Pop 'stache

Upon first glance of Marcus Mumford and his hokey band of fellow Brit folksters, not much has changed.

Even the idea of a percussionist is regarded as an unwelcome pipe dream to the bare bones quartet. Frontman Mumford is still proudly sporting a gravity-defying Flock of Seagulls coif,  and this British quartet is still reeling about the trials of life and love with Emersonian limericks and generous doses of banjo melodies.

The release of the highly anticipated Babel symbolized a career power play for Mumford & Sons.The sophomore album is always a defining moment in an artist’s catalog—it holds the capacity to prove that the debut album’s success wasn’t a fluke, a testament that the band’s work merits relevance. By no means did the dandelion-crowned folk stars buckle under a sophomore slump; they still have the same stomp-the-barn sing-alongs and throat-scraping vocals.

Babel then is more of a plateau, a myriad of the tried-and-true Mumford & Sons transcendental trickery executed on a much grander scale and with some glittery flourishes.

The title track features a jangly banjo riff that couples with Mumford’s raspy growls in a magical, sepia-toned daydream. The track (one of the album’s shortest at just over three minutes long) wastes no time in building into what has become a distinctly Mumford & Sons symphony of organized chaos of Steinbeck imagery and dramatic vocal rips. The commanding stomp of a deliberate foot and the subtle acoustic guitar anchoring allow introspective lyrics like, “Cause I know my weakness, know my voice/ but I believe in grace and choice/ And I know perhaps my heart is farce/ But I’ll be born without a mask,” to snatch the listener’s focus.

The album’s lead single, from which Mumford & Sons fans have been subsiding their rampant thirst for more cathartic folk-rock, “I Will Wait” is painfully reminiscent of the group’s chart shattering debut single “Little Lion Man.” The infectious down-by-the-bayou chant was heavily inspired by the band’s hectic touring lifestyle, a sentiment that pervades throughout the course of the nearly hour-long album.

The staccato guitar and curt lyrics usher a respectful nod toward the single, but Mumford’s generous slurs showcase an intent of restraint and gingerly applied artistic license. Laments of a “tethered mind” and commands to “raise my hands, paint my spirit gold” exert Mumford’s newly wrangled lyrical assertiveness in a masterfully crafted swirl of wistful revelry.

“Ghosts That We Knew” is a haunting canvas for Mumford’s quivering voice to creep to the forefront.

His tender cries are held with restraint and glittering with hesitant forthrightness, gathering some body from his silver-tongued band mates. The lingering unison offers the bolstering wisdom of a church choir as the tender finger picks of a banjo not lurking far in the aural distance. Eventually Mumford’s voice fades into the painstakingly fashioned chaos and leaves listeners with chills meandering up their spine and memories bubbling in their minds.

The album closes with “Not With Haste,” brimming with typical Mumford & Sons grandeur and violently oscillates between melancholic rawness and unrestrained potency. The control of the verses is quickly abandoned as the band builds into a thrashing crescendo charged with tension. Mumford seems to have successfully tamed his precocious beast of a voice and his band of nostalgia-lugging brothers contently construct intricate soundscapes so that discipline can shine. The dramatic jumps from sparse sonnet to bombastic ballad leave listeners a bit befuddled and without a sense of closure with the album.

Mumford & Sons carve Babel into a platform on which the band underscores its newly honed musical tenacity that has pushed the band’s boundaries from niche-genre royalty to a boldfaced sonic force to be reckoned with. Babel maintains just enough familiarity that fans are not intimidated by a departure from Mumford and Sons’ charmingly down-home sound, but the album does not squander its admitted inspirations.

It is the same old charmingly aged pickup, but with some flashy new hardware and artistic liberties to make it feel new.

