[Be still your indie-rock hearts for a minute — this local-music installment groups three veterans of the L.A. scene with new albums, hosts of collaborators and upcoming shows:]

Jim Bianco

One of the originals on the Hotel Cafe scene, Jim Bianco comes as close as anybody I’ve heard to filling the long shadow of Randy Newman. On his new album, “Sing” (March 4, Hotel Cafe Records), Bianco’s nifty horn-, accordion- and piano-flavored arrangements and (occasionally) smilingly bawdy vignettes are as fit for smoky dives as swanky lounges. And the singer’s vaguely Waits-ian rasp is made for couplets like “To hell with the devil / I’m sellin’ my soul to you,” not to mention elastic enough to sell piano ballads (”Painkiller”) and groovy excursions (”If Your Mama Knew,” which sprinkles in “Rhapsody in Blue”). “Sing,” the Brooklyn native’s third album, is the first release on a new label spun off the Cahuenga Boulevard venue and includes cameos by Gary Jules and Cary Brothers.

||| Live: Bianco plays his album-release show at the Hotel Cafe on March 4, and a free in-store at Amoeba Music at 7 p.m. March 5. He also performs on the Hotel Cafe Tour (March 8 at the House of Blues Anaheim and April 12 at the Music Box @ Fonda).

||| Download: “I Got a Thing for You”. Check out the video for the song here.

Photo by Bethany Dwyer

Shane Alexander

The frontman of the longtime L.A. band Damone — before they sold the name to these people — Shane Alexander has stretched out incrementally on each of three solo albums, and his latest, “The Sky Below” (out today on BuddhaLand Records), muscles up considerably. Alexander, whose vocals might remind you of the Gin Blossoms’ Robin Wilson (or a couple other ’90s radio mainstays), remains an effective acoustic troubadour (especially on the title track), but with the help of backing players Chad Crawford, Charlie Paxson, Billy Mohler and Kim Bullard, he has created a catchy slice of meticulously produced mid-tempo rock.

||| Live: Alexander (co-billed with the bluesy Chris Pierce) plays the Troubadour on Wednesday.

||| Stream: “Amsterdam” here.

Photo: viakarlo@snapglamstudios.com

James Combs

James Combs get a lot of mileage out of choked notes, sprightly orchestration and a sprinkling of synths on his third album, “To Know You Is to Save You.” His filmy vocals are best when paired with collaborators Kelly De Martino and Erin Shawn Hawkins, but even alone they are ripe for his wry storytelling, amplified by a host of backing players that includes Nik Freitas (whose own album, “Sun Down,” is coming April 8). These are the tunes of vivid, waking dreams, and, every so often, realization.

||| Live: Combs, joined by Wisely and Buddy, plays El Cid on Friday.

||| Download: “Oh Me.”

– Kevin Bronson  

I suppose it was inevitable that the Presidents of the United States of America would resurface this year. Could’ve sworn these guys went away about 1998, but the bio tells me they’ve been back at it full-time since 2004. Now comes the news that they have a new album, “These Are the Good Times People” (what newspapers have they been reading?), due March 11 and that they have re-teamed with “Weird Al” Yankovic for the video to its first single, “Mixed Up S.O.B.,” which you can hear here.

I mention this to note the strange whims of remembering the 1990s. PUSA sold millions of albums (4.5 million of their debut), and yet when the e-mail landed about their upcoming album, I could not remember a single one of their songs. The disposable nature of pop-punk? Possibly. The disposable nature of PUSA’s pop-punk? Probably.

On the other hand, the news landed last week about another rock radio mainstay of that era, the newly reformed Filter. Richard Patrick and gang are back after five years (”Anthems for the Damned,” due in May), and as soon as I saw the band’s name in the subject field, “Hey Man, Nice Shot” lodged itself in my brain and simply would not go away for three days.

The big debuts by PUSA and Filter both came out in 1995, and each remains on my shelf at home. But only one remains in the inventory of my brain. Happens to you too? Please share (and, yes, take potshots at my musical tastes in 1995 all you want …)

||| Live: PUSA plays March 19 at the House of Blues Anaheim and March 21 at the Roxy.

||| Live: Filter (no new songs on their MySpace yet) has no L.A.-area dates scheduled yet, but they’re at the Casbah in San Diego on March 2.

