My earliest recollection of Cold War Kids was their presence chumming around with members of Delta Spirit at a run-down loft concert years ago in Whittier, California (a night where I only remember drinking in a parked car, friends arguing and tiny faux-riental rugs strewn about). And to be honest, it took me a while to realize that they and Kings of Leon were different bands, as the two bands had mutual friends within my peripheral circle. Rock critics found the lines of differentiation between these bands fuzzy as well, throwing The Black Keys into the pool too. With their new album Mine Is Yours, which dropped this week, Cold War Kids are certainly not the band they were before, making a bid for mainstream acceptance.

The Kids gave the sold-out audience at Third Man Records in Detroit, Michigan a taste of that close-knit warehouse concert feel with their performance last month. Owned by Jack White of The White Stripes and The Raconteurs, the record label-come-record

In 2006, My Chemical Romance released their darkly ambitious concept album, The Black Parade, and thus became the self-proclaimed (as well as fanbase-proclaimed) saviors of rock 'n' roll and life as we knew it. And then...they just went away. Four years later, no new MCR music was forthcoming (other than a 2009 Bob Dylan cover on the Watchmen soundtrack)...and loyal followers began to fret as breakup rumors swirled, longtime drummer Bob Bryar departed the group in the middle of recording Parade's follow-up, and MCR were unjustly accused of being a negative influence on impressionable young listeners. For a while, it actually seemed like MCR would never, ever return from the blackness. Was it possible that they wouldn't save the world after all? Where were My Chemical Romance when we needed them most?

"I wasn't sure if we were ever gonna do it again," frontman Gerard Way flat-out tells Yahoo! Music, explaining that the band actually scrapped an entire album recorded last year and

Myths Of The Near Future by London electro-rockers Klaxons was one of the landmark albums of 2007, issuing in a new media-christened music genre ("nu-rave") and a slew of like-minded dance-influenced, space-age Britrock bands; earning the prestigious Mercury Music Prize; and inspiring thousands of worshipful U.K. teens to swab their faces with neon paint in the audiences at the Klaxons' legendary live gigs.

But then, amid rumors of record-label difficulties and their follow-up album being shelved because it was deemed "too experimental for release," Klaxons took a too-long hiatus. The music scene changed a great deal during those three years, but fans never stopped yearning for new Klaxons music. And now that the band has finally returned as a quartet on a new U.S. label, TinyOgre, with the just-released Surfing The Void (available on iTunes now), they sound even fresher and more of-the-moment than ever before. It's almost as if the rest of the planet has caught up with

Few could have imagined that Rod Stewart--the rooster-haired, onetime lead singer of iconic '60s rockers the Jeff Beck Group--would not only still be at it over 40 years later, but using the term "age appropriate" when discussing his music.

Stewart, whose career has of course skyrocketed since those days--lifetime album and single sales are now estimated at 250 million--has lately been charting an interesting course that's about as far removed from rock 'n' roll as are Cole Porter and Henry Mancini. And those are just two distinguished American songwriters Stewart covers on Fly Me to The Moon...The Great American Songbook: Volume V.

The new album, out Tuesday (Oct. 19), is the latest in a string of similar projects from Stewart since 2002's groundbreaking It Had To Be You: The Great American Songbook, which took classic songs from all eras of the 20th century--make that the early-to-mid 20th century--and essentially brought him a whole new audience. And very likely an older one.

Those