Mumford & Sons – Babel tracklist:

1. “Babel”
2. “Whispers in the Dark”
3. “I Will Wait”
4. “Holland Road”
5. “Ghosts That We Knew”
6. “Lover of the Light”
7. “Lovers’ Eyes”
8. “Reminder”
9. “Hopeless Wanderer”
10. “Broken Crown”
11. “Below My Feet”
12. “Not With Haste”

Band of Horses has slowly withdrawn into a shadow of themselves. Ben Bridwell’s distant vocals swimming in a deep blue sea of generously laid guitar riffs and assertive waves of cymbal crashes in debut album Everything All the Time is but a distant memory to the Seattle outfit. And with each release—from the disappointingly one-trick pony collection Cease to Begin to the ambient falters of Infinite Arms—Band of Horses has attempted to recover from their blunders, scattering pieces of their musical identity along the way, and ultimately leaving them in a melancholic shell of a band. But everyone loves tales of the underdog overcoming doubt and seizing triumph. Mirage Rock isn’t quite a tragedy, but sure isn’t a comeback.

Band of Horses bursts past the starting line with the sharp delivery of lead single “Knock Knock,” a fantastically squeky clean piece with plenty of pensive “ooh’s” to satisfy any teenage indie-rock wet dream. Dull twinges of The Deserters can be heard in the upbeat vocal delivery and humming guitars. Routine drum fills leave the piece rickety and without any foundation off of which to build a heart single. Throw in the steady delivery of some base handclaps and the recipe for a piece of modern guilt pop is complete.

“Slow Cruel Hands of Time” is the defining track of the album and follows a confining form to which the remainder of the eleven-track release seems to follow. It is an unremarkable testament against the decaying elements of time. Bridwell’s vocals illustrate no real urgency and seem to be too concentrated to be illustrating a believable distress. The track, while attempting to harken back to the delicate nature of previous releases, is flimsy and forgettable. The repeated chant of the title, poetic it may be, becomes preachy and leaves the listener dissatisfied.

“A Little Biblical,” a frigid pop groove, resembles an attempt to squeeze into the idealistic vein of indie rock with plain percussion and an infectious guitar riff. While the song manages to seize attention, it still falls flat amidst a lack of innovation. The track’s lasting impression is reminiscent of the studio mayhem that would ensue if Bad Books had popped a Valium in anger management.

Clash-like guitar riffs meandering from Brit rock to radio-friendly of “Feud” show the band’s potential to emulate the greats with their own coffee shop-fare spin. But the charming melody and delivery is spoiled by overly cutesy slips like “a little birdy told me.” The Seattle quintet taps into a cabin-in-the-woods campfire tune “Everything’s Gonna Be Undone,” a charmingly simple surrender of control with soaring harmonies. The cut is undoubtedly the most candid track on the album, and maybe that’s because it serves as a symbol for the album as a whole. Maybe Band of Horses knows that the dissolution of their indie-rock pipe dream is imminent. Maybe everything is gonna be undone, we just don’t know it yet.

Ben Bridwell’s voice harbors some strength to forge a lasting impression on listeners with his honey-dripped drones on closing track “Heartbreak on the 101.” While his voice meanders into boy-band whines, Bridwell’s attempt at a heavy-hitting thrasher cannot go unnoticed. And with a quivering guitar solo to cap off the snappiest number of the album, Band of Horses don’t quite go out with a bang, but at least it’s a crash.

Mirage Rock is short and quick, leaving no lasting impression from its 40-minute time crunch. There is no unifying theme or real purpose for its creation, which makes it even harder to listen to. Mirage Rock is theatrical in the sense that nothing is as it seems; the entire album is a carefully focused effort engineered toward one goal—to be everything great about indie music today, from the throwback guitar riffs to “more cowbell” folk ditties. Band of Horses is trying to be themselves trying to be the next great American indie band trying not to try to hard. And while it may not sound pretty, it must be the role of a lifetime.

Band of Horses – Mirage Rock tracklist:

1. “Knock Knock”
2. “How to Live”
3. “Slow Cruel Hands of Time”
4. “A Little Biblical”
5. “Shut-In Tourist”
6. “Dumpster World”
7. “Electric Music”
8. “Everything’s Gonna Be Undone”
9. “Feud”
10. “Long Vows”
11. “Heartbreak on the 101”

This is a letter to my countrymen / Not from a Democrat or a Republican / But one among ya / That’s why you call me Brother / Ain’t scared to tell you we’re in trouble cause I love you.

