Best New Music

[4AD; 2008]
Rating: 8.3

After a brief hiatus Grizzly Bear's Daniel Rossen has revived the Department of Eagles project, , enlisted some of his bandmates, and created a sprawling pop record (complete with guitars, piano, horns, banjo, and more) that evokes Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Sung Tongs, Van Dyke Parks, and Gene Clark. Ambitious and complex, it's stuffed with cocooning harmonies and shimmering, sunlight-smacking-the-Pacific melodies.

[Mauled by Tigers/In the Red; 2008]
Rating: 8.5

Vivian Girls, an all-women trio who've become overnight sensations among critics and underground rock fans, deliver a lively, lovable debut album that taps fashionable aesthetic wellsprings from Phil Spector to C86 to Nuggets and, without risking pastiche, turns them into an armful of kick-ass songs.