Warhawk

This one’s almost all guitar — big, distorted, consuming guitar, the kind that you’re forced to brace yourself against. Cassidy Gates’s vocals must be shouted to compete with the noise. He keeps it simple: This is rock and roll, not poetry, so long vowels and exclamations work just as well as complete thoughts — better, even. The drums are barely hanging on to the beat for most of these six songs, but amateurism improves matters here. The biggest thing music like this has going for it is that a computer cannot create it. Imperfection is exactly what adds value to this stuff: You can hear people laughing and whooping in the background; you can practically hear them drinking, too. Just for a second, though, because then the guitar comes back, and there’s really no point in thinking about much else.