2012 marks the beginning of a more definitive role in social and political activism for Minneapolis raised rapper Brother Ali. Member of the independent hip hop label Rhymesayers (Atmosphere, Aesop Rock, MF Doom), Ali rolls with a crew of rappers known for their verbosity, intelligence and conscious lyrical content. Despite the popularity of labelmate and founder Atmosphere, Rhymesayers remains an independent label scouting underground artists with free speech on their minds. Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color marks the fifth studio album for Brother Ali and outlets his emerging boldness on issues such as racial and religious bullying, anti-corporate sentiments and major problems with our political systems.

Ali explains in “Letter to My Countrymen” that racial struggles permeate our culture still, and that sharing as a communal instinct is still so painfully far off the grid of desirability. “I think the struggle to be free is our inheritance / And if we say it how it really is / We know our lily skin still give us privilege / That’s the truth in life you gotta choose / Do I fight in the movement or think I’m entitled to it.” These struggles have personal weight, too. Ali has albinism, and frequently acknowledges the discrimination he experienced growing up as a large part of what shaped him today.

Mourning in America strives to initiate a cultural evolution, and Ali couldn’t have chosen a more opportune release date. September 18th is only six weeks before our very own presidential election, and Ali is unabashedly pushing for a more socially liberal, peaceful and tolerant world. In June he was arrested for participating in the occupation of a Minneapolis home for protecting the family that was being evicted from it. The arrest got publicity for an anti-PNC bank bullying cause. He continues to paint a picture of racial oppression and poverty in “Stop the Press,” calling the streets a “dead zone decorated with chalk lines and headstones.” Pessimism grows when generations see poverty repeat itself, so he rhymes with eclectic eloquence, “Crime just calls you cause you look at what you walk through / ain’t certain if you’ll make it ain’t sure you even want to.”

This album is as much for the public good as it is for his personal goals. Opening track “Letter to My Countrymen” explains: “Excuse me but I see it from a different view / I still believe in what a driven few can really do / I know that the masses wanna sleep / and they would just rather hear me rapping to the beat but / I wanna pass this planet to my son a little better than it was when they handed it to me.” These lyrics- like those on the rest of the album- are eloquent but not elite, verbose but patiently delivered. Ali continues his reputable personal addresses with the narrative “All You Need,” a consolation song directed towards his son: “There’s a whole lot of pain in your bloodline / But there’s a whole lot of strength in the sunshine / Lean back let the new day greet you / Cause you’re standing on the shoulders of a people / Who been beat down and treated unequal / But the prayer that they made now has reached you.”

The powerful chorus to final track “Singing This Song” wraps around Ali’s closing verses, and the album here solidifies itself with intentions to reform passivity and inform change. A preacher’s voice screams “I want my humanity back. I want to be a human again. I want to live in a fair world.” Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color is conscious and relevant poetry. The music is less about hip hop beats and more about Ali’s lyrics & flow, both of which flourish. What the album lacks with new producer JakeOne’s less-than memorable beats (previous albums were produced by Ant of Atmosphere) it makes up for with beautifully composed words and a big warm voice. Brother Ali is an activist voice to listen for and an excellent application of skill, while keeping hip hop confidence fly: “Truth so heavy it could rumble the earth / I dunked a paint brush up in a bucket of words.”

Brother Ali – Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color  tracklisting:

1. “Letter To My Countrymen” (feat. Dr. Comel West)
2. “Only Life I Know”
3. “Stop The Press”
4. “Mourning In America”
5. “Gather Round” (feat. Amir Sulaiman)
6. “Work Everyday”
7. “Need A Knot” (feat. Bun B)
8. “Won More Hit”
9. “Say Amen”
10. “Fajr”
11. “Namesake”
12. “All You Need”
13. “My Beloved” (feat. Choklate and Tone Trezure)
14. “Singing This Song”

The Mountain Goats’ lead handler John Darnielle has a gift for discerning peculiarities of the human condition and capturing these oddities in his songs. Transcendental Youth is focused around the unremitting survival of counter-culture social outcasts. The album reflects a “cast of characters” living in Washington state who all seem to be suffering from a degree of mental illness or social clumsiness. While many Mountain Goats albums include storytelling and the weaving in about out of characters, Transcendental Youth is one of a handful of records produced by them that leans more toward the concept album category.

