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1. Dave Depper, “Europa”
2. Saber, “Without Warning”
3. Brave Irene, “Brave Irene”

Bandcamp is an online music platform used largely by independent artists and record labels to stream songs and sell merchandise. It’s also a vibrant virtual community teeming with interesting sounds just waiting to be discovered. Each week, I’ll highlight three releases available on the site that are well worth your time and attention. If you find something you dig, please consider supporting the artist with a purchase.

Dave Depper

“Europa”

Dave Depper is currently the guitarist and keyboardist in the very popular pop-rock band Death Cab for Cutie. Before he had that job, he was an in-demand sideman who spent time touring with acts like Ray LaMontagne and the Fruit Bats. And before that, Depper actually spent his high school years in Bend, where he graduated from Mountain View High School in 1998. Now, fast-forward back to the present, and Depper has just released his third solo album, “Europa,” which was recorded during a three-week Death Cab tour of Europe in 2015. It’s nine tracks of beautiful improvised electric guitar pieces that hover and glow like the ambient music of one of Depper’s musical heroes, Brian Eno. But unlike a lot of ambient stuff, these tracks always seem to be going somewhere, and that somewhere is lovely.

Saber

“Without Warning”

It’s very easy for bands that take a modern approach to traditional heavy metal and come off looking like a comedy act. It’s much harder to play that style of music — breakneck pace, twin guitar solos, glass-shattering falsetto vocals — and treat it with the kind of care it deserves. Saber is a straight-up heavy metal band from Los Angeles that sounds like it has been imported directly from the late 1970s, complete with big riffs and big hair and excellent song titles like “Storm of Steel” and “Leather Laced Lady” and the coolest cover art of the year so far. If you’re old enough to remember headbanging and air-guitaring to bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest and you feel like they just don’t make good music like that anymore, run (don’t walk) to the Saber Bandcamp and prepare to be transported back in time, and don’t expect this band to hit the brake pedal on the way.

Brave Irene

“Brave Irene”

In the sweet ‘n’ sour world of underground indie-pop, Rose Melberg is an absolute legend. The California native — now based out of Vancouver, British Columbia — arrived on the scene just out of high school with her band Tiger Trap, and since then she’s been making some of the planet’s best fuzzed-out, ultra-melodic rock ‘n’ roll with The Softies, Gaze, Go Sailor, Knife Pleats and Olivia’s World. One easily overlooked entry in her expansive discography is the self-titled debut from Brave Irene, released in 2011 but the great Slumberland Records label. At only eight songs and 17 minutes long, it’s a very quick listen, but the tunes are punchy and, of course, catchy, and the prominent presence of droning keyboards give “Brave Irene” a psychedelic feel that stands among Melberg’s incredible catalog.