The four-track recorder has become a staple in the indie/lo-fi scene. In its various forms, the four-track recorder enables every lonely soul with a vision and a bit of talent to cut a demo or two to share with the world. It’s about time someone wrote a tribute to this marvelous machine, and John Vanderslice is the man to do it.

Vanderslice has already proven he has a way with a concept album. “Time Travel is Lonely,” his second solo record on the label Barsuk, took us to see the view of a man stuck in Antarctica with no form of communication.

“Life and Death of an American Fourtracker” is the lonely story of a boy whose love for his four-track leads him to a life of solitude and his ultimate downfall.

“Me and My 424” is the track most obviously dealing with this theme. “It’s not really four tracks/ you can add and you can subtract/ Unlimited is the sky,” he says under skittish drums.

“The Mansion” is a righteous and tender example of chamber pop at its best. The gentle guitar and piano on this song disguise the first sign of insanity in the album’s main character.

The album features help from some of the biggest names in modern independent music. Ames’ own indie legend Jon Darnielle of Mountain Goats contributes lyrics to “Nikki Oh Nikki” and “Cool Purple Mist.” Jim Eno, percussionist for Spoon, hits the skins on “Fiend in a Cloud,” “Interlude #4” and “From Out Here.”

Bill Swan’s trumpet, on loan from the band Beulah, lends a lot to the atmosphere of a couple tracks. The variety and use of instruments on this record is nothing short of astonishing.

Somehow, Gavin Foster found a way to play the felt hat and goat hooves on “Amitriptyline,” a haunting song where we start to see just how disturbed our hero has gotten.

Vanderslice’s lyrics hide the soul of the story for those brave enough to look. If you set the liner notes aside and read them as a text, the terror inside the protagonist’s mind becomes all too real.

— Jesse Stensby

It pays to have a jackass for a brother.

CKY — it stands for Camp Kill Yourself — got a break when drummer Jesse Margera’s professional skateboarding brother Bam started making videos and using CKY’s music as the soundtrack. Once Bam struck gold with MTV’s “Jackass,” just about every skateboarder knew who CKY was. It’s the old story of underqualified musicians riding in on someone’s coattails.

The kicker is that CKY has stopped following Bam, and the result is an original album. The art of distortion is back, and moving, Anthrax-style twin-guitar attacks screech through fuzz-drenched amps straight from Fu Manchu.

“Flesh into Gear” stands out as a groove-heavy rock song with keyboard effects filling in the few gaps in the moving guitar lines. It sounds like metal, but never do you hear singer Deron Miller fall into the nu metal tone-deaf scream and the guitars don’t delve into the boring “Drop-D” chugging heard on the airwaves.

Pretty much none of the lyrics are worth talking about. “Sporadic Movement” starts out with the lines “vital signs are slow and steady/ so attentive still not ready/ as I was about to say/ you are the one that’s over.” Just try to ignore the words and you’ll be OK.

Actually, what CKY is doing to major label music is what “Jackass: The Movie” is doing to the box office: overcoming the corporate clones with low-budget originality.

— Jeff Mitchell

For fans of the Cedar Falls rock band House of Large Sizes, it’s been a long wait for new material — five years to be exact. During those five years, though, HOLS streamlined its songwriting and the difference is noticeable on the new self-titled release.

House of Large Sizes has always had a signature sound — you know a HOLS tune when you hear one. Often part of that signature sound consisted of many time signature changes and herky-jerky stop and start patterns. However, this time, singer, guitarist and chief songwriter Dave Deibler tinkered just enough with his writing and arranging to eliminate most of the stop-and-go while still sounding like HOLS.

Three important things make this band what it is: Deibler’s quirky lyrics, his driving guitar riffs, and Barb Schilf’s galloping bass lines. This record has all three.

The group gets lost and muddled on a couple of tracks — namely “Trees Make the Wind” and “Sudden Adult Death Syndrome.” These tracks creep along and it’s just too hard to stick with them when you have a whole album full of rocking tracks to listen to instead. It’s songs like “Creeps Like Us” and “Lighting Rod Salesman” that really give you that HOLS feel.

It’s not as if House of Large Sizes’ previous song writing efforts weren’t good — you don’t stick around for this long without doing something right. In fact, the band released some great records and now it has taken that formula and kept what worked and improved on what didn’t. Just think what they will do in another 15 years.

— Trevor Fisher

Foo Fighters

“One by One”

Compare to: Local H, Queens of the Stone Age, Fuel

Rating:6

On 1999’s “There is Nothing Left to Lose,” Foo Fighters and rock ‘n’ roll separated, perhaps because of irreconcilable differences.

Luckily, on “One by One,” the Foo Fighters rock again — at least most of the time.

The nearly eight-minute-long “Come Back” is definitely one of those times. The song incorporates the best Foo Fighters has to offer. Big, crunchy riffs that put Crispix to shame. The screamed lyrics of a man with something legitimate to scream about.

“I will come back,” Grohl rasps, adding “for you” to the last phrase. He could be singing to a jilted lover, disgruntled fans or a fast food restaurant begging for his repeat business. It doesn’t matter, because the Grohl has found the passion.

Queen’s Brian May lends haunting guitar work to the record’s most surprising and best track, “Tired of You,” a love ode on the brink of breakdown.

All isn’t well in Fooville, however. Tracks such as “All My Life” seem forced (“All my life I’ve been searching for something/ Something never comes never leads to nothing/ Nothing satisfies but I’m getting close/ Closer to the prize at the end of the rope”). C’mon, buddy. You drummed in Nirvana.

“Have it All” begins with a promising guitar riff that is wasted on a clich‚d chorus (“In too deep/ She’s spilling over me”), and “Overdrive” sounds like a “Nothing Left” reject.

Because of this, much of “One by One” feels more like an exercise in rock than an actual rock record.

— Christian Dahlager