In terms of sound, Transcendental Youth is a mixed bag, and tossed in is a full horn section in select songs. You get the bouncy “Harlem Roulette” (where the “loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you’re never going to see again”), and the hand-clapping, full horn section on “Cry for Judas,” which speaks directly about survival: “Long black night/Morning frost/I’m still here/But all is lost.” And then there’s the dark, minor-chord-driven tracks, like “In Memory of Satan,” where this narrating character has taped up the window and cloistered himself away from society. “But no one screams cuz it’s just me / Locked up in myself / Never gonna get free,” Darnielle sings. In “Lakeside View Apartments Suite,” the song follows the story of a person who sleeps most nights in the kitchen (“keep my face cool on the floor”). The song opens slowly with piano chords and a melancholic feeling. Though it speeds up to a mid-tempo and employs a soft drum beat, the chilly ambiance perseveres throughout.

Whether the subject is religious antagonism or people who live like outlaws, suffer from schizophrenia or recluse into their own human psyche, Darnielle and his crew have their number. It’s almost as if every Mountain Goats album is a different chapter in a college psychology book. And there’s no telling what subject matter the Mountain Goats will unearth and grapple with next.

Transcendental Youth is the threesome’s (Darnielle, writer, guitarist, vocalist and composer; Peter Hughes, bass; and Jon Wurster, drums) 14th studio album. It is scheduled to release Oct. 4 on Merge Records. The Mountain Goats are currently touring the U.S. in support of the new album.

The Mountain Goats — Transcendental Youth tracklist:

1. “Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1”
2. “Lakeside View Apartments Suite”
3. “Cry for Judas”
4. “Harlem Roulette”
5. “White Cedar”
6. “Until I Am Whole”
7. “Night Light”
8. “The Diaz Brothers”
9. “Counterfeit Florida Plates”
10. “In Memory of Satan”
11. “Spent Gladiator 2”
12. “Transcendental Youth”

The UK’s Alt-J (∆) has been making its mark this year, playing Leeds Festival 2012 and receiving the Mercury Reward, and all before the release of its first album.

The early praise was answered when the debut, An Awesome Wave, came out on September 18. That answer was an album with electronic folk overtones, and a pseudo-pop sensibility covered in a calm atmospheric glow. However,  to call the album folk/pop or trip/folk (or whatever other comparison one can draw) does the debut little justice.

Alt-J (∆) is a collage of rich harmonies, patient drumming and emotional melodies that are brought out with a range of different instruments beyond their guitar, bass, keyboard setup.

An Awesome Wave opens with “Intro,” which is more a full song than a simple introduction. It has a smooth, groovy, electronica feel, with low-frequency effects on the vocals and odd samples (akin to Massive Attack) that don’t come back for the rest of the album. What sticks around is a serene groove that doesn’t subside despite the range of style in each track.

The a-Capella interlude “Ripe and Ruin,” sounds like an oddly paced hymn and leads seamlessly into the third track, “Tessellate,” which was also released as a single from the album. Front man Joe Newman’s graceful and distinctive vocals carry the album along, and the calmly moving “Tessellate” is a great example of that. At moments the song suspends, hanging and waiting for Newman to subtly sing, “Let’s tessellate,” before slipping back in. The song also keeps with the geometric motif that Alt-J (∆) seems to follow. The band is named after the keyboard command for a Mac computer that produces the Delta symbol, but the shape itself fits with the polygonal theme.

