I’ve often pondered why great bands, bands who redefine what we expect from contemporary music seem preternaturally disposed toward implosion. For as much as we’d like to blame it all on drugs, women, sex, and sex with women on drugs, sometimes a band’s greatness stems not from the sum of its parts, but from its division. The Doors created the template, but when the Verve released their debut on Hut in 1993 they weren’t slow in donning the Emperor’s new clothes with fashionable abandon.

“Butterfly” from A Storm in Heaven is six-and-a-half minutes of “This is the End” blues-mongering that’s not so much a song as it is a journey, maaan. Beginning with Nick McCabe’s overdriven riff-meistering and joined by hard-panned double acoustics, the song—sorry, the journey—delivers Richard Ashcroft’s shamanic assertions over a bed of percussive texturing, building gradually to a premature climax. Which is the perfect excuse to start all over again, bringing in the horns to serpentine effect just as the fire-walking starts. It bears the hallmarks of why they were doomed to failure (too much creative “genius,” too little give-a-fuck) and though they managed another two albums, by that time everyone wanted some Oxford grads getting their ‘Floyd on.

Peteris Vasks work and life suffered similar attrition. Apparently, living under a totalitarian regime in Latvia will do that. But like any screenplay how-to will tell you—you gotta write what you know. Which is what Vasks’ did, composing pacifistic laments whose dissent lay in the notes rather than the streets.

“String Symphony – Voices (Balsis)” was assembled during the height of the eastern Bloc’s attempts for emancipation. Its three-part structure unfolds with “Voices of Silence,” moving onto “Voices of Life,” and culminating in “Voices of Conscience,” the final movement ushering in the threat of ecological disaster, political and military upheaval, and dystopian extinction, shifting finally to a pleadingly optimistic tone that nevertheless carries the weight of what preceded it: fragile hope still covered in the detritus of oppression.

But if that’s a little too Amnesty for you, let me suggest a foray into the secret life of the Veronicas. Their debut album is fully-paid-for pop at its most calculated, sure, but when it’s this well done (and they look that cute) then far be it from me to pass judgment. Other than to say that it’s fucking brilliant in a way that reminds you of the finale of every teen movie you’ve ever seen, delivered flawlessly by the two girls who were way too hot for the football team and got together instead.

Being that they’re real-life twins, though makes that a bit ew, but “Leave Me Alone” is so pitch-perfect that you’ll just enjoy the sheer bitter-sweetness of what’s on offer without feeling guilty. Sounding a lot like Agnetha and Frida breaking it off on “Knowing Me Knowing You,” Jess and Lisa manage to hold their own against Josh Alexander and Billy Steinberg’s über-anthem production prowess, delivering lines like “I’m so ova-writ” with just the right amount of jilted pathos and teenage resilience, avoiding the overwrought glycemia of… nearly everyone else. Why the Veronicas are languishing in the charts while Avril’s working with Richard Linklater is a goddamn mystery to me.

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