\tPup, \u2018Who Will Look After the Dogs?\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t![\"Pup,](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Toronto punk boys in Pup are veterans by now, going strong on their fifth album,\u00a0Who Will Look After the Dogs?\u00a0<\/a>Twelve years past their frantic, funny debut,\u00a0Pup, they still crash through their tunes with frantic guitar overdrive, as Stefan Babcock\u2019s snotty one-liners break out into brotherly dude-unison sing-alongs. But Pup are taking on tough adult emotions these days. Babcock speaks for us all when he asks the philosophical question: \u201cAlways feeding on the rotting corpse of goodwill and what\u2019s left of humanity\/What the fuck is wrong with me?\u201d\u00a0\u2014Rob Sheffield<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tCar Seat Headrest, \u2018The Scholars\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tWill Toledo of Car Seat Headrest serves up the band\u2019s epic latest album with the tongue-in-cheek claim that\u00a0The Scholars<\/a>\u00a0is \u201ctranslated and adapted from an unfinished and unpublished poem written by my great-great-great-great-grandfather, the Archbishop Guillermo Guadalupe del Toledo,\u201d and he\u2019s taken this project seriously enough to give his opera a libretto. The good news for the common listener is that as far as albums with librettos go, this one is surprisingly easy to bang your way through \u2014 sort of like a Guided by Voices LP expanded to\u00a0The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway\u00a0scale.\u00a0\u2014Jon Dolan<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tDestroyer, \u2018Dan\u2019s Boogie\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tDestroyer has the ability to transport you to another world \u2014 smoky street corners, shadowed cafes, some nighttime realm where everything feels slinky and sad and timeless. The band\u2019s 14th studio album,\u00a0Dan\u2019s Boogie, is no exception, often evoking a broken-down cabaret. It\u2019s telling that the title is so straight-forward, named for frontman Dan Bejar. It\u2019s a quintessential Destroyer record, with even Bejar himself calling it \u201cthe most Destroyer-y sounding Destroyer record in a long time.\u201d And there\u2019s no problem with that \u2014 Bejar\u2019s world is easy to linger in.\u2013Brenna Erhlich<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tMei Semones, \u2018Animaru\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tMei Semones is a Berklee School of Music graduate whose debut album matches mathy musicality with rich melodic craft. Semones and her ace band mix indie-rock, jazz, and singer-songwriter pop in constantly shifting songs that elide expectations without feeling fussy. In fact, it\u2019s all quite breezy. Semones, who sings in English and Japanese, pilots songs like the subtly explosive \u201cI Can Do What I Want\u201d and the lovely bossa nova bop \u201cDumb Feeling\u201d with her warm singing and proudly introspective lyrics. The result is as bright and abstract as the album cover. \u2014J.D.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tPatterson Hood, \u2018Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThe Drive By Truckers mastermind sits down at the piano and pours his nightmares into his masterfully surreal horror show Exploding Trees and Airplane Screams, his fourth and finest solo album, full of his brilliant storytelling. \u201cA Werewolf and a Girl\u201d is a bleak lovers\u2019 rendezvous with spooky vocals from Lydia Lunch, asking \u201cWhat\u2019s a broken girl to do?\u201d Hood teams up with Wednesday and Waxahatchee\u2014just two of the Southern indie upstarts who worship the ground this man stomps on. It ends with the creepiest song ever written about Pinocchio. A line for the times: \u201cHeaven has the pace of a slow news day.\u201d\u2013R.S.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tSunflower Bean, \u2018Mortal Primetime\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThis NYC trio has been rocking out long enough to know exactly how to get what they want. Their fourth album polishes their sound up to a higher gloss and a harder edge, maximizing the gritty glamor of uptempo anthems like \u201cNothing Romantic\u201d and \u201cChampagne Taste.