It’s a good one this month.

 “That Man I Shot”, The Drive-By Truckers
This isn’t a band that ever really clicked for me. I like a lot of bands that play shows with them, but I never really understood the big deal. I still don’t, but every so often they deliver a gem like this one. This is a real serious rock song, the kind that you don’t get much these days. It’s got a lot of jammy Southern rock roots to it, but it’s not really that sort of thing- you would never confuse this with the Allman Brothers. It’s just a heavy rock song about war and what it does to soldiers, the sort of thing that you have to assume Neil Young wrote thirty songs about over the past forty years, but never quite like this. It’s a powerhouse.

“Cops Keep Firing”, Nas (feat. David Banner)
Yeah, Nas again. So I’ve got a little bit of a mancrush. This one comes from the mixtape he put out prior to the new album, and it’s a real grimey, intense sort of song. Nas doesn’t give a fuck if you can dance at his revolution, apparently, but the Jay-Z sample here just fucking kills. No disrespect to “Dirt Off Your Shoulder”, but the way the “middle finger to the law…” sample is a pretty awesome example of “you made it a hot line, I made it a hot song”. David Banner takes the second verse, and he comes off as a little bit incoherent in his analysis of the Iraq war, but you know, I just think it’s funny that George Bush has proven to be such a shitty President that he’s made David Banner care about politics.

“Wild International”, One Day As a Lion
Not really sure why Zach De La Rocha spent eight years without releasing anything, reformed Rage Against the Machine, refused to do another album with them, and then started a new band that sounds more or less exactly like Rage, but who cares? It’s Zach De La Rocha fronting a band that sounds like Rage Against the Machine. I’ve been waiting for this since 2001! He’s still kinda mush-mouthed as an MC, but he’s got some new things happening on his flow, and if you’ve been waiting for him to put out something new, you can waste time being disappointed that it’s not breaking new ground, or you can just enjoy the fact that he’s back to the formula that worked so well forever. I’m a glass is half full-type dude this month, so I’m on board.

“Stay Positive”, The Hold Steady
Another band that was already on a monthly tape. Still, this one doesn’t sound much like “Constructive Summer”, it just paints a picture of a scene growing to its breaking point- but the focus is on the growing, not the breaking, and if you stay positive then maybe it’ll work out in the end one way or the other. It reminds me a lot of being twenty years old and believing that everything important in life was encapsulated in a little punk rock scene in the Rio Grande Valley, but “Stay Positive” makes the argument that maybe that’s always been true. Plus there are big, chanted whoa-ho-ho’s going on through the hook, and that’s pretty much the definition of rock and roll.

“The Screen”, Sapient
Sapient’s a white MC from Portland. I’d never heard of him before, but I heard a few songs and liked what he had going on- turns out the album this one comes from is one of the best of the year. I picked this song mostly because it contains the line “I’m like a cross between Jack from Jack In The Box and Jack from lost“, which is pretty great. I’ve been really into the lyrics of the songs I’m listening to right now, which isn’t always the case- sometimes I can tune them out entirely, but I’ve been hungry for good lines and images lately.

“Greenlight”, John Legend (feat. Andre 3000)
Hey, speaking of good lines, pretty much every line John Legend sings in this song is not one. He kicks off the second verse with some of the dumbest lyrics ever put on tape, but none of that matters. This is a bouncy song with Andre 3000 selling the hook, and dropping a stellar verse at the end. Remember when it looked like he might never rap again, and just sing and play the trumpet until he got old? I have to admit that I thought the idea of that was pretty cool, but I’m glad he picked the mic up again, especially when he lets loose with something as fun and flexible as his verse here. John Legend’s voice is still immaculate and it’s interesting how every record he puts out sounds nothing like the one that preceded it, but it’s hard to do a song with Andre 3000 and still be the star of the show.

“Singer-Songwriter”, Okkervil River
Even the folksy indie rock songs this month are good and rock-y. This is one of those songs that shouldn’t work, because devoting a whole song to making fun of a girl you met who didn’t even really do anything wrong is usually not what anyone wants to hear, but when it’s this catchy, who cares? I always have a little bit of extra time for Okkervil River, because their success affirms a couple things for me. The singer was my video store clerk for years, until not all that long ago when the band started doing well. And if the guy who rents you Parker Posey movies is only a few tours and some Internet buzz away from being a successful indie rock star, then who knows what, like, your mailman has been working on in his basement? If you listen to what this song’s about, the answer is “nothing important”, but the existence of this song is proof that it’s not true.

“Moab”, Conor Oberst
I really like that Conor Oberst is trying so hard to make grown-up music now. It doesn’t always quite work- I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Cassadega both failed as much as they succeeded on that count- but he’s got a real confident, self-assured sound on his new one, and it makes me excited to see what he’s going to do next. Even if his nod to Dylan in the delivery of the last few lines sounds more like Dewey Cox than the man himself, you can tell that this is grown folks’ music. “Moab” promises that “there’s nothing the road can not heal”, and even though I’ve been on that road enough to know it’s not true, he makes me believe it for three and a half minutes, and that’s the point of all rock music.