Maybe the best thing about Sports, last year's bruising debut from San Francisco noise-poppers Weekend, was simply how refreshing it sounded. While so many other lo-fi acts were still messing around with balmy haze and jangle, these guys took the sound down darker, more aggressive paths. The album's marriage of squall and melody wasn't really anything new, but just by channeling a different set of influences-- post-punk, shoegaze, the Jesus and Mary Chain-- Weekend's music felt so much more visceral than their peers'. At the same time, ' charm boiled down to one idea executed very well, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to worry if they had the depth to do that again.