\u201d Ballads like \u201cShooting Star\u201d and \u201cLook What You\u2019ve Done To Me\u201d sparkle more brightly, too, with some of singer Julia Cumming\u2019s most deeply felt performances to date. A decade ago, Sunflower Bean drew attention for their youthful energy, but these days they\u2019re sounding like confident stars at the height of their powers. \u2014Simon Vozick-Levinson<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tGood Flying Birds, \u2018Talulah\u2019s Tape\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tWhen a bunch of scrappy guitar-jangle punchers name themselves after a Guided By Voices song \u2014 the eighth best song on GBV\u2019s best album \u2014 they\u2019re setting the bar high. Even more so when they name their album Talulah\u2019s Tape, inspired by the legendary Eighties Brit indie sensations Talulah Gosh, Amelia Fletcher\u2019s third-best band. It\u2019s a nonstop rush of infectious Midwest power-pop, with mastermind Kellen Baker pouring his miserable heart into high-speed minor-chord pastries, with the crucial harmonies of tambourine girl Susie Slaughter. \u201cFall Away\u201d makes you dream of Bacharach\/David reborn in the cheap amps of an Indianapolis guitar band.\u2013R.S.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tThe Tubs, \u2018Cotton Crown\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThe cover image on the second album from Welsh band the Tubs is a picture of singer-guitarist Owen Williams as an infant, being breastfed in a graveyard by his mother, the author and musician Charlotte Greig. In 2014, Greig died by suicide, and that loss informs Cotton Crown. \u201cSometimes all I see is an empty space,\u201d Williams sings. The band\u2019s buoyant jangle-pop sound recalls the way the Smiths used chiming guitars and taut tunes as a balm against oppressive sadness, making this album both heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time.\u2013J.D.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tFlorist, \u2018Jellyfish\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tFlorist\u2019s Emily Sprague continues to amaze as one of the most stubbornly original indie-rock poets around. The fifth Florist record is playful, with a child-like sense of whimsy, as you might expect from an album called Jellywish, as Sprague sings her ballads full of wonder at the natural world. But as you might not necessarily expect, it\u2019s full of pain and loss, with delicate acoustic guitar and piano. \u201cMoon, Sea, Devil\u201d sums up the album in a two-minute lullaby, with Sprague confessing, \u201cThe earth is small, but I\u2019m lost in it.\u201d\u2013R.S.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tSharon Van Etten, \u2018Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tSharon Van Etten tries a different musical role here: one of the band. She even names the album after her new quartet, Sharon Van Etten and the Attachment Theory. It\u2019s her most groove-oriented music, the first time she\u2019s composed by jamming with other musicians.\u00a0Attachment Theory\u00a0<\/a>goes deeper into the synth-heavy sound she dove into with 2019\u2019s\u00a0Remind Me Tomorrow. It\u2019s propulsive, with extremely Vince Clarke electro burbles driving the beat. Yet it still has her signature indie torch-ballad candor, the style she perfected a decade ago with her masterwork\u00a0Are We There.\u00a0\u2014R.S.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tGarbage, \u2018Let all That We Imagine Be the Light\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tShirley Manson wrote the lyrics to Garbage\u2019s eighth album while recovering from two hip surgeries, so a line like \u201cIsn\u2019t life just so fantastic with our bodies working still?,\u201d on \u201cLove to Give,\u201d cuts extra deep. Most impressive is how she and her bandmates turned her self-affirmations into catchy mantras with melodies that stand up with Garbage\u2019s best work. The best song comes last: \u201cThe Day That I Met God,\u201d a cinematic ballad about Manson finding God in \u201ceveryone I\u2019d ever loved,\u201d but also, funnily, the pain killer tramadol. The music is stunning and Manson\u2019s performance is chilling.\u00a0Kory Grow<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tWater Damage, \u2018Instruments\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThe noise-rock bubble bath of the year. You don\u2019t \u201clisten\u201d to Water Damage so much as you consent to enter an ambient space wherein you get mauled by a dozen or so hairy Austin lunatics with the motto, \u201cMaximum repetition, minimal deviation.\u201d Four tracks, all around the 20-minute mark, tons of guitar, tons of drums, heavy thunder-thud riff-pound devotionals with plenty of quiet spaces until the noise kicks in and elevates you into a trance state, with a little help from art-rock eminence grise David Grubbs on guitar. Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream, heavy on the \u201cdown.\u201d\u2013R.S.