Derivative psychedelia, but well done

Reviews: Darker My Love make like BMRC, the Grates make like Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Persephone's Bees make like a turbo-charged Cardigans.

• "Darker My Love" (Dangerbird) – Proof that punks have eclectic taste, too: While serving (respectively) in The Distillers and The Nerve Agents, guitarist Tim Presley and drummer Andy Granelli started exploring the murkier end of heavy neopsychedelic rock in their spare time.

But what began as a lark has blossomed into a proper band with the arrival of this garishly colored retro blast, replete with brooding moodiness, lyrics about traveling to the sun, fuzzed-up riffs like the Stooges on acid and enough pretty-but-vacant and endlessly echoed vocals to make The Stone Roses seem like elocutionists.

The result is thoroughly derivative, almost laughably so at times. Yet, as this sucker will attest, it can be irresistible to fans of this style, who rarely score imitations of such quality. Here's something that'll toy with their heads between spins of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Pink Floyd's "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" and all those Jesus and Mary Chain reissues. (Darker My Love plays Oct. 5 at Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa.) Grade: B+ (Ben Wener/The Register)

• The Grates, "Gravity Won't Get You High" (Cherrytree/Interscope) – Comparisons to Yeah Yeah Yeahs come easily, as do nods to Sleater-Kinney and even The White Stripes, if only because they also lack bass. But this Australian trio, led by the undeniably Karen O-like tone of Patience Hodgson, is far more absurd than any of the influences it rips off.

Often Hodgson's lyrics will start stingingly, then quickly devolve into yelping nonsense, under which John Patterson and Alana Skyring bash out garage-punk grooves and primitive cabaret. At her best – as on the need-it-now sexuality of "Trampoline" or the chiming of the clap-happy "Science Is Golden" – Hodgson frays some of the same raw nerves PJ Harvey laid bare a decade ago. At her worst, well, she's merely embryonic, all attitude but not enough substance. Given time, though, and she and The Grates could surprise – or amount to nothing more than the Muffs of Down Under. Grade: B (B.W.)

• Persephone's Bees, "Notes From the Underworld" (Columbia) – This is as appealing a confection as The Cardigans when they began, and just as those Swedes had two secret weapons – kittenish Nina Persson and an analog-crazy band – so does this San Franciscan outfit unveil two surprises on its playful, striking debut.

Most apparent is Angelina Moysov, a native Russian whose Gypsy heritage oozes out of her sultry, accented voice whether the track is awash in dissonance, bouncing along disco rhythms that Scissor Sisters would shave their heads for, or teleported in from bygone eras.

The less obvious but equally crucial element is guitarist Tom Ayres, secure enough in his role to lay low when need be, providing simple but effective kinetic riffs, but confident enough as the disc wears on to let loose searing yet pop-friendly solos reminiscent of Brian May and Mick Ronson.

Moysov is a kitschy delight, but Ayres' deft touch and inventiveness is what places this work well above novelty. Grade: B+ (B.W.)