Track Listing: Amber Spyglass - Harmonic Tide, Seven Sunless Days - Last Breath, The Milling Gowns - Fist Wings Following, Thylacine - Lay Down, Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys - Viktagraph, Dreamchild - Ave Maria, Melt - Through the Doors, Lucretia’s Daggers - Tragedy, What Time Is It, Mr. Fox? - Hanging in a Tree, Mark McGettrick - Greening, Twelfth of Never - To Lure the Swans and Flies, Sharon Crumrine - February, Aepril Schaile & The Judgement - The Furies’ Prayer, Ultra Plush - Celestine Dream.

This compilation of music from Boston’s independent music scene illustrates the pitfalls of the anthology format. Where a good anthology can survive the occasional misfire among its diverse offering, there’s no hope for a collection of lyrically limp, thematically overwrought, musically derivative pieces in which finding something compelling is more work than panning for gold. From the muddled instrumentation of Amber Spyglass’ Harmonic Tide to Sharon Crumrine’s synth-heavy New Age schmaltz on February and Aepril Schaile’s oppressive melodrama, Sky So Grey features a variety of musical styles whose common denominator isn’t “darkness” but rather a lack of lustre. Vocal accompaniments spanning the serviceable (Walter Sickert, Aepril Schaile, Lucretia’s Daggers) to the chalkboard-shredding (Dreamchild, whose ill-advised, tonelessly vocalized Ave Maria boggles the mind, and Thylacine) are rarely an asset. The only nuggets that come out with any sort of shine are Melt, who deliver a catchy, capable rock sound with good guitar work and crisp vocals, and Seven Sunless Days whose Last Breath is, as it were, nothing new under the sun but proficient nonetheless.

Track Listing: A Warning to Giants, Given, Amy’s Song, End Before The Winds, Freefall, Cover Me, Milk And Honey, Wicked, And The Rains Come In Waves, All Is Not Lost, Amy’s Song (Reprise).

A pleasant but snoozy little sigh of melancholy defined by spacy soundwork and pretty but characterless vocals suggesting Sarah McLaughlin in a reverb chamber. What melody exists drifts with nary a hook for a memorable tune. And with tracks often pushing past the 10 minute mark, the whirring, clicks, piano tickles, violin slides all blur together into the background. Which goes to show that ambient doesn’t work when filled with attention-getters like lyrics and ethereal struggles when spacy becomes spaced-out. It takes an infusion of hip-hop to breathe a bit of life in tracks like Milk and Honey, but cross-genre pollination isn’t enough to rescue the album from its listless wanderings in musical purgatory.

For more information, check out their website.

Track Listing: Kyrie, The Brightest Heaven of Invention, Hortus Conclusus, Marduk, Bagpipe Torture, Hagios Alexios, Metsaltir, Shelbayrt O’Conagh, Backwoods, Carmen Vernale.

Think of it as a Renn Faire that relishes, encourages, even magnifies all the anachronisms.

Mauerbrecher translates into English as “wallbreaker,” which is certainly an appropriate description of a musical effort that favours imaginative amalgamations over genre conformity. Danish musician Rane Rødam Knudsen puts together a genuinely intriguing potpourri of musical influences that spans globetrotting percussion, Celtic bagpiping and middle eastern string work and moves on to include medieval organ works, modern synths, and even, on the Brightest Invention of Heaven, a woman in the grips of bodily passion. It all happens in the unexpected layering. In “Hortus Conclusus” (enclosed garden) we get modernized rhythms along with a medieval-sounding musical foundation that includes an “anonymous French traditional.” For the facetiously named “Bagpipe Torture,” an element of contemporary technology-driven music energizes and complements more traditional bagpipe melodies. Overall, an atmospheric, beautiful example of musical sorcery driven by a singular vision.

For more information, visit Knudsen’s MySpace page.

Track Listing: Glass, Sleep Alone, Moon And Moon, Daniel, Peace Of Mind, Siren Song, Pearl’s Dream, Good Love, Two Planets, Travelling Woman, The Big Sleep.

With repeat listens, Two Suns increasingly reveals a soulful substance lacking both the pretension and manufacture that less-than-sunny pop is prone to. Flirting with this side of dark wave as much as a popularly accessible singer can without being cast into the fringes of musical subgenres, Bat for Lashes – actually 2008 Brit Awards for Best Breakthrough Act and British Solo Female nominee Natasha Khan – has a flexible voice that evokes favourable comparisons to Beth Gibbons touched by Bjork and Loreena McKennit in a smoky mode. The mood is introspective, of course, with wistful, well-crafted songs of love and the usual intimacies; echo-y, synthetic, lush. The style absorbs different influences from trip-hop to gospel and pop with a mature rather than derivative result. It could sound like the stuff the CW might use to close off an episode of any one of its youth-oriented soap operas, but Khan has more than enough spirit and integrity to stand out.

For more information, visit her website.

Track Listing: A Million Colors (Justin Singer’s Sugarfloss Mix), Connections Missed (Phenotract Remix), Distant Voices (Rick Nicholas’s Multi-Voice Mix), Twilight Haze (2009 Version), A Million Colors (More Shades Remix by Phenotract), Dead Ringers.

High-energy, clubby electronica chock-full of tasty samplings and crafty sounds of the kind that invites busting out a new dance move. New York-based Eric Shans has a bit of Chris Vrenna’s Tweaker in him, dialed towards tangible melody-driven house that spans the chant-influenced “Twilight Haze” to the robo-voiced “Distant Voices”. It’s sinfully catchy, head-bopping stuff – both versions of A Million Colors rank as anthemic – that may not often stray into hardcore experimentation but is nonetheless expertly assembled and playfully adventurous. Is this the kind of music they’d play in a posh W Hotel lounge? Sure, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. This is one hip EP of Shans’ originals and remixes by Justin Singer and Rick Nicholas that live up to the adage of always leaving them wanting more. Just pour a spirited cocktail and keep an eye out for an open spot on that crowded, writhing dance floor.

For more information, visit Shans’ MySpace page.