Chicago's Smith Westerns gob up glamorous gum-pop, blowing big bubbles of glistening indie rock power. They've been out of school (Northside College Prep) for a couple dozen months, and sound like they want to take over the world with Dye It Blonde, the follow up to last year's self-titled debut album.

Cullen Omori leads his Teenage Fanclub-loving, glam era-adoring band through big splashy fountains of guitar + bass + drum fun, which demands to be listened to over and over again, mostly for how well played and produced it all is. Every song on here has incessantly gnawing hooks you love being ravaged by throughout the entire song ("Still New," "End Of The Night"), or slower-then faster cinematic wide-screens with drop-dead dangerous choruses you want to hear on the biggest sound system and the best drugs or drink available ("Smile," "All Die Young"). The responsibly ornate Bowie-esque keyboards tie it all together, with manicured playing to offset the bounce and blast of mashed-up Beatlesesque tempos. This is easily one of the most listenable and lovable albums of the year.

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I love and hate the bipolar skronk of Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death. I have ever since I bought their "Diamonds In The Mine" (a Leonard Cohen cover) 45 at Easy Street Records a few years ago. That first bitter taste of their smeared mediation between old world magic and new chaos, between folk and punk and noise and song and anti-song, can be found in their hasty approximation of a song based on moral outrage and spat out brusquely.

Years down Highway 99, after a smattering of releases and a sputtering of shows, on the new Don't Stop Believin' full-length Some Of Us Are In This Together, the dead hooker's bruises still haven't healed. Who can expect them to? Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death is as cold as they come. It's still-born squalor, between abyss and existence. The ten tracks on Some Us Are In This Together are as tribal-loyal, exclusive, paranoid-defensive, and elitist as the LP title sounds. Drummer Andrea Zollo (ex-Pretty Girls Make Graves) is at the center of the activity, pounding away like an embittered Moe Tucker pummeling on an abusive boss's balding cranium with a Walmart price gun, allowing Corey J. Brewer (guitars, Cold Lake) and Joel Cuplin (bass, Constant Lovers) to churn death-pasta into a bile casserole.

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