Is it me or are SO MANY bands just letting us down this year?

Free Energy at Lincoln Hall, April 26, 2013. 

So I wrote that headline a week or so ago and it still stands. But only insomuch as we're talking about bands we expected good things from only to be shafted. I've already written about my disappointment with recent releases from Phoenix, Fall Out Boy and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The new Strokes is nothing to write home about. Guided By Voices continues their trend of releasing albums with a good song or two  and then forty minutes or so of subpar filler. Heck, even Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience, an album I was pretty down with upon first listen, isn't holding up under repeat spins.

But I am not despondent! This is the year where I'm finding myself surprised more and more often and remembering what it's like to discover new music you can truly fall for. I'd never heard of The Blank Tapes but they're new one is burrowing under my skin, and Dead Stars is a band with only two EPs under its belt but if you miss indie rock in its loud and sloppy yet undeniably tuneful days, they are scratching that itch quite nicely. All I really knew about Mikal Cronin was that he was associated with Ty Segall, but goddamn if I don't like his album MCII better than anything I've heard from Ty.

And then there are some old favorites who I'd fallen out of love with only to fall for them all over with recent releases. I'm talking about Suede, Wavves, Tegan And Sara and—what?!—Spacehog! And then there are bands I thought were good but maybe losing their touch, like Surfer Blood and The Thermals, who returned this year with some great material.

And let's not even get into Free Energy and Warm Soda, my power pop, good time, hell yeah it feels good to be alive saviors.

And I'm only scratching the surface.

I think what I'm realizing ist that the heavies we thought we could rely on have lost their way big time, and this is O.K. You see, after a number of years where I honestly felt a resounding "meh" at the end of each year when it came time to "top XX album" anything, I think 2013 might be the year I finally don't say "meh" in late December and instead holler, "YEAH!"