After a strangely barren several months musically - not to say there hasn't been any good music this year, just that very little I've heard so far has really hooked me (outside of the new Dan Auerbach produced Dr. John album, Locked Down) in a way that said "this is something different, special, and wonderful" - this pops up and makes me want to give someone my money.

The Bombay Royale have put out a concept album, and the concept is the soundtrack to a movie that doesn't exist. I know, it's been done before with respectable success (Rome and Year Zero are a couple of examples), but this... wow.

The album's Bondian title, You Me Bullets Love, gives a clue to the tone of the soundtrack for a 1970s Bollywood spy movie that I really want to watch now.

You can download the album's title track from the Bombay Royale website for free (with a bit of convoluted site navigation and giving them your e-mail address).

That one's catchy enough, and the rest of it is quite entertaining, but what really got me - I mean really got me - is their version of "Jaan Pehechan Ho" (originally produced for the 1965 movie Gumnaam).

Wonderful.

Give the rest of it a listen.

You can download You Me Bullets Love from Amazon.

What's you favorite album of the year so far?

Yes, Twisted Sister's Dee Snider.

When I found out about him doing an album of Broadway standards, Dee Does Broadway, I wondered if that meant he'd be doing it straight, or metalling it up into potential corniness?

Well... he does both. Dig his rendition of The Threepenny Opera's "Mack The Knife":

It's bit of fun.

From the upcoming Tom Jones album Spirit In The Room.

Well, mostly traditional Chinese instrumentation on this Talking Heads number - there is an upright bass in there, along with Guzheng, Erhu, and Ruan.

Their Kickstarter project, China Meets Matteo, is to release an album of original music composed and recorded in China. Yes, I am a backer.

Here's San Diego's excellent bluegrass act Nickel Creek covering Britney Spears' "Toxic."