C / S

C/S is short for "con safos," which translates as "don't mess with this," and with their third studio album, the men of Slowride — Dan Phillips, Rob Marchant, and Steve Visneau — treat their brand of muscular indie rock as serious business. At the controls, producer Stuart Sikes (the White Stripes, Jets to Brazil, the Walkmen) helps these garage rock devotees execute command performances like "The Year of the Snake" — a revved-up, contagious punk-inflected beast — and the manic, Queens of the Stone Age-like "You Can't Tell Me." The height of Slowride's charm just may be their heartfelt, slightly desperate lyrical approach ("I need a sound from God/Louder than what I've heard so far"), but whether they're crafting direct distortion-friendly anthems like "Morals and Dogma" or blissed-out, Beck-meets-Pixies pop like "A New Day Is Upon Us," this Dallas trio gives fans of routinely intense, unaffected alt-rock like Jawbreaker, Foo Fighters, or any of the aforementioned a reason to be cheerful. ~ John D. Luerssen, Rovi