Return of the out rock icons: the long-awaited reunion of American Music Club and the Hidden Cameras' sophomore effort both yield delight.

Love Songs for Patriots * American Music Club * Merge Mississauga, Goddam * The Hidden Cameras * Rough Trade

By the time Toronto indie rock ensemble the Hidden Cameras caught the public ear with 2003's The Smell of Our Own, American Music Club who spent 12 years forging an indelible blend of rock, country, blues, and jazz trader Mark Eitzel's melancholy vocals--had been disbanded eight years. Now both are back, AMC with its first album since 1995 and the Cameras with the follow-up to the group's acclaimed debut.

On the surface, any overlap seems minimal, save that both acts have openly gay front men. The Cameras come tumbling out of the speakers with a boisterous, can-do attitude, while AMC's approach is much more studied. Yet scratch deeper and a commonality comes clear: Each boasts the gift of transforming everyday, and even ugly, episodes into songs that are both uplifting and occasionally heart-wrenching.

Eitzel fans who discovered the beloved curmudgeon via his post-AMC solo work may initially recoil from Patriots' jarring opener, "Ladies & Gentlemen." Don't. Dark and dense, underpinned by dissonant piano, the music juxtaposes sharply with Eitzel's surprisingly optimistic lyrics, which invite listeners to lift tambourines and maracas, celebrate till dawn, and brutish hatred.

Spotlighting Eitzel's gift for tempering black humor with rough-hewn truth--and featuring his exasperated singing style and accomplished backing from his original bandmates--Patriots ranks among Eitzel's finest work. There are flashes of startling tenderness ("Only Love Can Set You Free"), yet the most compelling track, "Patriot's Heart," is the disc's darkest--a howling, unflinching epic about a low-rent stripper and his aging, intoxicated regulars.

The Cameras, known for purveying "gay church folk music," also acknowledge the bleak and bitter on Mississauga, Goddam; the title track (an homage to Nina Simone's 1963 protest song "Mississippi Goddam") critiques the stifling conformity of suburban life. But the Cameras' approach is generally lighter. The set opens with "Doot Doot Plot," a whirlwind of nonsense syllables and xylophone that puts a new spin on the concept of "religious ecstasy."

Cameras leader Joel Gibb lays bare his artistic calling on "Music Is My Boyfriend," while "We Oh We" opens as a desolate folk tune and then blossoms into an arrangement full of strings. A couple of the especially peppy numbers evoke the uneasy sense-memory of lingering in the living room too long with one's young relatives on Christmas morning--unfettered joy begins to grate--but otherwise, Mississauga is a delimit and, like Patriots, a testament to the restorative powers of good music in even the darkest times.

Reighley is the author of Looking for the Perfect Beat (MTV/Pocket Books).