He’s stepped outside of his comfort zone of Long Beach City-inspired beats, and the result is his best offering in years.

Where the band’s double-drum rhythm section was once their most forceful sound, here it’s just another element in an impressively rich palette.

Antisocialites doubles down on Alvvays’s strengths while also helping the band carve out a stronger identity within their well-established sound. By highlighting the band itself, Alvvays one-up their exciting debut.

Building on the connections between slow hip-hop rhythms and double-time footwork beats, Archives is a further exploration of some of its predecessor’s roughly sketched-out ideas.

Accompanying his gruff voice with a bleary-eyed strum, he's probably more potent and alive on Serenade than many would expect.

Jackson wouldn’t want us to call it a comeback, but it sure sounds like one.

A Swedish Love Story's brevity is basically a kind of pop tease, but the upbeat (or "posi," as he put it in a press release) vibes make for a stirring and enjoyable listen.

The songs are about working through the pain of love, but what comes across on record is joyous.

There's not much on proto-punk legend Patti Smith's 11th album, Banga, that would have sounded out of place back when she first started blowing minds in the 1970s.

There’s no better way to describe the music than impeccably Superchunky.

Here, Jamie Stewart and his crew of arty innovators use the penchant for sonic deconstruction they honed last time round to take their project of disemboweling pop songs to a new plane.

The deeply personal and overtly political are indivisible on Give My Love To London, an album that is harrowing in its bluntness and beautiful in its subtleties.

It's quite an impressive feat to combine goth rock with trance pop and still keep all your cool points, but that's exactly what Toronto's Trust have managed to pull off with their debut full-length.

Somehow they’ve managed to become both more accessible and more unique.

Battles have a fascinating, distinct sound of their own; they don't need Gary Numan crooning overtop.

Olympia, Washington's Wolves in the Throne Room have made their most accessible album to date.

This stripped-down effort forgoes the high-profile collaborations we've come to expect to create an unstrained, repetitive thumpathon that fits right into their catalogue.

Recorded, like their last album, without guitarist Bruce Gilbert, it contains many other ingredients that will sound familiar to long-time fans, namely an emphasis on erudite, sometimes snotty lyrics and big, heavy riffs.

Each is gently strummed, sparsely drummed and deeply crooned by Brett. Rennie takes care of the lyrics (and a few sweet harmonies) and deftly avoids love’s clichés.

It’s exhilarating, cheeky, Pavement-influenced indie rock that’ll leave you exhausted – and maybe anxious – by track 15.

His latest--entirely produced by long-time collaborator No I.D.--reveals an enlivened emcee, the same forceful voice who gave us classic albums such as Be and Like Water For Chocolate.

It's experimental and improvisational but familiar. When she puts her psychedelic soul spin on the trappy drums of today (what she calls trap&B), it's the sound of an artist embracing change and all the new possibilities and complications that go with it.

The album is chock full of solid songs.

While they’ve obviously raised production values for Merriweather Post Pavillion--the sound of guitars has been eclipsed by a sampledelic woosh and gurgle--Animal Collective fans will be relieved to find the group keeping a safe distance from mainstream pap.

There’s still a tendency toward icy detachment, but considering their affection for almost overwrought instrumental embellishments, the restraint serves them well.

Indecision and infighting have rarely sounded this solid and inspired.

The quality of the recording and performances makes for a brilliant soundtrack.

Gunn excels at unrushed, meditative songwriting, but this album also finds him giving stronger form to his dreamy creations.