Minnesota in the summer-time is arguably the best thing in the world (just ask any natives or the occasional disgruntled upstate New Yorker who makes the Twin Cities their summer home). This means that occasionally a commitment to intrepid music listening takes a back seat to trips to the Dakota County Fair or backyard barbecuing. The summer time is also when the big guns (the Japanese leg of Gun's N Roses "Chinese Democracy Tour" to provide just one example) go on tour and put out records. All of which means that the summer time release pickings for artists flying under the commercial radar were on the slim side. Fortunately, even in the slow dog days of summer, quality rock music is an unstoppable force. Read on for the down-low on the latest and greatest and the occasional high-profile clunker that must be avoided at all costs (in one music editor's opinion anyway).
 

Brad — Welcome to Discovery Park (Red Line)
 

Who doesn't love superstars moonlighting in projects infinitely more interesting than their primary gig? Ok, that doesn't really apply in this case as Brad employee Stone Gossard's day-job (as axe slinger for former chart toppers turned elder statesmen of rock Pearl Jam) is still responsible for some of the best major label music currently going. Still, it's interesting to see him pursue clearly un-PJ terrain in the soulful piano driven tunes of Brad. To be honest, Brad isn't really Stone's show at all, the man in the spotlight is singer/piano man Shawn Smith, and he's more than up to the task of taking on the spotlight on Brad's third full-length and first in five years.

Smith doesn't seem to understand that white indie-rockers in their late thirties from Seattle have no business emulating Prince and Al Green (the man frequently covers "Purple Rain in Concert," no, seriously), which is a beautiful thing. Welcome to Discovery Park oozes soul out of every pore, resulting in a beautifully weird album swimming in "eww yeah's" in the lyrical department. Smith's sexy croon is at the fore and his tales about kickin' it in the summer time ("Takin' it Easy") and fulfilled promises of love ("Shinin'") are joyous without being cheesy, an exceedingly rare accomplishment. Tasteful beats and sunny keyboard fills dominate, but Stone still lays down some classic riffs on the guitar whenever duty calls (about once a song for twenty seconds or so it seems, usually during song outros).

Over the course of the albums fifty-eight minutes the Brad rock 'n' roll steam ship does occasionally veer off course (an inexplicable and tasteless classic rock fetish seems apparent on "Drop it Down" and "Revolution"). Shawn Smith is a rare singer, so gifted with emotive abilities that he's able to make a vocal refrain like "La, La, La, La" sound important. Now that's talent.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10
 

Ill Lit — WACMusic (Badman Recording Co.)
 

Ill Lit, a pair of transplanted Brooklynites now plying their musical trade in L.A., has stumbled onto something innovative and compelling with the stylistic template they establish on WACMusic. Ill Lit somehow manages to marry that folksy indie-Americana thing that everyone loves to beatbox rhythms and distorted sound effects, simultaneously making everyone happy. Vocalist/guitarists D. Ahearn and M.Moser (abetted by a slew of friends among whom at least one has a stunning voice reminiscent of Emmylou Harris) sound like seasoned vets on WACMusic, their debut effort.

Tracks like "Diner Girls" and the cleverly titled "Beating the Daylights Out of my Nightlife" feature gritty twang filled vocals and sparse acoustic arrangements, but also rely heavily on lo-fi drum machines and hissy tape manipulation snips. Things do get a bit repetitive and some of the songs are slight enough to border on non-existence, but the voices of Moser and Ahearn are generally strong enough to carry the day, even in the face of overly skeletal song structures. Bonus points added for quality product innovation.

Rating: 7 out of 10
 

Beth Orton — Daybreaker (Astralwerks)
 

Damn it, this one really stings. British song siren Orton has always been a favorite in my admittedly too male-dominated music catalog, so to see her drop the ball like she does on nearly the entirety of Daybreaker is pretty devastating. The cast of characters helping her out (ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, pseudo-country golden boy Ryan Adams and Everything But the Girl's Ben Watt) would lead one to think that a stunning listen was in the cards, but the resulting collaborations yield nothing but full on blandness.

Someone, probably Satan, convinced Orton that a return to the techno-folkie guise that intermittently sapped the life out of her debut album (1997's Trailer Park ) would be a good idea to employ on Daybreaker, her third album. Songs like "Mount Washington" come across as aimless synthetic spy movie anthems gone horribly wrong. Orton still has an amazing voice, but these 'innovative' soundscapes are a huge step back in her song-writing. The entirety of Daybreaker feels like a last ditch effort at commercial success after the complete fiscal failure of her sophomore LP, 1999's Central Reservation, an album which consisted of stately folk music that pretty much guaranteed critical praise and an indifferent shrug from radio programmers.

The current single, "Concrete Sky," is eating up the airwaves, so I guess it's mission accomplished for record executives and Orton's bank account, but bad news for anyone not enamored with middle of the road adult contemporary folk or dancey pop.

Rating: 3 out of 10
 

Ugly Cassanova — Sharpen Your Teeth (Sub Pop)
 

Sharpen Your Teeth is a sticky summer time kind of record, humid and warped as all get out. The brain child of spaz extrordinaire Isaac Brock, best known as lead singer for Washington state stalwarts Modest Mouse, Ugly Cassanova finds Brock operating in even odder sonic terrain. Sharpen Your Teeth is a stunning hybridization of sounds that finds Brock moving away from the electric-dork-funk that typified the Mouse and stretching in several new directions at once.

"Hotcha Girls" is a hushed acoustic ballad powered by mournful violin and mesmerizing multi-tracked vocals that momentarily dips into an echo-laden keyboard haze. The deceptively peppy "Parasites" finds Brock singing about maggots entering the brains of the dead while home-styled beats, merrily tooting horns and fragmentary electric guitar shards provide the backdrop.

Brock enlisted several talented collaborators (John Orth of Holopaw, Brian Deck and Tim Rutili of Califone among others) known for their progressive tendencies to help shape the record. The result is that Sharpen Your Teeth is the polar opposite of your typical half-assed solo side project record.

The bulk of Sharpen Your Teeth was co-written, and numerous songs feature Brock sharing vocal duties with Orth. On "Cat Faces" the two sing different verses simultaneously before locking in on the same words for the chorus; the effect is both disorienting and oddly pleasing, a pattern of emotional response that seems to characterize all of Brock's best work. Sharpen Your Teeth doesn't shy away from challenging the listener (it can be hard to get into the vocally distorted skronk of a track like "Ice on the Sheets' without extended listening), which is ultimately why the album comes off as an indispensable release. The spooky carnival music style of recent Tom Waits releases bumps into the frenetic energy of David Byrne's best work at points, while other moments paint Brock as a folk troubadour accidentally lost in space-rock land.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10