A former member of indie elite bands Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts and Dum Dum Girls, Frankie Rose sits comfortably on her own amid a dazzling jumble of dreamy synths and slippery guitars on Interstellar. Her calming purrs pulsate like a yogi chanting by the sea, especially when she sings new age-y lines like, "All that I want is a pair of wings to fly/ Into the blue of the wide open sky." Bouncy pop tunes like "Know Me" and "Had We Had It" recall the jangly retro vibes of her previous bands, but mostly Interstellar has the grand melodrama of The Cure -- through a slightly rosier lens.
Brooklyn's finest cheerleader-metal duo is back with more candy-coated ultraviolence. Reign of Terror is a blood feast of vicious guitar riffs, bleacher-stomping concussion grenades and meticulously feral noise, topped by breathy frontgrrl Alexis Krauss' gorgeous, lethal come-ons and put-downs. Basic concept: Murderous femme Transformers covering "We Are the Champions." "Comeback Kid" is a raging pep talk, but it's the ballads, particularly cock-rock stunner "You Lost Me," that will really leave you bloody. If nothing here makes the Hunger Games soundtrack, then somebody screwed up.
Who is Lana Del Rey? The 'net nearly imploded in 2011 with bloggers trying to figure that out. And judging by her debut, even Lana (born Lizzy Grant) seems perplexed. Born to Die attempts to cast her as the sultry seductress, ever lusting after fame and the boy with the "cocaine heart." But past that pretty-girl pout is nothing but a lost and lovesick ingénue: Think Nancy Sinatra sans the boots. But this juxtaposition works, mostly in the top half ("Born to Die," "Video Games," "Blue Jeans"), as she rolls her smoky pipes around symphonic strings and trip-hop beats, like one of Tricky's sirens.
Mike Hadreas is no light soul. He digs, unabashedly, into the darkest corners of dark, turning tales of addiction, overdoses, suicide, hookers, porn, death and his mom into truly haunting music. His sparse orchestral pop recalls such earnest singer-songwriters as Elliott Smith, Sufjan Stevens, Cat Power and Antony Hegarty; his second album weaves piano, acoustic guitar, strings and horns around vocals that shake with just the slightest hint of a man holding back a major crying jag. Still, rays of light emerge, on occasion: "I will carry on with grace/ Zero tears on my face."
Centipede Hz, Animal Collective's ninth, is, at least by name, an apt metaphor for the band's gift at piecing together myriad sounds into odd yet seamless creatures. The quartet drives in hyper-mode, miles away from the lush pop of Merriweather Post Pavilion: Synths bubble like active mud pools as rickety beats, organs, guitars and sneering, distorted yelps (mostly from Avey Tare) run in feverish circles ("Monkey Riches"). "Today's Supernatural" rides a decaying global-punk carousel, "New Town Burnout" is Radiohead translated by Martians and "Amanita" is named after toxic mushrooms. Eat up.
This gripping, doleful singer-songwriter ascends to Brooklyn indie-rock royalty on her third album. Produced by Aaron Dessner (he of fellow gorgeous mopers The National), Tramp is a shattered, lovesick affair centered by the quavering intensity in Van Etten's voice as she moans, say, "You're the reason why I'll move to the city/ Or why I'll need to leave." The result seethes with the same fury and rawness that powered PJ Harvey's Let England Shake; special guests include Beirut's Zach Condon on the bruising panic-attack lullaby "We Are Fine." The extreme-close-up album cover says it all.
One of singer Alice Glass' few detectable lines comes at the end of "Kerosene": "I'll protect you from all the things I've seen." If (III)'s icy, paranoid darkwave is any indication, we fear she's seen too much. Even in its dreamier moments ("Affection," "Child I Will Hurt You"), there's still a sense of doom behind every ghostly drone, woozy synth, Atari blip, bass-dense throb and satanic backward loop ("Plague" has it all and more). When Glass isn't purring like a faraway ghost, she shouts with a distant terror that sounds like Sleigh Bells' Alexis Krauss being sucked into a black hole.
Post-Internet... super-hybridity... recombinant pop... whatever Simon Reynolds-approved tag you prefer, Visions nails it. On her debut album for dream merchants 4AD, Claire Boucher erects a fractal geometry from shards of electro, early-1990s R&B, synth pop, disco and new age. As with many other electronic producer-mavens to emerge in the 21st century, she sounds as if she grew up worshipping Björk, Enya and Gang Gang Dance. Though Visions contains discrete tracks, they appear to melt into one another, not unlike a DJ mix or, if you're old enough to remember, a well-crafted mixtape.
