The Baltimore dream-pop duo claim their new album was inspired by the Cure and the Beach Boys, and that's pretty much what you get here: echo-caked, suburban shut-in guitar majesty drifting down Pout River on black-ice synth whoosh. "Help me to make it," Victoria Legrand whisper-yells. Wherever "it" is, she doesn't sound in a big rush to get there.

Listen to "Myth":

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• Photos: Random Notes

“The Pretender”

This song wasn't part of the planned track listing for 2007's Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, and was put together in a day. "It happened after we recorded a lot of stuff," said Dave Grohl. Yet it ended up as the album opener and the lead single. Grohl called it "a stomping Foo Fighters uptempo song with a little bit of Chuck Berry in it." The singer hinted at the lyrics' political overtones: "Everyone's been f---ed over before and I think a lot of people feel f---ed over right now and they're not getting what they were promised."