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tJens Lekman, \u2018Songs For Other People\u2019s Weddings\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tOn\u00a0Songs for Other People\u2019s Weddings, indie-schmaltz maestro Jens Lekman imagines he\u2019s a wedding singer and it\u2019s funnier than any Adam Sandler movie. The best song, \u201cA Tuxedo Sewn for Two,\u201d describes two grooms wearing a giant monkey-suit-for-two, all while referencing the Spice Girls\u2019 \u201c2 Become One,\u201d Aristophanes,\u00a0The Human Centipede, and \u201c99 Luftballons\u201d in five hilarious minutes. Other highlights include him saying \u201cBlink twice if you need help\u201d when interviewing fianc\u00e9es on \u201cSpeak to Me in Music,\u201d and a tale of a quarreling couple recording each other snoring (\u201cTwo Little Pigs\u201d).\u2013K.G.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tBig Thief, \u2018Double Infinity\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tBig Thief\u2019s latest was a divisive left-turn for some, with its big budget sound, drone-heavy side two, and cheery love song in which Adrienne Lenker sings the phrase \u201chappy with you\u201d no less than 44 times. But underneath the surface of\u00a0Double Infinity exists far more than initially meets the eye. Behind a newly expansive wall of percussion, tape loops, and backup vocals, Lenker meditates on the beauty of aging (\u201cIncomprehensible\u201d), and finding lasting love (\u201cLos Angeles,\u201d \u201cHow Could I Have Known\u201d). It\u2019s a moving document of a band still finding new ways to reinvent themselves after a decade as a band.\u2013Jonathan Bernstein<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tGreg Freeman, \u2018Burnover\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tAfter earning a can\u2019t-miss reputation with three years of dynamite live shows for his 2022 debut, I Looked Out, Vermont rocker Greg Freeman<\/a> turns up the studio fidelity and makes good on all that word-of-mouth buzz. You can hear the details more clearly now, with pedal steel, woodwind, brass, and tack piano arrangements courtesy of a wrecking crew of Burlington pals, but the ragged glory in his songs remains undimmed. As he hollers hard truths and sideways poetry (\u201cWhy\u2019s heartache outside, doing pushups in the street?\u201d), Freeman\u2019s is a voice that holds your attention close. \u2014S.V.L.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tIvy, \u2018Traces of You\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tNo one expected another Ivy<\/a> album after the tragic death of cofounder Adam Schlesinger<\/a> in the early days of the 2020 pandemic, least of all his grieving bandmates. But singer Dominique Durand and multi-instrumentalist Andy Chase, working with longtime touring bandmate Bruce Driscoll, pulled off the near-impossible after finding a lost cache of unfinished songs they\u2019d written with Schlesinger in a storage unit. It\u2019s a joy to hear the sophisticated downtown vibe and unerring melodic instincts of cult classics like 1997\u2019s Apartment Life called back into action like no time has passed. \u2014S.V.L.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tRebecca Schiffman, \u2018Before the Future\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tRebecca Schiffman is a songwriter who\u2019s been on the scene for a couple decades already, a New York hipster kid relocated to L.A. But she gets deep into grown-up problems on Before the Future. It\u2019s a sly, candid sleeper of an album, where Schiffman sets out her life like a box of snapshots, while narrating the details in her dry, matter-of-fact deadpan voice. She sings about raising a toddler in \u201cLittle Mr. Civility\u201d\u2014one of the year\u2019s funniest and warmest parenthood. But the title tune mourns a teenage friend who used to put Jawbreaker songs on mix tapes for her.\u2013R.S.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tGreat Grandpa, \u2018Patience Moonbeam\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThe\u00a0first album in over five years\u00a0<\/a>from Seattle indie-rock band Great Grandpa isn\u2019t just their most fully-realized (though it\u2019s also that), it\u2019s also a genuine\u00a0band\u00a0record.\u00a0The quintet collide influences \u2014 glitchy industrial electronic flourishes, lonesome country & western instrumentation, ornate chamber pop \u2014 and tinker with all sorts of pop-rock conventions. Hidden in plain sight, amid the off-kilter impressionism and untraditional arrangements, is the band\u2019s innate sense of melody. They can turn a nonsense six-word refrain like \u201cit\u2019s closer when I see you, damn\u201d into something profound.