Pick of the Week:

Beach House: Bloom

On which our hero and heroine turn their Beach House into a beach home. If Bloom doesn't find honey-voiced Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally changing their sound much, it does (as its title suggests) show them coming into fuller flower, growing up a bit, even wondering with a bit of seasonally misplaced melancholy whether they'll live forever on ...read more

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  Ty Segall & White Fence: Hair

  Everything about this record suggests it's an in-betweener, a tossed-off clutch of jams that could (and should) be fun but hardly essential. And on first (and second) listen, the eig...read more

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  Royal Headache: s/t

  Wherein my life (and yours) gets saved by a buncha kids from Sydney, Australia, most urgently by their anthemic and untidy self-titled debut album's song "Psychotic Episode." It's to...read more

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  Best Coast: The Only Place

  Second album, big expectations from the indie community -- how do you respond? If you're Best Coast, you be Best Coast about it: Take it easy man, come at it a little understated, an...read more

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  Actress: R.I.P.

  When someone says that a record is "electronic" they usually just mean the beats are made by some gadget. Actress, a solo act from London, makes thoroughly electronic music: R.I.P., ...read more

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  Lightships: Electric Cables

  It's a good season for indie pop: Landing just before the new albums from twindie behemoths Best Coast and Beach House is the debut from Lightships, the new solo project from Teenage...read more

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  Led Er Est: The Diver

  If local trio Led Er Est make a splash on their Sacred Bones debut but no one sees it because the lights are off and everyone's wearing black, is it still a splash? Well, yes, even i...read more

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  Moss Icon: Complete Discography

  So you say you’ve never heard of Moss Icon? That’s okay -- until I got their recent release, which is a Complete Discography of their output, I hadn’t either. Now having heard this k...read more

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  Light Asylum: s/t

  Light Asylum's self-titled debut sounded familiar on first listen, and after a minute it became clear why: This is kind of what I thought Janelle Monae was going to sound like after ...read more

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  Santigold: Master of My Make-Believe

  Four years after her debut made the songwriter and producer Santi White most famous as a recording artist, Master of My Make-Believe seeks to reinforce Santigold's place atop the glo...read more

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  Mad Scene: Blip

  It's not that the brilliant new Mad Scene album was unexpected -- more that a new Mad Scene album had been expected (or just wanted) for so many years that when it finally came, it c...read more

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  Jack White: Blunderbuss

  Jack White hasn't made a timid move in his life (as far as we know it), so it was hard to keep our expectations in check for his first bona fide solo album. We shouldn't have bothere...read more

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  Lower Dens: Nootropics

  Is Jana Hunter reinventing herself again, or reinventing herself further? Her second album since adopting the band name (and band) Lower Dens in place of her government name, Nootrop...read more

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  George Harrison: Early Takes Volume 1

  When it comes to the Beatles and their solo careers, I'll listen to anything unreleased at this stage, but even still, this soundtrack to the wonderful Scorcese documentary is truly ...read more

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  Mount Carmel: Real Women

  Fans of early Black Keys records -- before the duo started getting rangey with their sound -- will lose their mud over this new slab by the Keys' downstate Ohio neighbors, Mount Carm...read more

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  Battles: Dross Glop

  Ever since Battles' superb Gloss Drop LP came out a year ago, we've been treated to a steady stream of 12 inches of that album's tunes remixed by some of electronic music's leading l...read more

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  Spiritualized: Sweet Heart, Sweet Light

  Four years between albums for Jason Pierce's Spiritualized...not bad! Sweet Heart Sweet Light is the seventh long-player from this venerated British outfit and old fans will find all...read more

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  v/a: WTNG 89.9FM

  Cheekily subtitled Solid Bronze, this new compilation from the in-geniuses at the Numero Group puts the x back in yacht rock. Essentially a tossed salad of some classic pearls of the...read more

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  Lotus Plaza: Spooky Action at a Distance

  Lockett Pundt's second album as Lotus Plaza isn't hard to figure out -- after all, this is the guy who gives Deerhunter its glorious and varied guitar sound. He's also cited Stereola...read more

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  Trembling Bells featuring Bonnie "Prince" Billy: The Marble Downs

  If you're like me -- well, my sympathies, firstly, but if so, you may be strongly ambivalent about Bonnie Prince Billy's records -- a few unquestionably brilliant songs, a few more v...read more

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  Black Dice: Mr. Impossible

  Feels a little funny to be talking about "focus" on a Black Dice record, and yet, here we are. Mr. Impossible, the NYC trio's sixth album, peels away more of the violent noise that's...read more

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  Dr. John: Locked Down

  They don't give out Comeback of the Year awards at the Grammys (I think), but if they did, I'm sure Dr. John surely would walk away with a trinket. (Not that he would want such a gar...read more

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  M. Ward: A Wasteland Companion

  After "disappearing" for the past few years behind two side projects, She & Him and Monsters of Folk, M. Ward sidles back into the spotlight on the cheerily titled A Wasteland Co...read more

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  Justin Townes Earle: Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now

  Given his name and namesake (dad Steve gave him that middle name after the very great Townes Van Zandt), Justin Townes Earle has always had a lot to live up to. Yet he's never seemed...read more

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  THEESatisfaction: awE naturalE

  You can tell we dig this record, because you have to be good for us to allow any oddball capitalization scheme in your name. THEESatisfaction is a pair of coolly righteous ladies cur...read more

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  Willis Earl Beal: Acousmatic Sorcery

  As was pointed out in a recent NY Times live review of Willis Earl Beal, it's amazing how your perception of an artist's music can change when it comes with a back story such as Beal...read more

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  Zammuto: s/t

  Nick Zammuto wastes little time getting back to business after the breakup of the Books, making a stark declaration of where his head is at with this instrumentally oriented -- but s...read more

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  Rocket Juice & the Moon: s/t

  Life must be good when you're Damon Albarn, once an angry young(er) man embroiled in a nonstop war of meaninglessness with the bushy eyebrows of Oasis about -- well, who really knows...read more

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  Daniel Rossen: Silent Hour/Golden Mile

  Been a spell since you've heard from Grizzly Bear, hasn't it? You can sate yourself but good with this short-but-quite-sweet EP from the band's guitarist Daniel Rossen, who seems to ...read more

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  Tanlines: Mixed Emotions

  Most bands' Twitter feeds are self-serving and banal, yet Tanlines' (@tanlines) is awesome and witty -- and hardly ever even mentions band stuff. In much the same way, synth-pop as p...read more

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  The Shins: Port of Morrow

  Years after leaving Sub Pop (and stories about the uneasy break with past members of the band), James Mercer's Shins reappear in a burst of fluid melody that sorta makes the five yea...read more

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  v/a: Trevor Jackson Presents: Metal Dance: Industrial Post Punk EBM Classics & Rarities 80-88

  For once, an album title that suffices. The Strut label is as foolproof as they get when it comes to these kinds of compilations, but even we were a little taken aback by the sheer b...read more

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  Odd Future: The OF Tape Vol. 2

  The Odd Future aesthetic is best summed up near the end of The OF Tape Vol. 2, their first major collective release, on the track “We Got Bitches”: “We got bitches / We got diamond...read more

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  Lee Ranaldo: Between the Times and the Tides

  This might sound weird, but because of the band he's in, and because everything regarding that band now is Big News (whether a new album, a concert featuring a classic album played i...read more

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  Black to Comm: EARTH

  This one's for the deep-listeners. Black to Comm is the nom de musique of Hamburg's Marc Richter, who most recently thrilled us with Alphabet 1968 on the Type label (Richter is also ...read more

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  Bushman's Revenge: A Little Bit of Big Bonanza

  Okay, and where did this come from? A little promo arrived in the mail one day, we put it on, and the next thing you know, jaws are scraping the ground everywhere. This is fourth rel...read more

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  Todd Snider: Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables

  Todd Snider has always been a little too eccentric for Nashville, a little too Nashville for your typical indie crowd, and this is too bad all around, since he deserves a prominent p...read more

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  The Magnetic Fields: Love at the Bottom of the Sea

  Life moves in cycles, so Magnetic Fields fans can't be too surprised to find Stephin Merritt & Co. right back where they started, on Merge Records, for their tenth album, Love at...read more

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  Andrew Bird: Break It Yourself

  It's possible to think that they multitalented Andrew Bird could have played every song on Break It Yourself by himself -- he's done it in the past -- but at the risk of slighting wh...read more

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  Ceremony: Zoo

  One word never associated with hardcore punk is “classy,” but you could definitely apply that adjective to Ceremony’s new record, Zoo. Although all of the signifiers of post-hardco...read more

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  Bowerbirds: The Clearing

  Now firmly established as one of the American indie scene's best folk-pop outfits, Bowerbirds have taken their time and spread their wings for their third album, The Clearing. But ev...read more

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  Xiu Xiu: Always

  There is no such thing as a casual Xiu Xiu fan -- Jamie Stewart's music is just too intense for that to be possible, and for proof, the cover of Always is a tattoo of band and album ...read more

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  Dirty Three: Toward the Low Sun

  There's a song on the sweet-bitter new Dirty Three album called "Sometimes I Forget You've Gone," which could be said about the band itself. Not insultingly -- rather the nature of t...read more

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  Oren Ambarchi: Audience of One

  This multitalented Australian guitarist-drummer-electronic artist is known primarily for his work with drone-metal behemoths Sunn 0))), but Oren Ambarchi has built an outstanding bod...read more

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  Mike Wexler: Dispossession

  Fans of singer-songwriter Mike Wexler, especially those living in NYC who've watched him evolve over the years, have always known he had this record in him. Wexler came to prominence...read more

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  Jennifer O'Connor: I Want What You Want

  Some of the best things come out of times of self-doubt. Add Jennifer O'Connor's fifth album, I Want What You Want, to the list. After her deal with Matador ended a few years ago, th...read more

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  The Men: Open Your Heart

  I had previously categorized (I don’t want to say “written off”) the Men as a Jesus Lizard-esque punk-rock band, but with their new album, Open Your Heart, the NYC band busts the flo...read more

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  Frankie Rose: Interstellar

  Things move quickly these days -- Frankie Rose already is (or at least, she seems like) a scene veteran, having released her debut solo 7-inch waaay back in 2009. Still, having moved...read more

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  Sleigh Bells: Reign of Terror

  Set your volume to 12 and your pop to bubblegum: Sleigh Bells are back with their second album, Reign of Terror. Whereas their debut, Treats, sounded like the Powerpuff Girls armed w...read more

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  Grimes: Visions

  Welcome to witch house, kids…whatever that means. Commonly used to describe the spooky, ethereal technopop of bands like Salem and Pictureplane, the term could apply just as well to ...read more

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  Perfume Genius: Put Your Back N 2 It

  It doesn't seem that there could ever be casual fans of Perfume Genius. The music that Seattle's Mike Hadreas makes is so personal that to follow him -- and you should, if you value ...read more