Glitch-pop may fast be approaching a creative dead end, but at least the genre lasted long enough to produce the eponymous debut album by Electric President (Morr Music), which fuses the dreamy coo of classic West Coast soft rock with the reassuring whirr of a computer booting up. It's a song-oriented collection—that sets it apart from a lot of other modern indie-electronic hybrids, which get the texture right, but forget to add flavor… A-
Electric President labelmate B. Fleischmann tends to lean toward sound over songcraft, but his latest album, The Humbucking Coil (Morr Music), contains a handful of evocative instrumentals, like "Broken Monitors" and "Composure," which radiate analog warmth beneath the digital gurgle… B
Mike Downey, meanwhile, is essentially a straight-up indie-rock singer-songwriter, beholden to the earnest romanticism and hook-addiction of Superchunk's Mac McCaughan, though on Adventure, Bless, And Don't Be Sorry (Recordhead), he dings up his songs with tape manipulations and noise-blips enough that they begin to feel pre-washed. Frankly, Downey doesn't always need the sonic gimmickry. At least he's smart enough to realize that an affecting lost-love ballad like "Flame Out Flyboy" sounds best unadorned… B
Danish pop vocalist Tina Dico has loaned her pipes to the "lushtronica" act Zero 7, but on her solo album In The Red (DeFend), she sounds like a mature, Adult Contemporary radio-ready artist, with an affection for Joni Mitchell/Suzanne Vega minor-key confessionals and a penchant for sonic sheen. Sometimes the songs are too mushy to grasp, but "Warm Sand," "Give In," and the title track are classics of the form, and shouldn't be discounted just because the form itself is semi-disreputable… B
Brooklyn dream-poppers The Sems work in a more aesthetically respectable style—a living-room-scaled recreation of Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, and Red House Painters—and band mastermind Pete Bogolub makes his obsessive fandom work for him on the hushed, delicate Any Day Ago (Recordhead), which has the honest quality of a muttered prayer… B+
And then there's the latest Toronto neo-power-pop wonders, The Golden Dogs, who share the DIY spirit and sense of adventure of all the above acts, though on their bracing debut album, Everything In 3 Parts (Funzalo), the husband/wife team of Dave Azzolini and Jessica Grassia prefer to express their understanding of modern melody-making through the medium of cranked-up guitars, banging drums, and full-throated shouts. B+