\u00a0\u2014J. Bernstein<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tFriendship, \u2018Caveman Wakes Up\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tIt\u2019s time to start talking about Friendship\u2019s Dan Wriggins\u00a0in the same terms as literary indie-rock greats like David Berman, Vic Chesnutt, and Bill Callahan. The Philadelphia band\u2019s rangy Americana-rock is the perfect backing for his gruff, barely hinged singing. But it\u2019s his lyrics that make their fifth album so addictive; Wriggins (who recently got his MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers Workshop) can turn random everyday stuff like an annoying new roommate or a song sent from a friend or a quick trip to the bodega into spools of wry, raw-boned discovery.\u2013J.D.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tBenjamin Booker, \u2018Lower\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tBenjamin Booker garnered wide acclaim for two previous records rooted in furious blues-punk, and expansive in their nods to glam rock, soul, and gospel.\u00a0Lower, Booker\u2019s first since 2017, still showcased his incisive songwriting, but it\u00a0sounded nothing like his past work in the most exhilarating way. Booker and producer Kenny Segal (best known for his work with rapper Billy Woods) split the difference between the Jesus and Mary Chain\u2019s\u00a0Psychocandy\u00a0and Mobb Deep\u2019s\u00a0Hell on Earth.\u00a0Lower\u00a0is blown-out, messy, and jarring, but balances its chaos with calm, and visceral energy with esoteric feelings. It\u2019s music that challenges you in the most rewarding ways.\u2013Jon Blistein <\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tSaint Etienne, \u2018International\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThe London threesome in Saint Etienne go out with a bang on their final album International<\/a>, full of the brilliantly eccentric left-field pop they\u2019ve been crafting for nearly four decades. They play around with Motown, postpunk, Abba, and techno, with guests ranging from Orbital to Doves to the Chemical Brothers, but with their own unique flair for cleverly sophisticated tunes. It ranks in their pantheon next to Nineties gems like Good Humor and Tiger Bay. Pick hit: Sarah Cracknell singing the bittersweet farewell \u201cThe Last Time.\u201d\u2013R.S.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tCate Le Bon, \u2018Michaelanglo Dying\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tA brilliant avant-pop artist who\u2019s also become an in demand producer for artists like Wilco and St. Vincent, Walsh-born, California-based singer-songwriter Cate Le Bon comes up with something opaquely alluring and genuinely moving on her seventh album<\/a>. Singing in a warmly stentorian voice over tracks that can often feel like a surrealist version of sad, synth-y Eighties rock, Le Bon cuts through the dreamy drift of her music with lyrics that deal with heartbreak, jealousy, loss, and regret in movingly real teams. The result is abstract music that truly hits home.\u2013J.D.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tThe Weather Station, \u2018Humanhood\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tOn the Weather Station\u2019s widely acclaimed 2021 album,\u00a0Ignorance, singer-songwriter Tamara Lindeman focused many of her lyrics on the impending doom of climate change.\u00a0This time out<\/a>\u00a0the challenges are closer to home. With her seventh album, Lindeman gets dangerously close to making the 2020s version of Joni Mitchell\u2019s\u00a0Court and Spark\u00a0that so many modern indie artists dream of coming up with. It\u2019s an album that beautifully mixes pop, folk, rock, jazz, and ambient music, taking on moments of personal crisis, transition, and catharsis with engrossing poetic resolve. \u2014J.D.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tModel\/Actriz, \u2018Pirouette\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tOn\u00a0Pirouette,<\/a>\u00a0Model\/Actriz follow up their excellent debut, Dogsbody, with an album that feels entirely unaffected by expectations. The Brooklyn-based noise rockers play with new sounds throughout, starting off with a jackhammering opening stretch in which every instrument is treated like a disobedient drum, before collapsing into melodic reveries only hinted at on their first LP. But the biggest evolution may come from the wildly charismatic frontman Cole Haden, whose impressionistic lyrics have become more diaristic, recalling childhood Cinderella fantasies with kinky, curdling rage.