The fourth track, “Breezeblocks”, is an anthem that wanes from a driving rhythm to a subdued verse, while maintaining. Despite lyrics that playfully threaten a lover with cannibalism (“Please don’t go, I’ll eat you whole”), the song has a lively, youthful feel. A toy piano makes a quick appearance and Newman’s swelling vocals make reference to Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are” (“Do you know, where the wild things go?”). It’s enjoyably childish, and Breezeblocks is a definite highlight off An Awesome Wave.

The latter half of the album is at times eclipsed by the strong start, but “Fitzpleasure,” brings the excitement back with thick, fuzzy synth sections and Newman projects his voice beyond the albums normally soft vocals. At times, “Fitzpleasure” is reminiscent of Radiohead (the whole album has those moments), but the style pivots and changes before one can ever put a finger on what the track is becoming.

As a debut album, An Awesome Wave is beautiful and cohesive. Alt-J (∆) is scheduled to tour the US this fall and it wouldn’t be surprising if the band caught on with fans of Fleet Foxes, Radiohead, Elbow, or the like. The recognition Alt-J (∆) earned is more than warranted by An Awesome Wave, and the band is carving out new ground in a guitar-ladden world where many musicians dry up.

Alt-J(∆) – An Awesome Wave tracklist:

1. “Intro”
2. “(Ripe & Ruin)”
3. “Tessellate”
4. “Breezeblocks”
5. “(Guitar)”
6. “Something Good”
7. “Dissolve Me”
8. “Matilda”
9. “Ms”
10. “Fitzpleasure”
11. “(Piano)”
12. “Bloodflood”
13. “Taro”

Before reading this, go back and listen to the three songs that made Kanye West  famous as a solo entity – “All Falls Down,” “Through the Wire” and “Jesus Walks.” Amidst the ecstatic production, there’s a unifying theme to West’s character, and it’s something that he’s never given up, even up to this, his GOOD Music label’s first group release, Cruel Summer. Kanye West, philanthropist and philanderer, only ever really wanted to be a Holy Man.

Religion is difficult to quantify, but what West has forced upon modern hip-hop these past nearly ten years could be close. He’s officially surpassed his mentor, Jay-Z, in cache, transcendence and power. He has reached pop’s pinnacle, now only looking up at Michael Jackson, whom West may never want to eclipse anyway. And now he has his disciples, a rag-tag, disparate group of rappers, singers and production phenoms that have come together to create this, Ye’s Acts of the Apostles. If Fantasy was intended to be a bizarre art project about the limits of hip-hop, then Cruel Summer is a baffling religious studies thesis, asking the question “exactly how hedonist, morally corruptible and wild can we be and still get the masses to flock to us?”

For most of its running time, Cruel Summer is almost impossible to turn off. West fires the big guns first, leading off with the grandiose and wonderful “To The World” with a typically all over the vocal spectrum R. Kelly. Then it’s off to “Clique,” where West flat out murders Jay-Z, adding another track to the almost open and shut case file that Hova needs to retire for real this time. “Mercy” is the sort of track West shoves his kids (Big Sean and 2 Chainz here) onto because there’s almost no way to screw it up. By the time he’s finished his blitz through the record’s first half, West takes a backseat and watches his descendants fend for themselves.

This is when things go off the rails. Safe to say that some of West’s apostolate may not be quite as ready for primetime. Consistently the weakest parts of his tracks, Cyhi Da Prince can probably at this point be stamped a bust. Big Sean has the voice and malevolence of an up and coming superstar, but can take whole songs off (“Don’t Like”), and refers to spa days far too often. There are no mathematical ways of predicting what version of 2 Chainz will show up at any given moment, the acceptably baritone rapper or the apathetic druggie. Marsha Ambrosius makes a passable attempt at being Alicia Keys on the snare-heavy ballad “The One,” and John Legend and Common show up for just long enough to prove they really don’t belong.

The real star of the record, though, is Pusha T. Fresh off his bonkers rap on the otherwise pristine “Runaway,” Pusha delivers an inspired set of verses here that, while not necessarily coming close to his early Clipse work, seem to indicate he has a good future as Kanye’s sidekick. When he introduces the masterful “New God Flow” with the snarling line “I believe there’s a god above me / I’m just the god of everything else,” it entrenches Pusha as the prince of GOOD Music. But, as he inadvertently notes, there is a god above him. Not a an actual deity, per se, but a similarly spiritually inclined Chicago rapper.

