Click to listen to Smith Westerns' Dye It Blonde

The second disc from this Chicago trio is what David Bowie might call a total blam-blam — an overpowering blast of glam-rocking gorgeousness. Smith Westerns' home-recorded 2009 debut was full of Sixties garage scuzz. Here, in a real studio with producer Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio), they shoot for Seventies glory, from the John Lennon tribute, "Imagine Pt. 3," to the T. Rex sashay of "Dye the World" and the disco-fied New Wave of "Dance Away." Everything is drenched in reverb and echo, as if frontman Cullen Omori is transmitting his pie-eyed romance ("Love and lust — how come that is such a must?") straight from the ballrooms of Mars.

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“Ambling Alp”

The "Ambling Alp" was the nickname of the six-and-a-half-foot-tall Primo Carnera. Though the song is named after the Italian-born 1930s heavyweight champion, Yeasayer are actually paying tribute to boxing legend Joe Louis with this first-person psychedelic dance-rock tune. “I was always interested in writing a song that had boxing mythology in it,” Yeasayer’s Chris Keating said. “It’s pretty fascinating: There were so many amazing characters, and it was so closely entwined with 20th century history.” Yeaseyer also invokes German champ Max Schmeling and hints at the historical significance placed on the historic bouts between the Nazi-era boxer and the African-American Louis.