Album: The High Dials <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

War of the Wakening Phantoms, RAINBOW QUARTZ

In another era, The High Dials might have been one of the bands on Nuggets. Their name, album title and sleeve design reek of 1960s psychedelia, and their music plugs into the same watercourse of mystical guitar-pop. Hailing from the Montreal scene that spawned The Dears and Arcade Fire, they've more in common with the new wave of thoughtful guitar bands that includes The Shins and Essex Green, with their precise guitar interplay underscoring songs about being adrift in the world, or being hopelessly in love. Tracks such as "Soul in Lust" and "Sick with the Old Fire" breathe new life into pop's tired romantic lexicon. In the eight-minute epic, "Your Eyes Are a Door", singer-songwriter Trevor Anderson is so flooded with desire he sees planetary bodies inside a lover's eyes - while his band's arrangements have echoes of soft-rock legends Big Star, Love and The Moody Blues. Already gaining admiring notices from such as Miami Steve and Neko Case, there's every chance their belief that "Our time is coming soon/Pull up a chair, let the gods make room" could become reality.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'The Holy Ground', 'Your Eyes Are a Door', 'A River Haunting', 'Sick with the Old Fire', 'Soul in Lust'