Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet.

The Band: Gaslight Anthem
The Buzz: Earnest Jerseyites pair roaring chords with heart-on-sleeve sentiments.
Listen If: You were ever a member of a punk rock Springsteen cover band, or if you think Jesse Malin is the most underrated artist of our generation.
Key Track: "The '59 Sound," which employs a gang of guitars and a grand, hollered chorus in its consideration of mortality.

The Band: Human Highway
The Buzz: Pair of Canucks go all California '70s, writing airy AM anthems that balance atop a stack of pillowy harmonies.
Listen If: You not only identified the source of the band's name — a bizarre 1982 movie starring Neil Young — but you also own a contraband DVD copy.
Key Track: "The Sound," whose shuffling beat and tight guitar strums are the perfect accompaniment to the waning days of summer.

The Band: Koushik
The Buzz: DJ/Producer works up languid, Air-y jams that sound like drifting clouds, rolling seas.
Listen If: You've dreamed of some hybrid of hip-hop and easy listening.
Key Track: "Lying in the Sun," which tops Koushik's gentle-wind production with an equally airy falsetto vocal.

Who: Coventry, England indie punk trio the Enemy, who, in the span of a year, quickly went from forming the band to opening for the Rolling Stones to topping the British music charts.

Sounds Like: Already branded by the U.K. press as the newest reincarnation of Oasis, the Enemy combine that band's knack for Lennon/McCartney hooks with the youthful angst of the Buzzcocks and the social awareness of Joe Strummer, as evidenced by their debut album We'll Live and Die in These Towns.

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Athens, Georgia's art-pop wackos Of Montreal have a new album called Skeletal Lamping coming out on October 7th. The follow-up to the band's 2007 breakthrough record Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, Skeletal Lamping brings the same sort of theatrical, hallucinatory rave-ups the band is known for with a little extra funk thrown in for good measure. Download the shimmering "Nonpareil of Favor" below.

• Of Montreal: "Nonpareil of Favor" (Right click and choose "save as")

Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week pulls its highlights from Blog Fresh Radio.

The Band: Burial
The Buzz: Formerly anonymous dubstep producer reveals his face and name, ending thousands of cockamamie theories in one fell swoop.
Listen If: You've always thought reggae and R&B would sound better sped up, and made out of wires.
Key Track: "Archangel," where a baleful soul vocal is knocked around by big, blocky percussion.

The Band: Tittsworth
The Buzz: Manic, hyperkenetic DC DJ releases manic, hyperkenetic debut.
Listen If: You're staring down one last summer party — all you need is a soundtrack.
Key Track: "WTF," where the spectacularly sassy Kid Sister snarls and spits over a gleefully amphetimized disco track.

The Band: Richard Swift
The Buzz: Prolific California singer/songwriter veers from Bacharach pop to quasi-R&B, but tackles all with scholarly precision.
Listen If: You want a history of 20th century pop, and you want it done in about 45 minutes.
Key Track: "Would You," where Swift pulls off an impressive girl-group lead vocal — it's the Shirelles via David Lynch.

Who: Los Angeles-via-Stockholm sextet Carolina Liar, who, with the help of mega-producer Max Martin, are soundtracking every premature break-up this summer with their hit "I'm Not Over."

Sounds Like: Combining the Killers' new New Wave, U2's knack for anthems and the bubblegum pop productions of Martin, Carolina Liar come off as the perfect house band for The Hills. Perhaps that's why singer Chad Wolf and the rest of the group had four songs from their debut album Coming to Terms featured on the MTV show. The band will spread their infectious pop across the country as they tour with The Academy Is… this fall.

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The Verve impressed at Coachella a few months ago and now their long-awaited new album — their first in nearly 10 years — hits stores in a week. Rolling Stone is offering up a sneak peek right now: To hear the spacey cut "Columbo" off Forth click below and prepare to be awash in Richard Ashcroft's lovely vocals.

Sorry! You can't hear "Columbo" here anymore — the album's out in stores. But you can read David Fricke's four-star review of Forth here.

One of the best tracks off ontime RS Artist to Watch MGMT's debut is “The Handshake,” a psych-rock headtrip that features no repeating verse or chorus. As the group’s Ben Goldwasser told Rolling Stone last November about the band’s approach to songwriting, “We write specifically not to have traditional verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure, and we try to challenge ourselves and see if we can write songs that didn’t fall back on that.”

No kidding: MGMT have just dropped a brand new jam that, like “The Handshake,” also features no repeating verse or chorus. Only this time, Goldwasser and his songwriting partner Andrew Van Wyn Garden have stretched their songwriting philosophy into a 13-minute psych-rock mindfuck that features about a half-dozen song segments masterfully woven together. (You can pick up the tune, called "Metanoia," at iTunes; check out a live version above.) There’s a little something for everyone here: sunny Beatles-style pop; searing shrieks of electric guitar; theatrical, over-the-top vocals that evoke Freddie Mercry; country-tinged slide guitar; pipe organs; eerie, Haunted House-appropriate dirges. It’s insanely ambitious — but somehow these guys pull it off. And at ninety-nine cents, this thing is a bargain.

Who: Malibu's Shwayze. One-half L.A. playboy and one-half trailer park MC, the duo look to prove they're more than just reality television stars with their self-titled debut album.

Sounds Like: If you're unfamiliar with their MTV show Buzzin', Cisco Adler describes the duo's tunes as "California chill stoner music," as evidenced by the duo's Sugar Ray-meets-Pharcyde first single "Buzzin'." Shwayze, the other half of the duo, says Adler's music industry father Lou "brought the California sound in the Sixties. Cisco and I are reinventing it for right now."

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Wondering what's blaring through the speakers at our interns' desks? They'll tell you — themselves — in our newest feature What the Interns Are Listening To.

Who: Creature Feature, a Los Angeles two-piece known for their horror-movie-driven anthems, make the kind of music that will be immediately recognized by avid Danny Elfman fans. Formed after a Halloween party in 2005, the duo made up of Curtis RX on guitar and Erik X on synths get their inspiration from slasher flicks like Blacula and Creepshow.


Sounds Like: Fantasy rock: Creature Feature's seemingly light, carnival-like songs have dark undertones and evoke lots of playfully gory imagery, like The Nightmare Before Christmas or Corpse Bride do onscreen.

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Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet.

The Band: Hospital Ships
The Buzz: Fractured folk from Lawrence, KS, the Ships combine quavering vocals with delicate instrumentation.
Listen If: You'd like the Flaming Lips if only their songs were a bit tinier.
Key Track: "The Shots I Drank," a seasick nursery rhyme played out against rolling piano and hazy flutes.

The Band: Marching Band
The Buzz: Swedish duo crafts pillowy pop, brightened with bands of psychedelia.
Listen If: You spend Saturdays eating mushrooms and listening to the Shins.
Key Track: "Gorgeous Behavior," which is full of twinkling guitars and cascading AM radio harmonies.

The Band: Women
The Buzz: California band with un-Googleable name write lower-than-lo-fi pop songs.
Listen If: You like songs where you can see the stitching, and care more about melody than instrumentation.
Key Track: "Group Transport Hall," where a swift acoustic strum carries a spry, childlike vocal.