The power-mad New York act Japanther—last year named "Best Live Band" by the Voice—has released a grimly awesome video for "Lil Taste," a manic track off their album Beets, Limes, & Rice. The video is by the Portland-based puppetry troupe Night Shade, which has been collaborating with Japanther since 2005, and it's barely 90 seconds long, but it's stuffed to the gills with drugs, knifeplay, and, of course, Japanther's potent brand of rock and roll. Watch below.

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The Secret History is a New York "post-pop" group operating squarely in the realm of teenage-romance breakup scenes and secrets told under the cover of night. Led by primary songwriter Michael Grace Jr, formerly of the indiepop cult heroes My Favorite, the band is fronted by Lisa Ronson, who hooked up with the group through a Village Voice classified ad for a "tragic female voice." Grace's expertly crafted songs modernize classic New Wave tropes in a way that makes them a natural fit for the laptop-speaker era; Ronson's plainspoken tone brings to mind the voice of the Magnetic Fields' Claudia Gonson, while adding even more of an emotional punch. Listen to the pleading "Sergio," from The Secret History's forthcoming second album Americans Singing In The Dark, below.

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​One of my favorite new bands of the past 12 months is Razika, a Norwegian quartet whose blend of gently bouncing beats, chiming guitars, and heartbroken lyrics (their lyrics are in their mother tongue, but Google Translate offers a gist) put them squarely in the tradition of Heavenly, the Raincoats' "Adventures Close To Home," and other great twee-leaning acts. The video for "Aldri," directed by Mona Lerche (she's directed a couple of clips for her husband Sondre as well as the video for Razika's utterly infectious "Vondt i Hjertet"), captures the quiet joy that bubbles through even the saddest songs the band has to offer. Watch below.

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Ahron Foster

​In this week's Voice cover story, Michaelangelo Matos profiles Daniel Martin-McCormick, the Brooklyn musician currently making waves under the name Ital. In the video for "Culture Clubs," shot live in Cleveland last November by Aurora Halal and premiering on Sound of the City, Martin-McCormick's appeal as both a beatmaker and a live performer is made plain; he churns along with the music, making the energy ripple outward in such a way that makes movement instinctual. Clip below.

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​Another band that resides on the early-'90s fascination street we traveled down last week is slippery Gowanus duo Lightouts, who resurrect the melancholy chug and darkly sexy swagger of bands like The Cure, Girls Against Boys, JAMC and Afghan Whigs and impolitely jam it into the drum machine crunch of contemporary locals like Sleigh Bells, Year Of The Tiger and the Death Set. Their latest digital EP, The Eloise Suite, is their third one released this year; all of them sport gorgeous cover art and at least one telling cover (the Stone Roses, the La's, David Bowie). "The Eloise Suite" is a three-minute 120 Minutes jammer owing to some Berlin-era Bowie chime-rock—and it now comes with a music video that can be best described as "Kubrick's 'Addicted To Love.'"

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​ On October 18 Patrick Stump will release his solo debut Soul Punk (Island), a fantastic, hooky pop-soul record, full of choruses that soar into the stratosphere and crystalline lyrics. The Fall Out Boy lead singer plays every instrument on the record, and the album lays bare his appreciation for both the Jam/Lewis R&B aesthetic and the sort of arena-ready crunch that defined his band's most recent output. As a sort of pre-emptive bonus track, we have a premiere of Stump covering Jeff Buckley's "Everybody Here Wants You" one-man-band style; this version both shows off his formidable falsetto and that possesses the heart-tugging soulfulness of Scritti Politti's "The 'Sweetest Girl'." Clip below.

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​One of my favorite debut efforts of the year is the self-titled album by Sleeping Bag, a three-piece out of Bloomington who craft hooky, low-end-heavy rock that sounds like it could have been lifted off a 7-inch originally purchased in 1994. (You can pick it up via their Bandcamp site.) They're touring the country right now, and tonight they hit Cake Shop for an Officially SOTC-Approved show. After the jump, the brand-new video for the endlessly catchy single "Slime," plus a few questions with Dave Segedy, who started the band as a solo drum project called Whoa Bro Awesome, then added a couple of members to round out the band's sound, but staunchly stuck to splitting duties on the drums and on vocals.