\u00a0\u2014Clayton Purdom<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tPictoria Vark, \u2018Nothing Sticks\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tPictoria Vark is the spoonerism alias of the young singer-songwriter Victoria Park, who turned heads with her 2022 debut album,\u00a0The Parts I Dread. She aims even higher on her excellent\u00a0Nothing Sticks<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 it\u2019s the perfect springtime road trip indie-rock album you didn\u2019t realize you deserved, full of soft-spoken guitar haze and emotional travelogues. The album unfolds like the journal of a wandering young heart who rambles from town to town, from feeling to feeling, but without feeling connected anywhere. As she sings in the witty \u201cSan Diego,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m wherever I go.\u201d\u00a0\u2014R.S.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tStereolab, \u2018\u2018Instant Holograms on Metal Film\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tAny moment is an excellent one for new music from the long-running retro-avant pop band\u00a0Stereolab, but\u00a0Instant Holograms on Metal Film<\/a>, their first full-length since 2010\u2019s\u00a0Not Music, is particularly well-timed. Blending gliding grooves, wowing-and-fluttering synthesizers, and lyrics that elegantly pine for more, Stereolab\u2019s music blisses out without tuning out.\u00a0Precisely crafted pop gems like the vibey \u201cTransmuted Matter,\u201d an abstracted love song with a wordless breakdown, flow into hypnotic instrumentals like the whirling \u201cElectrified Teenybop!\u201d and stretched-out jams like the forceful \u201cMelodie Is a Wound.\u201d\u00a0\u2014Maura Johnston<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tHotline TNT, \u2018Raspberry Moon\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tNineties shoegaze sounds never get old, and Will Anderson of Hotline TNT channels them brilliantly on Raspberry Moon.<\/a> Hotline TNT began a solo recording project but has blossomed into a full band with Anderson\u2019s songwriting gifts as their main selling point. He\u2019s a Brooklyn resident with Midwestern roots, and like Minnesota greats Husker Du before him, he\u2019s able to balance noise and melody in songs like \u201cJulia\u2019s War\u201d and \u201cLetter to Heaven,\u201d distortion-stacked songs you can hum around the house. Heck, the album\u2019s title might even be a Prince reference \u2014 this is a band that doesn\u2019t mind thinking big.\u2013J.D.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tTunde Adebimpe, \u2018Thee Black Boltz\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThe\u00a0first solo album\u00a0<\/a>from Tunde Adebimpe \u2014 of indie-prog titans TV on the Radio as well as the\u00a0Star Wars\u00a0multiverse \u2014 offers an extreme closeup of the human condition, using his mighty howl to tie its wild explorations of genre together. He defies the constraints of \u201cthe age of tenderness and rage\u201d on the churning \u201cMagnetic,\u201d strips down and opens up on \u201cILY,\u201d or charges up the tear-in-the-beer lament \u201cGod Knows.\u201d Throughout, Adebimpe\u2019s physical voice is a beacon, leading the way as he lets listeners know that he can see the world for what it is \u2014 and embraces the possibilities beyond it anyway.\u00a0\u2014M.J.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tDutch Interior, \u2018Moneyball\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThis highly buzzed SoCal six-piece might sound like a chill alt-country band at first, but they\u2019re far less predictable than that. (Is it any wonder that they\u2019re often compared, favorably, to forefathers like Wilco and Pavement?) On \u201cSweet Time,\u201d two of the band\u2019s three guitarists face off with dueling slick-pickin\u2019 solos; \u201cSandcastle Molds\u201d blooms with jittery rhythms and flashes of dissonance. The songs on\u00a0Moneyball\u00a0are full of similarly inventive twists that make the back-porch ballads even sweeter \u2014 and leave you to wonder where Dutch Interior will swerve next.\u00a0\u2014S.V.L.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tSamia, \u2018Bloodless\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tOn\u00a0Bloodless<\/a>, indie singer-songwriter Samia digs deeper than ever and delivers a meditation on modern womanhood that\u2019s both eerie and unflinching in its honesty. She dismantles belief systems and reassembles her identity with a ferocity that\u2019s both unsparing and blissful. Whether she\u2019s making metaphors to cattle mutilation (\u201cBovince Excision\u201d) or writing odes to Sid Vicious (\u201cHole in a Wall\u201d), each song spins and swirls to create something that feels like a major leap from an already must-hear artist. \u2014Maya Georgi<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tLucy Dacus, \u2018Forever Is a Feeling\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\t\u201cI\u2019m thinking about breaking your heart someday soon,\u201d Lucy Dacus confesses in \u201cLimerence,\u201d one of the highlights from her fourth album. On\u00a0Forever Is a Feeling,<\/a>\u00a0she aims for adult-specific love songs, rather than the coming-of-age and coming-out tales that made her name. \u201cIf the devil\u2019s in the details, then God is in the gap in your teeth,\u201d she sings in \u201cFor Keeps.