Stats' Powys 1999 features songs that feel like they're gliding on a dance-rock groove, even when they actually aren't. The music is catchy and clever and always glossy.
Adulkt Life eschew catchy hooks on Book of Curses, and its brevity works in its favor. At 26 minutes, the band's abrasive punk is quite listenable.
The Rentals release a space-themed album, Q36, with one absolute gem of a song.
Garage rockers Magick Mountain debut with Weird Feelings, an album big on fuzz but light on hooks.
After a couple of albums figuring out what they wanted to do musically and a few years shuffling members, Alaska is really where things started to click into place for Between the Buried and Me.
Medium Rarities is the kind of album that will appeal mostly to longtime Mastodon fans.
Godcaster's Long Haired Locusts is a swirling, sloppy mess of guitars, drums, flutes, synths, and apparently whatever else the band had on hand in their Philly basement. It's a highly entertaining and listenable album.
Sea Girls' debut album Open Up Your Head is a catchy, very listenable record full of the kind of mainstream pop-rock anthems that are in short supply on the pop charts these days.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Barenaked Ladies' Maroon, we offer a song by song reflection on why the Canadian group's fifth LP is so triumphant.
St. South has released a debut album full of raw emotions and intimate bedroom pop. Get Well Soon is a loose concept record about a breakup and the variety of responses it produces.
Pleasure Line shows that Video Age clearly have the musical chops to pull off a precise pastiche, but it also shows a band that went too far down that rabbit hole.
If you ever thought 2000s hard rock needed more guitar leads and solos, Viserra have you covered with Siren Star.
The Silent Circus shows Between the Buried and Me developing towards the progressive metal titans they would eventually become.
Vistas' debut, Everything Changes in the End, features bright rock music that pulls influences from power-pop and indie rock.
Vistas' debut album, Everything Changes in the End, is a chunk of bright rock music that mainly pulls influences from power-pop and indie rock.
The Academy of Sun's The Quiet Earth is an interesting mish-mash of styles. Singer-songwriter-pianist-bandleader Nick Hudson prefers to use "Gothic dystopian post-punk" to describe the band.
Khruangbin's third album Mordechai is a showcase for their chemistry and musical chops.
Sweden's Freja the Dragon has toured with Peter Björn and John, and on Long Gone Girl, she partners Björn Yttlin to craft her exemplary debut showcasing her mesmerizing brand of art pop.
Canadian indie rockers Wares offer up their first LP for a label. Survival demonstrates that combining indie rock and synthpop can be pretty difficult to get right.
Between the Buried and Me's debut is a little weirder than expected, but not nearly as creative as they would become.
Jason Isbell both subverts and embraces country and rock tropes on Reunions, his new album with the 400 Unit.
Hold Space for Me, the debut album from Orion Sun, is an accomplished blend of soul and R&B, with a little hip-hop thrown in as well.
Every track on Sorry's indie rock debut, 925, features something interesting, but the songs don't quite gel yet for the young London band with a lot of promise.
Fotocrime's South of Heaven is interesting mostly in that it's one of the most mediocre rock records I've heard in a long time.
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