Photo of Richard Patrick by Andrew Pinter

Highlights for Monday, Feb. 18

Dengue Fever headlines the Indie 103.1 night at the Viper Room. … Film School plays the warm-up slot for the Pity Party’s Spaceland residency. … Robert Francis continues his Silverlake Lounge residency with guests Dawes (members of the now-defunct Simon Dawes). … Casket Salesmen and four other bands bring the rock at a free show at the Troubadour. … And at the Echo, the Henry Clay People toast producer David Newton (who helmed their “Working Part Time” EP) by welcoming three other Newton-produced local bands onto the bill — the Happy Hollows, Kissing Tigers and Death to Anders.

– Kevin Bronson

A bevy of upcoming albums demonstrates that inspirational arrangements and unconventional productions are not moribund in the world of pop and rock. The unifying key to the following bands is their use of dynamics — something notably lacking in the Grammy Award winners earlier this week — and the distinguishing factor is their judicious employment of the prismatic history of pop tones.

Cloud Cult

Following the unexpected death of his 2-year-old son in 2002, northern Minnesota singer-songwriter Craig Minowa, lead Cloud of Cloud Cult, began a difficult self-examination and exorcism in song. This has resulted in several critically acclaimed albums, the next and most startling of which, “Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes),” is due April 8.

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[In a decade long ago and far, far away, the 1990s, I used to shell out import prices for British bands I’d get excited about. Their releases always predated the U.S. distribution of their albums, and on many occasions I Just Couldn’t Wait. Now that I receive music in advance, those mail-order companies don’t get as much of my paycheck. But this installment of from-the-hip blurbs about new albums features three bands I’d have opened the wallet for (even at $23.49 on Amazon):]

The Duke Spirit, “Neptune” (April 8, Shangri-La; Feb. 12 in the U.K.): Talk about a voice — I’ll see your Feist and two photogenic MySpace songstresses and raise you Liela Moss. Her foreboding delivery seems to come from down here, imploring you to care very deeply about her slightly bent diary entries. Take the pluck from the best couple tracks of the quintet’s nice debut, “Cuts Across the Land,” and imagine that over a full album, and you have a band U.S. audiences ought to heed. The Duke Spirit haven’t had much luck in America, but a strong tour and a little support for “Neptune” (which was recorded in Joshua Tree) could change that.

||| Live: The Duke Spirit plays the Echo on March 5.

||| Stream the album here.

Watch: Video for “The Step and the Walk” here.

The Raveonettes, “Lust, Lust, Lust” (Feb. 19, Vice; Nov. 12, 2007, in the U.K.): It’s as if everything Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo tried to align on their first two albums has suddenly coalesced. Fuzzy, dark, simmering, shimmering and nodding to decades-ago girl groups and surf guitar outfits, “Lust(x3)” is like a churning ocean in the waning light. When they played as a duo last summer at the Little Radio warehouse downtown, I had no inkling some of these songs would end up so fully formed.

||| Live: The Raveonettes have dates March 1 at the Glass House, March 2 at the Detroit Bar and March 4 at the El Rey Theatre.

||| Download: “Dead Sound.”

British Sea Power, “Do You Like Rock Music?” (Feb. 12, Rough Trade): You hear the Brighton quartet wrestling with the big issues on this album, and the title’s question feels almost like a challenge. Listening is like riding a beast; BSP’s unvarnished, delightfully meandering anthems sound larger than life. Bring on foliage and military uniforms, lads, we’re prepared to salute.

||| Live: British Sea Power plays Feb. 27 at the Echo and Feb. 28 at Spaceland.

||| Watch the video for “No Lucifer”: “No Lucifer” by British Sea Power

– Kevin Bronson

There’s no need to practice partisan politics to endorse Grand Ole Party, especially if you like your rock raw and soulful. The San Diego-based trio, which released its debut album “Humanimals” on Super Tuesday, dispenses its retro blues like indefatigable campaigners, with singing drummer Kristin Gundred belting it out as if Grace Slick and Tina Turner never happened.

“I’m more drawn to things that are really intense; that’s probably why I sing the way I do,” she says. “And in front of this band, that’s certainly the way it comes out.”

Gundred, guitarist John Paul Labno and bassist Mike Krechnyak met at UC Santa Cruz, jammed for a while in San Francisco and settled in San Diego before catching the attention of Rilo Kiley guitarist Blake Sennett, who, to continue the voting theme, also fronts the Elected — and who produced “Humanimals.”

The album was released on DH Records, the imprint launched by 3D Management honcho Dave Holmes (Coldplay, Interpol). (Side note: DH also has released an EP by Magnetic Morning, a collaboration between Interpol’s Sam Fogarino and Swervedriver’s Adam Franklin.)