\u201d In the jubilant title song, she takes a romantically charged road trip over sped-up piano. These songs take place in the middle of long-running messy relationships \u2014 some desperately romantic, some just painful. \u2014R.S.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tBlondshell, \u2018If You Asked for a Picture\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tFor her second album as Blondshell, L.A. singer-songwriter Sabrina Teitelbaum is figuring out how much of her life story she wants to tell the world \u2014 how much she needs to tell \u2014 and how much to hide away for herself. On her acclaimed 2023 self-titled debut, she was really letting it all hang out in searing, confessional indie rock. But on\u00a0If You Asked for a Picture<\/a>, Teitelbaum\u2019s more ambivalent, more questioning, reckoning with her painful past, from childhood misery to dysfunctional young-adult romance. These are the songs of an artist who wants to figure out who she is by singing about it. \u2014R.S.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tSharp Pins, \u2018Balloon Balloon Balloon\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tYou might know Kai Slater as the lead singer and guitarist in the Chicago art-punk trio Lifeguard<\/a>, who made one of this year\u2019s best and noisiest debuts\u00a0\u2014 but that\u2019s not all he\u2019s got in his bag of DIY tricks. In his off days from touring with that band, Slater rigged up a tape-deck studio in his bedroom and poured all his sunniest Sixties-pop hooks into this stunningly catchy solo record<\/a>. Play it loud, let the paisley visions sweep you away, and start getting excited for what this extraordinarily creative artist dreams up next. \u2014S.V.L.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tRyan Davis and the Roadhouse Band, Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tIn celebrating Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band\u2019s second album,\u00a0New Threats From the Soul, there\u2019s an impulse to just quote the best lyrics. Yes, the record sounds amazing, filled with sprawling country rock odysseys. But Davis\u2019 lyrics define these songs. He can do staggering one-liners and mesmerizing tongue-twisters. But what\u2019s made him one of the best songwriters of his generation remains his ability to render life\u2019s most complex feelings in the most wonderful ways. \u201cI thought that I could make a better life with bubblegum and driftwood,\u201d he sings on the title-track. Regret and hubris have never sounded so beautiful.\u2013J. Blistein <\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tBar Italia, \u2018Some Like It Hot\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tBar Italia<\/a>\u00a0rose out of the London rock underground with their own seductive guitar buzz, three criminally cool types at home in the dark. Their terrific new\u00a0Some Like It Hot\u00a0i<\/a>s even cockier, steamier, more insistent \u2014 one of the year\u2019s kickiest indie-rock thrillers.\u00a0They\u2019re definitely not shy about showing off their moody rock influences \u2014 a little Slowdive, a lot of the Cure, plenty of the Velvets and Spacemen 3 and Sonic Youth. All over\u00a0Some Like It Hot, they mix up post punk, Britpop, shoegaze, and psychedelia with their own melodramatic flair.\u00a0\u2014R.S.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tHannah Cohen, \u2018Earthstar Mountain\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tIn the six years since Hannah Cohen released an album, she relocated from New York City to the Catskills.\u00a0Earthstar Mountain<\/a>\u00a0is a dazzling love letter to her new home. The album navigates loss (\u201cMountain\u201d), family drama (the Sly and the Family Stone-inspired \u201cDraggin\u2019\u201d), and obscure 1960s Italian thrillers (the Ennio Morricone cover \u201cUna Spiaggia\u201d), and it features her upstate pals Clairo and Sufjan Stevens. \u201cI think that\u2019s what the Catskills are: this open door for people to take in the beauty of this place,\u201d Cohen told\u00a0RS. \u201cEveryone who comes here wants other people to experience the magic that we feel here.