You may (or may not) remember me saying not too long ago that I had been generally underwhelmed by SF pop combo Rogue Wave – I’d given their debut record Out Of The Shadow and their live show a fair shake but just couldn’t quite get into it.

Well, it turns out I’d simply arrived one album too early if I wanted to be really impressed. Rogue Wave’s sophomore album Descended Like Vultures, out today, is a revelation. Where Shadow was kind of fuzzy and lacking focus, definitely showing its one-man show origins, Vultures is confident, fully-formed and just all-around better. Both the songwriting and production are much sharper than on the debut – I think playing with a full band agrees with Zach Rogue. Hopefully with this record, they’ll move out from the shadow of their labelmates and musical kindred spirits in The Shins and folks like me will stop namechecking them when talking about RW (though it’d probably help if they got different album artwork – compare the album art with that of a Chutes Too Narrow-era single. Different artists, but undeniably similar in style).

The album’s Metacritic page is still pretty barren, but I expect to see a brace of very positive reviews in short order. I’m not sure it’s year-end list material for me, but it’s going to get some serious consideration. Gorilla Vs Bear is also very enthusiastic about the record and has some downloads, old and new.

There’s also some more audio to be found at the band’s sorta-secret MySpace page, including a cool cover of Buddy Holly’s “Everyday”, taken from the soundtrack for the Stubbs The Zombie video game, and on the press side, SF Weekly has a feature on the local boy done good (though the bit about Zach Rogue being supermodel-hot does leave me scratching my head). Rogue Wave the live act will get another chance to impress me on November 27 when they play the Horseshoe. And in the meantime, here’s a track from the new album courtesy of SubPop.

MP3: Rogue Wave – “Publish My Love”

Death Cab For Cutie answers the “sell out” question for the umpteenth time, this time to PopMatters and The Houston Chronicle, while they think out loud to MTV about the next album.

I was apparently overzealous in reporting that Trespassers William’s Having would be out on January 24 – they’re now going with the vaguer “February ’06″… but they have redone their website. So things are progressing. I will keep you posted.

And speaking of guesstimating release dates, Centro-Matic figures we should see their new album around March. Ish.

Brendan Benson is coming back to Toronto for – what – the third time this year? This time, he’s back at the Horseshoe on December 3, a damn sight cozier than his last time through at Massey Hall opening for Keane. Tickets are $12.

Ticketmaster is reporting that the November 12 show featuring The Cribs/Longwave/Giant Drag show has been cancelled – not just the Toronto show, but the whole tour (check out the fourth post from the bottom). Poor Longwave – that’s the second time they’ve had a tour cancelled out from under them this year, the first was when Embrace bailed earlier this Summer. Just goes to show – you can’t count on the British for anything.

np – Centro-Matic / Love You Just The Same