Jaill is a lot like other bands; they've slept on your floor, you've made fun of their pillow cases, they're not nearly as good at Excitebike as they said they were and although they all say they're cool with cats, no one's excited about sleeping at the cat house. So it should come as no surprise that, as bands sometimes do, they've made a new record. And that record is Traps, their second for Sub Pop, but first to adopt the bold new marketing strategy of giving away a free pair of Nike cross-trainers to anyone who steals it on the internet. Take that, Radiohead. So, but, what is Traps? And what about it can best fill five paragraphs? Traps is pretty, it's moody, it pops. It has the scrappy, vengeful enthusiasm of a puppy stuck under a blanket. It's an adorably grumpy bear just awoken from his long winter's slumber, with a mangy heart rarely found outside of the stuffed animal bin of a Salvation Army. It's an album that expects to be taken seriously goddammit, even though it just puked on the bar.

Things that come from Texas are often odd and grand, and this is no exception for Denton's Fergus & Geronimo. Named after the rival child gang leaders from the 1994 movie War Of The Buttons, their music is at times both focused and loose, and comes from a wide range of unexpected influences. At the core of the group is Jason Kelly and Andrew Savage, who met while Kelly was recording and mixing a record for Teenage Cool Kids, a band started by Savage. During that four month process of recording, Kelly and Savage bonded over music, the creative process of recording, and the possibility of having a band that draws from a variety of sources. Black and Chicano doo-wop, the energy and atmosphere of classic soul, the precise control of Frank Zappa, psychedelia, and a thought to nearly everything in between. "Sparks is a pretty big influence – not just musically, but the way that band operates," Savage adds. "It is two guys making weird music with no other agenda than being creative and surprising, and that's what I want this band to be. That band is a great example of a group that makes no compromises for creativity."