While the B-listers muck up the proceedings, Kanye hovers over Cruel Summer, curating to perfection the facets of the end product he can control. The beats are consistent and engaging, the most powerful of which coming from arena-bound phenom Hudson Mohawke and “Clique” progenitor Hit-Boy. Kanye’s uber-controlled persona gives rise to a slight maturation in even the unlikeliest of places – Kid Cudi. “Creepers” is one of the better songs Cudi has done since “Day n’ Nite,” and it’s right in his wheelhouse. Lately Cudi has taken to overcooking his self-effacing pop-hop. Kanye just makes sure the mixture comes out right.

More than an album, Cruel Summer feels like Kanye flexing his considerable rap muscle and seeing what sort of product he can create under his own themes: hedonism, introspection and warped gospel. Many of his disciples haven’t totally bought into the formula yet, but Cruel Summer is an interesting enough trinket from the World of West, somewhat succinctly putting a point on why he is such a fascinating and often frustrating pop giant.

GOOD Music – Cruel Summer tracklist:

1. “To the World” (feat. Kanye West & R. Kelly)
2. “Clique” (feat. Kanye West, Jay-Z & Big Sean)
3. “Mercy” (feat. Kanye West, Pusha T, Big Sean & 2 Chainz)
4. “New God Flow” (feat. Kanye West, Pusha T & Ghostface Killah)
5. “The Morning” (feat. Pusha T, Raekwon, Common, Kid Cudi, 2 Chainz, Cyhi The Prynce & D’Banj)
6. “Cold” (feat. Kanye West & DJ Khaled)
7. “Higher” (feat. Pusha T, The-DREAM, Cocaine 80s & Ma$e)
8. “Sin City” (feat. John Legend, Cyhi The Prynce, Malik Yusef, Teyana Taylor & Travi$ Scott)
9. “The One” (feat. Kanye West, Big Sean, 2 Chainz & Marsha Ambrosius)
10. “Creepers” (feat. Kid Cudi)
11. “Bliss” (feat. John Legend & Teyana Taylor)
12. “Don’t Like” (feat. Kanye West, Pusha T, Chief Keef, Jadakiss & Big Sean)

Mother Mother’s soon to be released The Sticks starts with the terrible, dips its toes into an occasional groove, and ends with a screeching symphony of yikes.

On the heels of its relatively successful 2011 release, Eureka, the Vancouver-based quintet had a lot to rise up to with its fourth album, but The Sticks fails to do more than aggravate even the slightest of hangovers.

The band sticks to its trademark peculiar preludes into songs by kicking off the album with a quick, melodic tune, “Omen.” The opening track offers a slight resemblance to the morbid, childhood playground tune “Ring Around the Rosie,” fully equipped with a youthful-sounding boy’s breathy whisper creeping in and talking about digging a hole to fill with his bones. All these things would have been fabulous if the two songs immediately following weren’t so painful.

According to band-lore, Mother Mother’s founding father Ryan Guldermond started the band with the idea that the group would create “vocal driven pop songs,” something that they did with seamless ease on their last albums. Albeit incredibly pop-y, the band’s first single off of The Sticks, “Let’s Fall in Love,” is an outrageously unfortunate combination of Muse and Evanesence – yes, that says Evanesence. The tune is fun and dance-y, but the song somehow manages to generate this sense of anger that doesn’t exactly translate with lyrics like “funny little monkeys in the zoo do it…let’s fall in love.”

Along with overall pleasure pulsing tunes, this album is missing the cohesive band-sense that came with Mother Mother’s previous releases. Eureka (2011), O My Heart (2008), and Touch Up (2007) manage to melt Guldermond and his sister Molly’s vocals together in a way that is non-existent on The Sticks. Perhaps the band has tired of the course laid out for them by their label Last Gang Records; The Sticks is the fourth and final album on the band’s agreement. With overly manufactured tunes like the first single and “Business Man” the heart of the album is in question. Is this an honest try or a quick way to fulfill their contract?

