did close with a great version of “Happenstance.”

Texas is the Reason played a terrific set that included every song they have ever released (only an EP and an Lp’s worth along with two new songs recorded last year) while Title Fight (who have headlined and sold out Union Transfer on their own recently) got an incredible crowd reaction that was well-deserved as they are an incredibly powerful live act (and more powerful than they are on record for sure).

I am mentioning this classic because it will hopefully become the official rock and roll song of the state of Massachussetts!