Since Julie Lawrence already extolled the virtues of the second disc by Sweden's The Sounds, suffice it to say it's been spending a lot of time gnawing away at the battery power in my iPod.

But so have these:

Recently, while searching the Internet to find out what had become of Cinnamon, one of my favorite Swedish pop bands, I stumbled on the site of Frida Diesen, singer of the now-defunct group and learned she's got a sort of homemade EP on Tender Objects. The self-titled, five-track disc is scrappier than Cinnamon's discs, but her distinctive pop coo and eclectic melodies and instrumentation remain and the EP is charming and addictive. Diesen appears to be using the disc to draw label attention and perhaps these songs will reappear in the future with more elaborate production. That, however, won't necessarily be an improvement on these earthy versions.

Find it at fridadiesen.com.

If you grew up in the late '70s listening to British music, you certainly remember the inimitable Television Personalities with their quirky tunes, heavy accents and ramshackle instrumental skills. A quarter century on, Dan Treacy and company are still working in a similar vein. The group's new disc, "My Dark Places" (Domino) -- its first in eight years -- was written entirely by Treacy during his stay in a floating Thames prison. Part Syd Barrett, part Sex Pistols, "My Dark Places" is starkly simply and direct and a window into Treacy's unique personality.

Keep your Lucinda Williams and keep your Bonnie Raitt. For me, the voice of southern rock is Garrison Starr whose new disc "The Sound of You and Me" is her second for Vanguard. Starr can rock hard and she excels at rootsy ballads, too (not unlike Aussie Kasey Chambers). She's sassy and sensitive and her songwriting skills are unmatched in her milieu. Someone once described Starr's plaintive music as "roadtrip music" and it certainly conjures vision of rolling down the windows in summer and heading out int…