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Happy endings

VIDEO: Foo Fighters, "The Pretender"

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Once all the September hoopla over who’s the biggest rapper of them all — Kanye or 50 Cent (answer: Jay-Z) — settles down, late September is looking good for the return of some familiar and reliable rockers. Dave Grohl’s FOO FIGHTERS just celebrated the 10th anniversary (yes, it’s been that long, and you are that much older now) of their second album, The Colour and the Shape, with a deluxe two-disc reissue this summer. But that was all designed to spark interest in yet another solid piece of rock, Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace (RCA; September 25), an album that has Grohl indulging in a little American guitar picking with Kaki King on the timely “The Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners.” Don’t worry, though: the first single, “The Pretender,” which is already available through iTunes (do you sense a recurring theme here?), is a classic Foo rocker, just a little bit angry and vengeful, but powered by a rousing, bloodletting chorus.

That same week, in the UK at least, PJ HARVEY’s first disc in three years drops. (The US date has yet to be settled on but will likely be September 25.) No surprises among her supporting cast: she worked with producers Flood and multi-instrumental engineer John Parrish on the disc, as well as with Dirty Three violinist Jim White and ubiquitous bassist/keyboardist Eric Drew Feldman. However, early reports (as well as a posting on Harvey’s MySpace site) suggest that she’s once again extricated her distinctive guitar playing from this mix, only this time she’s substituted her piano playing. So it’ll be a different musical side of PJ Harvey. Which is pretty much what we’ve come to expect.

Neo-folkie DEVENDRA BANHART appears to have embraced the California singer-songwriter legacy that runs thick through the Santa Monica Mountains and the canyons that dot an area folkies have used as an inspirational refuge from smog-infested LA. Recording in Topanga — the same canyon that Neil Young called home in the After the Gold Rush days, and the one where Joni Mitchell and Emmylou Harris have resided — Banhart has abandond the “freak” part of the “folk” tag he earned on his early albums. And his September 25 release, Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon (Beggars), promises to be him most accessible, buttoned-down disc to date.

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