Since seeing them in Tucson last week, I have been devouring all things by The Twilight Sad, whose stunning new album, Forget the Night Ahead, possesses all the emotion and feeling sorely lacking in a mostly underwhelming year marked by dull synth-pop and a hyped-up lo-fi scrap heap.

I was distressed that it took until almost October for a true album-of-the-year contender to reveal itself to me. Phoenix’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix; Neko Case’s Middle Cyclone; The Cave Singers’ Welcome Joy and Mos Def’s The Ecstatic were the worthy front-runners for me. But Forget the Night Ahead is pulling at me, begging for repeat listens. Granted, I’m probably still riding the high from the show, but the album has challenged me in ways others have not — lyrically, emotionally and musically. The charged-up catharsis from Fourteen Autumns, Fifteen Winters has simmered slightly, a huge distorted wall of sound making James Graham’s lyrics this time around more mysterious but equally compelling (though he sheds a little light on each song from the album here).

Seattle’s KEXP further enables my fix by offering videos of a live performance by the group from Musicfest NW.

We trekked down to Tucson on Tuesday to catch the Scottish extravaganza: Frightened Rabbit with The Twilight Sad and We Were Promised Jetpacks.

Though I came away mostly stunned by The Twilight Sad in my first time seeing the group, young upstarts WWPJ delivered a raw and energetic set with the sort of abandon you’d expect from guys in their early 20s. It was loud and exciting, a group whose potential appears pretty boundless.

Singer Adam Thompson possesses a booming voice that’s on full display in this amateurish video I shot on my digital camera part way into the song It’s Thunder and It’s Lightning, the leadoff track from the debut These Four Walls.

Here’s an official video for the single Roll Up Your Sleeves:

One of the year’s catchiest songs, Hi-Fi Goon by Throw Me the Statue, gets a video accompaniment in which the guys go on some sort of urban safari, tracking down escaped animals from a zoo while getting martial arts lessons along the way. Works for me.

• Throw Me the Statue | Hi-Fi Goon

Between buying the Diary and LP2 reissues on vinyl today and interviewing bassist Nate Mendel (more on that later), I’ve been reliving all things Sunny Day Real Estate of late, gearing up for the reunion show on Oct. 9 at Marquee Theatre.

So it only seems appropriate that singer Jeremy Enigk would release a new video for the first single off his excellent (perhaps overlooked) 2009 album OK Bear.

I’m not sure I’m grasping the artistic connection between young kids skating and the song, but it seems to work pretty well. “I am pleased that it’s not a traditional video in the sense that there are no obligatory cuts to me on the guitar interrupting the flow of imagery,” Enigk told Spinner.

Related:
Incoming: Sunny Day Real Estate, Oct. 9
Jeremy Enigk: Life’s Too Short
Jeremy Enigk: Mind Idea
Division Day covers Sunny Day

I haven’t listened to the new Swoon, the new Silversun Pickups album, as much as I would like so far.

But what better inspiration to spend some time with it than a video featuring pretty girls playing a catty game of musical chairs? Oh, the song is pretty good, too.

And here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the video, including an interview with one of the directors: