Monday Roundup.

One Like Son-Start the Show. While most of us with iPhones use them for such illustrious activities as playing Angry Birds or downloading fart apps, the band One Like Son used theirs to make Start the Show. Scattered across the southern USA, the band members recorded their bits wherever they could with an iPhone and put the whole thing together. And the best compliment of all is that from listening to it, you'd have no idea they didn't book weeks of studio time. Of course this would be all be an amusing novelty if the tunes didn't hold up, and here they do. OLS falls into the "Fountains of Weezer" camp as far as their power pop style goes, and they serve this subgenre well with the title track and several others. But they also manage to successfully break from the high-energy, manic pop/rock with the Beatlesque "Buried" and the contemplative "L.A." It's good stuff, and it would be fitting to listen to it on your iPhone.

Kool Kat | iTunes



People on Vacation-The Carry On EP. People on Vacation is the duo of Smile Smile's Ryan Hamilton and Bowling for Soup's Jaret Reddick, who've come together "on vacation" from their regular bands to craft an EP that's poppier and more mature than one might expect from their regular gigs. "Better Off Dead" reminds me of an Americanized Teenage Fanclub, the charming piano-and-guitar "It's Not Love" gets by on its whistle-along "luh-uh-uh-uh-uv" chorus, and "Where Do We Go Now" is quality dream-pop. All in all, it's six tracks of polished pop that should be up there for EP of the Year.

Amazon | iTunes