Produced by Nigel Godrich (Radiohead), the Brooklyn band's third album moves along like that titular ship, serenely floating in waves of synths on tracks like "Hard to Be Close," "Over the Ocean" and "Alone But Moving," while occasionally getting caught in a gusty storm of anxious motorik beats in "Make Up Your Mind" and "I Believe in Action." The soothing flow feels a bit like Junip or The Sea and Cake at times; Luke Temple's folky croons offer calm and comfort amid understated yet foreboding blasts of white noise, all culminating in a soft foghorn ominously blowing at album's end.
"Excuse me, mister/ Excuse me, miss/ I got a problem/ I got a lot of 'em." These NorCal punks are plenty agitated on their Matador debut, mixing the classic agit-pop of Wire and Buzzcocks with the cerebral-yet-visceral hardcore of labelmates F*cked Up. Less brutal than their early stuff, Zoo is still a whiplash minefield of focused rage and deceptive calm, frontman Ross Farrar cycling between brattiness, bemusement and bewilderment. Quotable dude, too: "We have to give up the things we love sometimes" if you're feeling thoughtful, "I'm dyin'/ I'm dyin'/ I'm dyin'/ I'm dead" if you're not.
It should come as no surprise that Divine Fits' debut is the product of some very beloved indie-rock vets -- there's just such an effortless coolness to it. Splitting vocal duties are Spoon's Britt Daniel and Wolf Parade/Handsome Furs' Dan Boeckner, as New Bomb Turks' Sam Brown works the rhythm and Alex Fischel adds crunchy keyboard to sculpt a sound that seamlessly blends Daniel's funky falsetto and sharp guitar pop ("Flaggin a Ride," "Would That Not Be Nice") with Boeckner's quaking howl and eerie synth rock ("My Love Is Real," "For Your Heart"). It's a fit that's simply, well, divine.
A spacey trip of layered electronic fuzz and icy synths, Sun makes a sharp left turn from the elegant trajectory of Cat Power's catalog. But despite the fact that tunes like "Ruin" (an electro-infused Montuno number) and the title track (which opens with laser-lit mega-club synths) are odd ducks alongside the earthy tunes of her past, Marshall's dusky voice -- passionate, alert, sometimes utterly joyful -- is as emotionally powerful as ever. A Radiohead futurism makes "Manhattan" a highlight, but the 10-minute "Nothin But Time" -- dressed in square-wave synths and sitar -- is an epic triumph.
"We know now we want more/ A life worth fighting for," Santigold dazedly drawls on "Disparate Youth," the standout track from her sophomore album. And she fights hard here, after four years of writer's block and touring burnout, getting Karen O to crash the party on the militaristic dub-punk opener "Go!" and snatching writing and production help from such A-listers as Dave Sitek, Boys Noize, Q-Tip and Major Lazer's Switch and Diplo, whose apocalyptic, bass-heavy dancehall dominates much of the album. Meanwhile, Santi herself sizzles with sass and spunk on songs like "Fame" and "Freak Like Me."
What were you doing at age 20? Cloud Nothings boss Dylan Baldi was already recording this, his third album, with none other than Steve Albini warming the producer's chair. Now with a full backing band, Baldi's sound is noisier and... ballsier. Songs break into sludgy instrumental jams, most notably on "Wasted Days" and "Separation." The drums are beaten to a pulp, and so are the guitars, as he howls like a kid trapped in existential angst. "Give up, come to/ No hope, we're through," he moans on the opening track. Forget about the 2012 release date: This is quality '90s slacker rock.
"A church is not for praying/ It's for celebrating the life that bleeds through the pain," Alexis Taylor coolly intones on "How Do You Do?" According to this definition, Hot Chip's church is clearly the dancefloor, a place they seem even more indebted to on their fifth album. The nearly hour-long set is jammed with honeyed melodies mainlined into infectious grooves that move from mid-tempo house to 2-step to electro-funk to disco. Sometimes their Casio cheese can cross into Chromeo parody or lite-rock fluff, but mostly they keep the beats sleek and the melodies lip-smackingly sweet.
This Toronto trio would've fit right in alongside shape-of-grunge-to-come pork-porkers of the Head Of David/Janitors/Scratch Acid ilk back in the mid-'80s. Given the blues-less riff propulsion, back-of-the-mix vocal chants and especially the drum wallop of "Headache" and "Knife in the Water" (shades of Breaking Circus' "Knife in the Marathon"?), it's surprising Steve Albini isn't the producer. They're big on punk drone and fond of trash-compacted art-noise buzz, too -- notably in "Nausea." But the instructively titled "Get Off" and "Wasted" are where they really open a can of nerd whoop-ass.