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Cameron Wittig

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The debut album by Milagres almost never happened. The indie-rock group's singer and main songwriter Kyle Wilson had grown weary of his band and Brooklyn, so he traveled to rural British Columbia to rough it and contemplate his future. While rock climbing, he fell and suffered back injuries that would have him laid out for months. It was during this time that he felt the urge to return to Brooklyn and start recording the songs he was dreaming up in bed.

With a renewed sense of purpose, Milagres began working on rough mixes of new tunes that eventually turned into their debut Glowing Mouth (due September 13 on Kill Rock Stars). One such song was "Here to Stay," the second track on Glowing Mouth, posted below. Full of fluttery keyboards, sublime vocals and dreamy lyrics, the song reflects the group's light touch. "Here to Stay" begins with the line "I was restless," and judging from the stories Wilson tells below, it could well be the mantra of the group.

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Yes In My Backyard is a semiweekly column showcasing MP3s from new and emerging local talent.

Santiago Felipe

Nine 11 Thesaurus

Bushwick five-piece Nine 11 Thesaurus are the feel-good Odd Future--19-to-22-year-olds with a punkish ferocity crashing arty loft shows, rapping over distorted bursts of indie-noise and lo-fi fuzz. But unlike the west coast bomb-throwers, Nine 11's lyrics (as their name implies) definitely lean towards the unflinchingly conscious and political. Their debut album, Ground Zero Generals (out April 26 via The Social Registry/Sockets), is a futuristic throwback, embracing the matter-of-factly picture-painting of political hip-hop in the pre-Public Enemy '80s. Think the Furious Five's "The Message," Kurtis Blow's "8 Million Stories," and the Fearless Four's "Problems Of The World Today." They've already gotten a co-sign from the Furious Five's Rahiem and Wild Style director Charlie Ahearn, who directed a 30-minute documentary on the crew. Hipster audiences may justifiably freak on the beats--produced by Tim Dewit of Gang Gang Dance and Matt Mehlan of Skeletons, it's naturally a noisy clutter of lo-fi drums, bubbling synth-scuzz, dancehall grooves, post-Merriweather flutter and Rammellzee dub-rumble. But obviously the real draw is the five members of the crew--Shasty, P.Dot, God's Sun, RiDDic.C and Hollywood--who play off each other like a vintage '80s cipher, tackling police brutality, the effects of drugs and street violence and generally bleeding a Dead Prez vibe of freeing yourself from the binds of modern-day racism. Album highlight "Stressin'," treats a sparse, "Grindin'"-style beat through a haze of distortion--corrupt cops, funerals, streetlife and general anxiety are given the "swag of a thug and a heart of a reverend."

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​On April 12th, Epitaph will release No Devolución, the sixth album from New Jersey basement warriors turned post-hardcore poster-children Thursday. Like their once-howling peers Cave In, the band's increasingly gone the mellow route--more singing, less screaming, more atmospherics and space, less claustrophobic heartbreak. "There are definitely going to be at least a few fans that are like, 'This isn't what I want from Thursday,'" frontman Geoff Rickly told Spin last month. "Half the reason we picked the album title is because it means, in Spanish, 'no returns.' As in, 'No returns, cause if you buy it, you got it!'" (The double entendre of title is surely no accident either.) First single "Magnets Caught In A Metal Heart" was a math-y, slightly mournful bit of post-rock that recalled both the Smashing Pumpkins and '90s emo of the Piebald and Cap'n Jazz ilk; "No Answers," which we have below, is a more reflective, keyboard-heavy affair, alternately fatigued and pleasantly nostalgic--two modes that suit a band that's been doing it as long as Thursday has.

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