\u201d \u2014Angie Martoccio<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tThey Are Gutting a Body of Water, \u2018LOTTO\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThey Are Gutting a Body of Water<\/a>\u00a0have been one of the most crucial American shoegaze bands over the past decade. Douglas Dulgarian began making noise as TAGABOW in 2017, playing house shows and releasing early cassettes like 2017\u2019s\u00a0Sweater Curse. Their new\u00a0LOTTO\u00a0<\/a>is their most intensely emotional noise yet, a showdown with addiction and disease and death. It\u2019s an exorcism of an album \u2014 heavier than heaven, hotter than hell, bold as love. Yet, even on a record with this much bleakness and terror, They Are Gutting a Body of Water make a beautifully uplifting noise.\u00a0\u2014R.S.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tBob Mould, \u2018Here We Go Crazy\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tHere We Go Crazy\u00a0<\/a>wanders the same landscape of tumultuous noise and roiling emotions Bob Mould has been navigating since he co-founded H\u00fcsker D\u00fc in 1979. Gems like \u201cHard to Get\u201d and \u201cNeanderthal\u201d nail a quintessential Mould-ian mix of pounding aggression, oceanic guitar buzz, and teaming melody. \u201cWhen Your Heart Is Broken\u201d rockets to the top of his canon, right up there with the D\u00fc\u2019s \u201cMakes No Sense at All\u201d in its ability to mix effortless anthemic tunefulness with a harried feelings-first urgency. \u00a0The sense of constant growth and accrued wisdom in these songs makes them sink in.\u00a0\u2014J.D.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tMomma, \u2018Welcome to My Blue Sky\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tMomma delivered their fantastic\u00a0Welcome\u00a0to\u00a0My Blue Sky<\/a>\u00a0just in time for a whole new summer of grunge. On their last album, they sang about riding around listening to \u201cGold Soundz\u201d; it didn\u2019t take long before they were opening for Pavement, and this album is twice as great. \u201cOhio All the Time\u201d is a bittersweet but damn-near-perfect guitar vignette about two kids getting lost on the road in the Midwest, trying to figure out if they\u2019re in love, yet neither one brave enough to speak up.\u00a0Welcome to My Blue Sky\u00a0is totally brash, always loud, always effusive, and usually funny even when their lives are falling apart, which is constantly.\u00a0\u2014R.S.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tCraig Finn, \u2018Already Been\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThe Hold Steady frontman has an impressive solo catalog, but\u00a0Always Been\u00a0<\/a>is its pinnacle. Over 11 songs, Craig Finn delivers tales of faithless preachers (\u201cBethany\u201d), broken homes (\u201cCrumbs\u201d), and relationships that should have ended long ago (\u201cLuke & Leanna\u201d) in his infamously idiosyncratic talk-sing style. But what distinguishes\u00a0Always Been\u00a0from Finn\u2019s other solo projects is its clear California piano-rock roots. Even the album cover drives it home, with Finn re-creating the photo from Randy Newman\u2019s 1977 LP,\u00a0Little Criminals. \u2014J.H.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tGirlpuppy, \u2018Sweetness\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tAtlanta singer-songwriter Becca Harvey\u2019s\u00a0Sweetness<\/a>\u00a0is a deeply observed relationship autopsy set to blue, buzzy guitars. On \u201cI Just Do!\u201d she gives us a crushed-out, grunge-pop masterpiece, while pretty subdued songs like \u201cIn My Eyes\u201d and \u201cWindows\u201d see her work through love\u2019s murky middle stages, and she closes it out strumming farewell on \u201cI Think I Did.\u201d Working in the tradition of classics like Marvin Gaye\u2019s\u00a0Here, My Dear\u00a0and Richard and Linda Thompson\u2019s\u00a0Shoot Out the Lights, she delivers a post-breakup banger. \u2014J.D.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tTurnstile, \u2018Never Enough\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThe Baltimore hardcore band\u2019s much-anticipated\u00a0follow-up<\/a>\u00a0to their massive 2021 LP,\u00a0Glow On, is like a mysterious gallery \u2014 not so much a collection of tracks but a series of impressions that are more about a feeling than a message.\u00a0\u201cDull,\u201d produced in part by hyperpop innovator A.G. Cook, sounds like a boxing match, while the standout \u201cSunshower\u201d is like a temper tantrum in a rainstorm, and the Eighties-tinged \u201cSeein\u2019 Stars\u201d undulates like a late-night club track with almost indistinguishable additional vocals from Hynes and Hayley Williams.\u00a0It\u2019s a haunting collection that\u2019s worth repeat visits.\u00a0\u2014B.E.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tPulp, \u2018More\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tIt\u2019s been almost a quarter century since\u00a0Pulp\u2019s last album, but the Sheffield, England, band is back. On\u00a0More,<\/a>\u00a0Jarvis Cocker still embodies a raffish, witty cool that inspires varying degrees of aspirationalism and envy. Songs like the triumphant \u201cGot to Have Love\u201d possess a slow-burning grandeur that is made to send festival crowds into a frenzy, even as their arrangements feel more homespun than the orchestral flourishes of the band\u2019s Nineties work. The results should give their generational cohort a glimpse of how getting older can be a chance to grab brilliance once again.\u00a0\u2014M.J.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tWet Leg, \u2018Moisturizer\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tU.K. indie rockers Wet Leg came out of nowhere in 2021 to become bona fide international superstars. On\u00a0their second album<\/a>, they prove they\u2019ve been partying harder, traveling faster, caring less, and meeting sexier idiots. If you thought they might catch a case of sophomore-slump neurosis after their self-titled debut, you guessed wrong.\u00a0Moisturizer\u00a0keeps everything fast and frisky, ranging from crushed-out bliss (\u201cI\u2019ll be your Shakira, whenever, wherever\u201d) to breakup rage (\u201cYou are washed-up, irrelevant, and standing in my light\u201d). But wherever Wet Leg go, they make you want to tag along.\u00a0\u2014R.S.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tWater From Your Eyes, \u2018It\u2019s a Beautiful Place\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThe New York experimental duo\u2019s second album since signing with Matador Records is a brilliantly disorienting trip. Is it an ambient daydream, a nu metal shredfest, a dance party at the end of the world? Hell yeah, baby, to all of the above and much more. Producer and multi-instrumentalist Nate Amos, coming off a major 2024 breakthrough with his singer-songwriter project\u00a0This Is Lorelei<\/a>, brings some of that magic back to the mothership for an album full of tasty licks, juicy riffs, and honest-to-god guitar solos; vocalist Rachel Brown brings the surrealist patter to match.\u00a0\u2014Simon Vozick-Levinson<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tAlex G, \u2018Headlights\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tAlex Giannascoli was one of the first and finest acts to break through in the 2010s by posting his home-recorded music straight to Bandcamp, and his tried-and-true methods haven\u2019t stopped yielding uncannily compelling results. On his\u00a0first album\u00a0<\/a>for a major label, his ability to create a sound that feels at once magical and lived-in remains remarkable, like whole histories of folk and rock music are expressing themselves through this one chill guy. Whether you\u2019ve been riding with him for years or you\u2019re thinking of joining up today,\u00a0Headlights\u00a0is an album that won\u2019t make you regret that choice.\u00a0\u2014S.V.L.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tSnocaps, \u2018Snocaps\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tThe first release by\u00a0Snocaps<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 Waxahatchee\u2019s Katie Crutchfield and twin sister Allison Crutchfield of\u00a0Swearin\u2019\u00a0 \u2014 feels like a classic indie-rock record. \u201cBrand New City\u201d takes flight like vintage Guided by Voices, \u201cCherry Hard Candy\u201d is a mid-tempo chugger that spits clipped couplets breathlessly, and \u201cAvalanche\u201d lands partway between the\u00a0Byrds\u2019 \u201cMr. Tambourine Man\u201d and the La\u2019s \u201cThere She Goes.\u201d\u00a0 Blood harmonies alone would be reason enough to cheer this surprise debut, but the push and pull of styles here between two artists makes Snocaps such an especially compelling outfit.\u00a0\u2014Will Hermes<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tJapanese Breakfast, \u2018For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women)\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t \n\tMichelle Zauner\u2019s fourth record may thrum with melancholy, but it\u2019s way more than just \u201csad girl music.\u201d\u00a0For Melancholy Brunettes<\/a>\u00a0is an evolution of everything she\u2019s done before \u2014 merging imagery both mythic and mundane with A-class instrumentation. Zauner grapples with the fickle nature of the muse \u2014 whether you\u2019re a long-ago poet or a small-town strummer; see \u201cOrlando in Love,\u201d a Greek legend of a track that tells the tale of the titular poet and the sirens that drag him down. This LP is a folk tale, a small-town barroom yarn, a gothic novel, and a ghost story, all in one.\u00a0\u2014B.E.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n \tBon Iver, \u2018Sable Fable\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n