Grizzly Bear have an incredible ability to balance grand beauty with stark eeriness. The quartet's fourth album weaves intricate melodies into a plush quilt that has the power to change colors, shapes and textures with each listen. Throughout, myriad sounds -- droning synths, distorted guitar, acoustic picks, off-kilter beats, horns, strings and those cavernous choir-boy croons -- clash, then mingle, then waltz together. The arrangements feel more based in free jazz than anything in the rock canon; just see "Yet Again," which starts like Coldplay before falling headfirst down the rabbit hole.
As with their debut, frontman Kevin Parker wrote and produced the majority of Tame Impala's second album; Lonerism, then, is an apt title. He sings of isolation and alienation as if he's trapped in a dream he has no intentions of awakening from; his heavy-lidded, layered, Lennonesque chants would sound distant and detached if it weren't for the way he so expertly weaves them through an intricate tapestry of woozy guitars, wobbly synths and poppy beats. Songs like "Apocalypse Dreams" and "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards" ooze with astral escapism as much as they squirm with paranoia.
The music of Spiritualized often flirts with the edge -- the consequences of living on it and the results of falling over it. 2008's Songs in A&E saw an ailing Jason Pierce contemplating that plunge, but on this follow-up, he sounds rejuvenated, even grateful at times -- see rockers "I Am What I Am" and "Hey Jane," in which he sings the album's title with genuine satisfaction. He's still chronically obsessed with the end, though, and that means the music remains mostly bold, intense and unabashedly grand: Even the instruments themselves sound terrified, as if they know their cacophonous fate.
All Hell seems to have the power to slow down time -- or at least your heart rate. Daughn Gibson's debut album flows like a narcotic easing its way through the bloodstream. The trick is in blending two seemingly disparate genres -- lonesome outlaw country and twitchy dubstep -- together until the mix bleeds black. Gibson's brooding baritone oozes with the resigned dread of Johnny Cash or Scott Walker, while his echoing piano and synths trace the line between Burial and James Blake -- see "Tiffany Lou" or "Lookin' Back on '99," which has the lost-highway rhythm of a David Lynch mind-bender.
The Vancouver duo's sophomore release is a celebration indeed, with its juicy rock 'n' roll center bookended by the popping and cracking of fireworks. "Don't we have anything to live for?/ Well of course we do/ But until it comes true, we're drinking" -- that's how these guys lead us into Celebration Rock, a set of joyous oh-oh-oh's and fuzzy, raucous guitar-drum interplay. Lead vocalist Brian King has the snotty shout of an indie-rock god from the '80s, a decade they take a lot of cues from, channeling Springsteen and The Replacements, and covering The Gun Club's "For the Love of Ivy."
Fiona Apple perfectly sums up the visceral power of her music right at the onset of her fourth album: "Every single night's a fight with my brain/ I just wanna feel everything," she yowls, her tongue twisting each syllable with the force of a bullet. Throughout, it's this vicious self-combat that bleeds out as erudite rhyme ("orotund mutt" with "moribund slut") and metaphor ("I could liken you to a werewolf the way you left me for dead/ But I admit that I provided a full moon"). Meanwhile, the skittering percussion and free-jazz flow sound as wild as the battle in her brain must feel.
Beach House have yet to lift out of their somber dream-pop haze. The Baltimore duo's fourth album Bloom is another sleepy beauty built upon endless layers of guitar, keyboard and organ which fuse into a sort of glowing negative space around Victoria Legrand's inimitable soulful howl. "What comes after this momentary bliss?" she purrs on opening track "Myth." They answer that with an hour of dreamy drones that float like M83 and guitar riffs that ground it all with a post-punk gravity. Beauty has its limits, though: By 17-minute "Irene" you may already be at another state of (un)consciousness.
Managing to evoke both pastoral landscapes and urban blight, hippy-dippy wistfulness and disciplined musicality, hipster chic and burnout naïveté, An Awesome Wave is a badass study in bricolage, not to mention radical jams. Though the psychedelia can be heavy-handed at first (harmonized a cappella bleating? On track two?), the songs save the day. See: the dizzying arrangements on "Breezeblocks"; the unexpected jauntiness of "Something Good"; the warm glow of "Ms." With melodies buried like lice in hippy hair, the record continues to unfold with each successive listen. Positive vibes, man.
