megastick fanfare is one of my latest loves. I will admit that I had not heard their music before about a month ago, when my boss slung me a copy of their Jonathan Boulet-mixed debut album, grit aglow. LOVE AT FIRST LISTEN! There is a definite Animal Collective-esque vibe but not in a way that makes them derivative or boring, and the record is so varied – it swims around a lot of different moods and sounds, but manages to remain cohesive. Really good stuff. ‘POW’ has 80 iTunes plays on my computer at the moment and I’ve got it on right now so I guess make that 81?

I also caught them live on Thursday night at FBi Social with The Parking Lot Experiments and Sealion and it seems that the music translates just as well live. Heaps of energy, very focused but not to the point of rigidity. Wonderful, wonderful, very wonderful.

A few weeks ago I sat down for a cafe chat with Sam Goldsmith and Adam Zwi, who are both keyboardists/drummers in megastick fanfare. They are an absolutely delightful pair and we had quite a lovely slice of afternoon together, before I had to head back to work anyway, talking about their music and just random general fun stuff. Transcript of the former after the jump.

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Like many other bands these days, London’s Yuck has taken the best parts of a past era and thrown them into 2011 – vintage spruced up with the joys of modernity. Stephen Malkmus would be proud of the band’s debut album, sounding remarkably like Terror Twilight-era Pavement in all its DIY slacker glory.

The guitars – recorded in guitarist Max Bloom’s bedroom – revel in their distortion to create the lo-fi fuzz that’s seen a recent resurgence, and on opener Get Away it’s teamed with a synthy guitar punch and rough vocals from Daniel Blumberg. The vocals are an integral part of Yuck’s sound – there’s often a muted edge applied to them, like on The Wall and Operation, so that they take on the same jagged aesthetic as the rest of the sound. The slower tracks on the record are a real treat, throwing back to Spit On A Stranger – Shook Down and Sunday allow Blumberg’s voice, completely smooth in these cases, to shine through against even guitars and harmonies, singing heartfelt (and often heartbreaking) thoughts. The also downbeat Suicide Policeman, littered with percussive flourishes and muted brass, introduces Ilana Blumberg’s voice, making for a beautiful counter (also heard in Georgia, which features absolutely heavenly guitar melodies). Closer Rubber brings that heavy distortion back in both guitar and voice for seven minutes of glorious, messy noise.

There’s not much on Yuck you won’t have heard before. It’s very much derivative, but in spite – or maybe because – of this, it’s a ripper from start to finish, for those who rocked out in the ‘90s and those who wish they could have. Put your Chucks and flanno on and bliss out to this.

Out now on Fat Possum/Mercury

At the end of Empire Records, Renee Zellweger and Coyote Shivers perform the latter’s song Sugarhigh on a rooftop. It’s a ripper of a tune – a perfect blend of raw garage and polished melody, mixing brutal honesty with a gentler musical edge that makes for arresting listening. That’s the same kind of feeling that emanates from this album’s first single Ghosts – it’s full of high energy, yet pays close attention to crafting a memorable melodic line that sits perfectly against its rawness.

This is the first album from the quartet, hailing from the north coast of NSW, and Ghosts is a fairly good indication of what you’re in for. Melody is a strong focus, guitar lines often complementing those of the vocals well (on opener Hey Hey the contrast is just right) and garage fuzz dominating a fair amount of tracks, too (A Series Of Sighs and [Other], in particular, crank up the distortion to delicious levels). Choruses here are committed to memory constantly, especially on Shattered Alright – after a few listens of the albums, you’re guaranteed to be mouthing, if not screeching, along.

Unlike a lot of other albums, there’s not really a slow moment here, no ballads or introspective emotional pieces – it maintains palpable and infectious dynamism from the word go. The quartet’s sound is certainly not one that hasn’t been touched on before – in a lot of ways it’s pretty similar to early Vines, right down to expat American frontman Mark Spence’s voice – but this is a solid release that cuts the crap and goes all out in delivering balls-to-the-wall rock that’s both well-crafted and catchy.

Out now on MGM