With the explosion of Rapidshare links and free editing/DJ software in the past few years, you’d be forgiven for thinking that all new records were going to end up sounding like someone put the Sublime Frequencies catalog through the wash—just a mess of overloaded influences and disparate sounds. A relief then that Luke Roberts’s debut can dig up a well of such intimate, homegrown sounds and songs. His weary, slightly broken voice is somewhere between Townes Van Zandt and Kurt Vile—young and wise, but with an even-older worldview and simplicity. Musically, the tracks (recorded by Harvey Milk’s Kyle Spence) can showcase poetic grace and finger-picking chops (“Epcot Women”) as well as...

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First, a little perspective: Tago Mago came out in 1971, the same year as Sticky Fingers, Maggot Brain, Hunky Dory, Master of Reality, There’s a Riot Goin’ On and Electric Warrior. Even with that kind of rarefied company, this album still seems sui generis. Sure, Can had recorded before and the results were as beguiling as brilliant, but Tago Mago was (and is) a double-length album like no other. Four decades on, and there has yet to be anything that hits on this kind of organic, brain-melting, structured psychosis. The key here is the locked groove of drummer Jaki Liebezeit and bassist Holger Czukay. These guys get into a kind of metronomic interplay that remains the group’s largest...

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Todd Goldstein probably hadn’t anticipated working on a second album under his ARMS moniker—at least not this quickly. The project had initially been meant as a nice little lo-fi solo outing, something put together in the downtime from the guitarist’s primary obligations with N.Y.C.-based upstarts Harlem Shakes. But after releasing his ARMS debut Kids Aflame in 2008, Goldstein’s time with Harlem Shakes wound up being entirely short-lived, as the buzz-worthy band fell apart within months of the release of its own debut the following year. Left with more free time than he anticipated, Goldstein has now devoted himself to ARMS fulltime, turning it into a properly backed band, and making the...

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Many pundits worried that Noel Gallagher was so far past his prime that he was only capable of dull Dadrock. Thankfully, we were wrong. Oasis breaking up was just thing the guitarist-turned-frontman needed. His deftly executed—and surprisingly eclectic—debut features flourishes that Liam never would have allowed: honky-tonk horns (“The Death of You and Me”), vibe-y Chemical Brothers beats (“AKA…What a Life!”) and social commentary (“Soldier Boys and Jesus Freaks”). Album closer “Stop the Clocks” may be a spiritual brother to The La’s “Looking Glass,” but the chiming epic is also one of the best tunes the Britpop hero has written since “Champagne Supernova.” It’s inevitable that Oasis will...

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A warm sea of synths and funky drum machines open Summer Camp’s full-length Welcome to Condale. It’s a charming affair, filled with boy-girl harmonies with a splash of retro charm—made even more anachronistic by the inclusion of 1980s film samples. But under the bubble-gum exterior are two top-shelf musicians elevating teen-pop tropes—such as a Spector girl-group refrain (“Ghost Train”) or playful vocal sparing (“Losing My Mind”)—into thoroughly modern kiss-offs. A dizzyingly sweet ride.

Thee Oh Sees’ Castlemania scored rave reviews from fans and critics alike. Not content to coast, however, the band has released a second 2011 LP entitled Carrion Crawler/The Dream. It was recorded in a matter of days and does an admirable job of capturing the electric spirit of the band’s live shows. Stacking up well alongside contemporaries like Black Lips, Quintron and King Khan, Thee Oh Sees blend convulsive punk with head-lolling psychedelia. The album opener and title track is simplistic, blissed-out, high-energy rock and roll with an irresistibly sexy guitar walkdown that pounds itself into your brain. “Crack in Your Eye” is all dirty growls, where “Robber Barons” employs a spacier...

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This is prolific American singer-songwriter Cass McCombs getting things done. His second album this year, after the emotionally marooned and stark Wit's End, Humor Risk is a livelier affair and its venturesome aesthetic wanders. Fuzzy alt-rock and breezy Americana tracks rub elbows with dire blues and Laurel Canyon folk. McCombs keeps the energy high throughout—the absence of which was evident on Wit's End. Taken together, the two are a whole, proper followup to 2009's epic Catacombs.

A good many fortnights ago, I had the glorious fortune to be present at a Sigur Rós live performance at the Botanique in Brussels. Availed of no distracting companions, I experienced something not unlike Stendhal’s Syndrome, an instance of being so overwhelmed with artistic passion and beauty as to become physically disoriented afterwards. Inni, a new double album and 75-minute film documenting the final Sigur Rós live appearance from late in 2008, captures the experience with a striking power. As it opens with the terrifyingly beautiful wail of Jónsi Birgisson’s violently bowed guitar, there is an equal sense of doom and exhilaration. The film then cuts to one of those great idiotic...

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David Lynch isn’t weird enough. At least not here, on his very first album as a solo musician. You’d expect it to be a series of pig squeals, dentist-drill buzzes and shotgun blasts. Something that might measure up to Crispin Glover’s The Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution, the Solution Equals Let It Be (“McFly?”). But instead, these songs have rhythms and melodies and, in some cases, they even adhere to the verse-chorus-verse structure. Angelo Badalamenti has reliably provided Lynch with unforgettable, haunting scores for his films. Crazy Clown Time comes across as Lynch trying to measure up to his own composer, but falling short. (That may be more of a compliment to Badalamenti...

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The Vision, the latest from bass music sensation Joker, strikes a wondrous balance of doom and poppiness. Dramatic and beautiful, the record seems a document of a tumultuous time; cries in the night, deadly serious. Take “Slaughter House,” an overwhelming dystopian vision of electro-pop glory until it’s incinerated by the masterfully generated synthesizers’ U.F.O. jet-wash. Throw some Sonic the Hedgehog vibes in, and you’ve got yourself a bombastic record.