Polyon, Blue EP
Recommended track: “Faults”

The latest from post-rockers Polyon is called Blue, but don’t think it’s a sob story. “These songs aren’t about being sad,” frontman Ryan McLaughlin tells CMJ.com. “They are about awareness and an inner shift that occurs as you get over berating yourself for your flaws.” Not that Polyon’s blown-out EP (out Nov. 13) contains zero berating — it sounds like drummer Brandon Korch is angry at his kit. Polyon plays Nov. 20 at Songbyrd.

The Split Seconds, self-titled
Recommended track: “Cutting Out” (video)

The Split Seconds call themselves “classic pop punk,” aligning their sound with English groups The Clash, The Buzzcocks and The Damned. But there’s a lot of Southern California on the band’s debut full-length, too — particularly in vocalist Drew Champion’s sneer. (While you’re scanning The Split Seconds’ tunes, I recommend reading this fascinating article about the so-called pop-punk accent.)

Swings, Sugarwater
Recommended track: “Dust”

The last time Bandwidth chatted with D.C. slacker-rock outfit Swings, they told us they had gotten really into Chicago footwork. Now the band has evidently embraced Auto-Tune, as heard on Track No. 1 from Sugarwater, out Nov. 13. But while the effect forces vocalist Jamie Finucane to conform to a pitch, the slurry singer still sounds uninterested in enunciation. Swings plays Dec. 4 at Songbyrd.

Top photo: Young Trynas, July 14.

If he’s made peace in his work life, Barlow’s personal affairs haven’t gone as smoothly. Defend Yourself followed the end of the singer’s 25-year marriage, and the aftermath was bound to inform Brace The Wave, his first solo record since 2009’s Goodnight Unknown. But then, Barlow has always written songs with a sore heart and an eye on damage done, so why should his new work be any different?

Brace The Wave keeps Barlow’s sound stripped to its barren bones, an approach suited to the pleas and confessions therein. When he sings, “I’ll leave you alone, but don’t go” in “Wave,” his voice seems to emanate from down the hall, as if the listener is just seconds away from closing the door. Elsewhere on Brace The Wave, the 49-year-old examines the aging process (“Pulse”) after taking a few moments to purge his guilt (“Redeemed”) and shame (“Nerve”). But arguably Brace The Wave‘s best moment surfaces in “C&E,” which explores the idea of pain as a prelude to rebirth — a topic well-suited to a singer who never stops looking inward in search of growth and truth.

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“Drag + Blur,” the B-side on the Baltimore band’s forthcoming 7-inch, is a wry and catchy slice of indie rock laced generously with Pavement.

With opening chords that immediately conjure Weezer, the track floats into vocals that could have come straight from a Coconut Records demo. The band’s 24-year-old principle, Jack Stansbury, cites Silkworm and Stephen Malkmus and Co. as strong influences on the “Your Divorce” 7-inch (and adds that some circa-2000 hip-hop, including Missy Elliott and Juvenile, may have helped him form his musical identity, too).

After finishing college at the University of Maryland, College Park, Stansbury — a native of the Baltimore region — moved to Los Angeles. While on the West Coast he dabbled with some solo recordings under the Princess Reason name.

“L.A. was… kind of my misadventure,” says Stansbury. “I didn’t think I’d have one, but I did.”

That misadventure may have been what Stansbury needed. It brought him back to the D.C. area where, while working as a paralegal by day, he reconnected with an old friend who’s now his bandmate, Morgan Spaner. They met on MySpace in high school.

On the “Your Divorce” 7-inch — recorded and mixed by Chester Gwadza — Mike Allison joins Stansbury and Spaner to round out this iteration of Princess Reason. All three band members played equal roles in writing the music, a process that was as cathartic as it was productive. After working a day job, Stansbury says, “We get to go home, escape… we get together infrequently, but [we] all just kind of gel.”

Princess Reason’s unengineered approach suits the mood on “Drag + Blur.” Heavy-lidded and unenthused, the song shoots side-eye at a segment of Stansbury’s generation.

“This lifestyle’s totally worth it,” Stansbury croaks. “Drag through the week to blur through the end/Date a self-obsessed guy in an awful band.”

Who’s the target of that withering critique?

“The lyrics are just observations, I guess, on a particular set of youngish people,” Stansbury says, “who sort of grind through every week and waste every weekend.”

Listen to “Drag + Blur,” below: