Listeners who prefer dense rock/pop timbres will no doubt prefer Mikal Cronin's 'Seeker'. However, 'Switched-On Seeker' will surely delight fans of smaller-scale electronic filters.
Waxahatchee's "Lilacs" is the song we didn't know we needed. It's a beautiful teaser for Saint Cloud, out 27 March.
Suddenly is Caribou's most willfully experimental album to date, his soft, distinctive vocals flow through every track, binding the whole thing together.
Dan Bejar seems omnipresent on Destroyer's first album of the 2020s, moving through the arrangements at his own whim.
TORRES' Silver Tongue is her most mature release to date. Its nine songs, all evocative and transporting, strive toward a new vocabulary for connection, confidence, and queer love.
Montreal's Little Scream offers up reflections on class and poverty disguised as sweet low-key pop songs on her real grower of an album, Speed Queen.
After some adventurous wilderness time, Mikal Cronin builds on his indie rock style to draft a compelling new direction with Seeker.
Imperial Teen's latest album may be about the state of the world and how hopeless it is. It may also be about how there actually is hope. Roddy Bottum and Lynn Truell reflect on the group's past and present. "When we're at our best, we represent a movement," says Bottum.
Imperial Teen's Now We Are Timeless shows what a veteran band can do when they are locked in together. Highly recommended for fans of the kind of pop-rock that doesn't make the mainstream charts anymore.
Evoking best elements from post-punk and new wave, Gauche offers up an impolite and delightful debut album.
Glasgow-based indie poppers Sacred Paws offer up a second album full of brisk, bright songs that draw from several styles, notably Afrobeat and post-punk.
Deftly avoiding the pitfalls of nostalgia, Fruit Bats' Gold Past Life takes stock of life from the vantage point of middle age and charts a path forward with hope and no little circumspection, without once feeling sorry for itself.
On their sixth studio album, New Jersey punk rockers Titus Andronicus, normally associated with big, ambitious gestures, get back to basics.
Apex Manor (Ross Flournoy) returns after a long break with his first album since 2011, Heartbreak City, and a cracking new single that deals with life's break-ups in "Asked & Answered".
Reigning Sound's 2011 album, Abdication... For Your Love, reissued on Merge, is a tour de force of grassroots rock and soul.
The Mountain Goats create a complex and vibrant album that moves between worlds with In League with Dragons.
It's Real proves that Ex Hex can draw influences from different eras of rock music and spin them into something that sounds like only them.
Doko Mien highlights Ibibio Sound Machine's versatility as the group continues to bring Lagos and London together in new ways.
Lambchop's new album is the musical equivalent of that final "walk" monologue from Synecdoche, New York. It's a heavy listen, but potentially a rapturous one as well, for anyone who has ever experienced a reverie of aging and all it entails.
Martin Frawley's (Twerps) first solo album has a lot of range but not so much anxiety, as he continues to try on musical styles and forms.
With a new hometown and a fresh perspective, Bob Mould releases a rich, dense, and instantly lovable new album, Sunshine Rock.
Think of William Tyler's fingers as the wind rattling the leaves on the trees. There is no storm coming, but the gusts have their own power and cannot be ignored. They make a statement.
Fucked Up's Dose Your Dreams compensates for its conceptual emptiness with a sound that blasts on all fronts.
Baby Grand is a study of contrasts, as the Love Language's saccharine pop-sensibilities underscore affective lyrics while diverging with razor-sharp instrumentation.
Someday Everything Will Be Fine is the best album yet from Spider Bags. It's an effort that pays loving homage to Dinosaur Jr. and other assorted acts that influenced their lurching brand of guitar-fueled madness.
"I don't like being told what to do," Stickles says. "I don't like to delegate too many of the duties related to this rock business of mine."
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