“Our approach was that we like records, we like tube amps, we like the older versions of sounds,” Gundred says. Their throwback results more closely approximate GOP’s live shows, which they honed on a tour supporting Rilo Kiley and which will get a true test in April, when the trio plays Coachella. “I’m familiar with it,” Gundred says of the festival experience (she has performed with Rilo Kiley as a backup singer). “But at the same time, it wasn’t my band. I’ll probably write my lyrics on my damn hand I’ll be so nervous.”

||| Live: Grand Ole Party performs tonight at Club Underground at the Echo.

||| Download: “Look Out Young Son.”

Photo by Pamela Littky

Highlights for Friday, Feb. 15

Emery plays to a sold-out room tonight at the Troubadour. … Siouxsie headlines the Music Box @ Fonda. … At the Echoplex, St. Vincent headlines, and Foreign Born (who will play some material they are working on for their sophomore album) opens. … Carina Round plays a full-band show at the Hotel Cafe (Emma Burgess and Seneca Hawk are also on the bill). … The Binges go off at Spaceland (opening for cover band AC/DShe). … And Paper Thin Walls plays at the Scene in Glendale.

– Kevin Bronson

Easy as “1 2 3 4″ — Feist, the 32-year-old Canadian torch singer and Grammy nominee for best new artist, will be coming to the Hollywood Bowl for a headlining gig on July 20. The Toronto native’s striking chamber pop will be counterposed that evening by the stirring soul stylings of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. There’s no on-sale date for tickets yet, and a third artist is likely to be added to the show.

The Bowl’s pop/rock offerings are shaping up for the summer. Earlier this morning, a May 27 show featuring the Police with Elvis Costello and the Imposters was announced (tickets on sale Feb. 24). Mary J Blige and Jay-Z have an April 16 show; the Cure are scheduled for May 31; Sgt. Pepper’s Revisited with Cheap Trick goes off June 20; Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers play on June 25; Gilbert Gil and Devendra Banhart team up on June 29; Gnarls Barkley parties on July 27; and UB40 pays a visit on Aug. 3.

Update: It’s not on the Bowl’s website yet, but it’s on the band’s: R.E.M. is playing the Bowl on May 29. And it should be pointed out that the Feist, Gil/Banhart, Barkley and UB40 shows are part of KCRW-FM’s World Music series.

–Kevin Bronson

Photo of Feist playing KROQ-FM’s Almost Acoustic Christmas show by Lawrence K. Ho / LAT

[One in a series on new music by L.A. artists …]

“Staring at Yourself,” the second EP from L.A. seven-piece I Make This Sound, doesn’t leave you much time for navel-gazing. Rich with vivid imagery and lush, playful arrangements, Jonathan Price and his piano-man voice lead you through all manner of intrigue and orchestral derring-do; sometimes it feel like the band is packing 10-minute epics into four minutes. Like on “One, Two, Three!” — one moment you’re seduced by a tinkling piano, the next you’re bopping to girl-group backing vocals, and the next you’re going 100 mph on a guitar riff. A nice ride.

||| Download: “The King and Queen.”

On their “Eat Your Heart Out” EP, L.A. quintet the Breakups go easy on everything — the jangly guitars, the twinkling keys, the harmonies. Easy-does-it, however, does not equal easy listening. The ebb and flow of the six-song effort and the wry nuances of numbers like “Tissue Sample” and “After the Fact” make this a nifty record that glances back at power pop’s ’70s heyday but reminds you more of the likes of Fountains of Wayne, Nada Surf and (vocally) Michael Penn.

–Kevin Bronson

||| Download: “After the Fact.”

||| Live: I Make This Sound and the Breakups celebrate their EP releases tonight at the Echo, supported by Amateurs and Le Switch.

Photos: the Breakups by Denver Mark Bon, I Make This Sound by Rebecca Sanabria

Highlights for Wednesday, Feb. 13

The Weather Underground, with A For Attack and Free Moral Agents supporting, continues its residency at the Silverlake Lounge. …. Captain Automatic plays downtown at Bordello. … Andre Williams and the Flash Express bring the party to Club NME at Spaceland. … And Brian Wright & the Waco Tragedies and Ferraby Lionheart are on the bill at the Hotel Cafe.

Gary Folgner, whose Galaxy Concert Theatre will close at the end of the month when the Santa Ana space gives way to renovations for a mega-nightlcub, vows to return. “I think you’ll see us pop up with another venue, maybe within a year,” says Folgner, who runs the Coach House in southern Orange County but lost the lease on his central-county hub for live music. “We’re in a funny market right now, with what’s happening to real estate.”

Certainly, what happened to the Galaxy’s piece of real estate came as a surprise after Folgner’s 13 years helming the club. “New guys came in, and they had more money than sin,” he says. “It’s a blow — I didn’t expect it to come down like that.”

Punk rock and heavy metal music may be most affected, especially with the House of Blues Anaheim landlord — the Walt Disney Co. — excising certain harder-edged acts from the bills there. In fact, after the British band Gallows was dropped from an opening slot on a punk-rock bill there, the frontman of headlining Social Distortion, Mike Ness, told the crowd how nice it would be if the House of Blues could be picked up and moved to Costa Mesa, “so we could have a real venue.” (Social D’s brand of punk, apparently, passes muster; or could it be the long string of sold-out shows at HOBA?)

The Galaxy’s final punk show promises to be a doozy — Feb. 21 with TSOL, Agent Orange and D.I.

Highlights for Monday, Feb. 11

The Night Marchers, the new project of Rocket From the Crypt frontman John Reis, plays a show tonight at All-Star Lanes in Eagle Rock. … Radars to the Sky and the Coral Sea highlight the Viper Room bill for Indie 103.1’s “Check … One, Two” show. … Great Monday residencies continue, with Karin Tatoyan and Twilight Sleep suporting Spaceland residents the Pity Party, the Henry Clay People promising a night of covers and guest cameos at the Echo, Tiffany Randol opening for Robert Francis at the Silverlake Lounge, and Rickie Lee Jones holding forth a second week at the Echoplex.

Photo of the Henry Clay People’s Joey Siara by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

When I last saw the Vacation, front man Ben Tegel was climbing all over the furniture at Safari Sam’s, giving one of those boozy, sweaty, unhinged performances for which the L.A. quartet became known. That was over a year ago, when Tegel and bandmates were a bit drunk on the euphoria of having been picked up by Rick Rubin’s American Recordings.

The Vacation’s debut album was re-jiggered and re-released in 2006, the band started to write and play songs for a follow-up, and … poof. Rubin moved from Warner to Columbia, and the Vacation got lost in all the packing tape. The band’s relationship with American ended last autumn.

“They kind of strung us along for a while, but I’m not complaining about it because it’s the same story a lot of bands have,” Tegel says. “We’re just glad to have a clean break.

“It’s a weird landscape in music right now.”

With their characterisitic swagger, the Vacation aims to paint itself back into that landscape. They have a new album recorded, tentatively titled “Dead Time,” and will be posting a downloadable track per week on their MySpace site during their residency at the Viper Room, which begins tonight. Up now: “I Can’t Dance With You,” and on Friday “—- Talker” will be posted.

The new material reaches further thematically than did their original batch of hollers and rants about street life and various L.A. indulgences. “There’s a song about the war in Afghanistan, which nobody talks about anymore,” Tegel says. “In fact, I don’t know if they’re war songs as much as occupation songs.”

–Kevin Bronson

||| Live: The Vacation play tonight (with Katy Perry, among others) and every Thursday in February at the Viper Room.

Photo by Stephen Albanese

More highlights for Thursday, Feb. 7

Songstress alert: Colbie Caillat plays the House of Blues, and Sara Bareilles joins James Blunt at the Wiltern, but look out for Ceci Bastida (Julieta Venegas’ keyboardist), who is performing at Bordello. … the Kooks’ show at the Troubadour is sold out. … The Entrance Band kicks off a residency at the Silverlake Lounge. … The Lilys play the Echo. … And John Ralson and Limbeck do a second night at the Alterknit Lounge.

If you’re of a certain age, you can sing the Super Mario Brothers and/or Zelda theme songs on command. So, it’s no surprise that musician Laromlab (a.k.a. Brandon Harrod) has turned to chiptunes to craft his blippy, “chasing a mushroom on level three” compositions. What are chiptunes? They’re songs composed in a format whereby all the sounds are synthesized in real time by a computer or video game console sound chip, instead of a sample-based synthesis. Check him out tonight at Motion Lab, where he is likely to break out his chiptune versions of Daft Punk classics such as “Around the World.” It sounds like the Super Mario Brothers commanding the decks at Paris’ Respect. Stream his upcoming self-titled album here.

–Margaret Wappler