There are, fortunately, moments of glimmering hope toward the middle of the 14-track album. Songs like “Dread in My Head” and “Happy” provide a refreshing view into the potential that Mother Mother holds. “Latter Days” is by far one of, if not, the most enjoyable track on the entire album. It does justice for the explosions of awful that happen earlier on the album and at the every end.

After picking up the pace with several successful tunes, The Sticks ends with “To the Wild.” The auditory shock provided by the female vocalist is staggering. Taken just as an individual song and not a piece of the primarily male-vocalized album, it would be great. Unfortunately the unexpected change of sound prompts the listener to wonder if they’ve happened upon a recording of SNL’s Abby Elliot’s impersonation of Khloe Kardashian.

The album comes full circle with that kid talking about digging his bones again. For something that could have been so good, Mother Mother fails to deliver.

Mother Mother – The Sticks tracklist:

1. “Omen”
2. “The Sticks”
3. “Let’s Fall in Love
4. “Business Man”
5. “Dread In My Heart”
6. “Infinitesimal”
7. “Happy”
8. “Bit by Bit”
9. “Latter Days”
10. “Little Pistols”
11. “Love it Dissipates”
12. “Waiting for the World to End”
13. “To the Wild”

Misery loves company. And in this case, the “company” is Jens Lekman’s latest album I Know What Love Isn’t. This is the first we’ve heard from the Swedish native in five years; and based on the album’s theme, Lekman’s last few years have held the lion’s share of heartbreak.

Without doubt, Lekman has a gift for making breakups seem funny and uplifting. Above all else, his talent lies in his clever lyrics and his ability to tell a story. (His track titles, alone, are indications of his wit —”Every Little Hair Knows Your Name” and “Some Dandruff on Your Shoulder.”) He takes melancholic, depressing material and mixes it with his dry sense of humor and wordsmithing. It’s as if each song casually continues through a very literal conversation about love and breakups—two areas of which Lekman speaks like a veteran. “Loving without loving is always the worst crime / I know all the signs and signals ‘cause now I’ve been on both sides / The way you choose your words, the limpness of your hand / I almost died when you introduced me as a friend,” he sings in “The World Moves On.”

In typical Lekman fashion, tracks throughout the album draw on ‘70s-esque hooks, as he weaves in strings, piano and occasional an flute and saxophone to make the music have an encompassing feel. I Know What Love Doesn’t Look Like opens with a solo acoustic guitar in “Every Little Hair Knows Your Name.” While he’s setting the tone for the album in this song, Lekman sings as if he’s catching up with the woman he’s just broken up with: “I started working out when we broke up / I can do 100 push-ups / I could probably two if was bored.”

Listeners don’t have to put Lekman’s work under a microscope to pick up on his Belle and Sebastian influence—his vocals parallel those of Stuart Murdoch. There is also a Kooks/Sufjan Stevens feel to many of his songs, as well. He utilizes an interesting mix of instruments to create a dreamy, out-of-this-decade sound. For example, in “Erica America,” along with the flurrying of strings, there’s also a saxophone solo toward the end of the song. He orchestrates the album with a diverse palette of instruments—it’s definitely not the typical guitar-bass-drums line-up.

What is probably Lekman’s best observation and/or piece of advice on the album: “You don’t get over a broken heart. You just learn to carry it gracefully,” he sings in “The World Moves On.” I Know What Love Doesn’t Look Like takes an interesting perspective on losing love. It might not be the most appropriate album to listen to hours after a weepy breakup; but when you’re ready for a good laugh and your misery needs some company, reach for I Know What Love Isn’t.

Jens Lekman – I Know What Love Isn’t Look Like tracklist:

1. “Every Little Hair Knows Your Name”
2. “Erica America”
3. “Become Someone Else’s”
4. “She Just Don’t Want to be with You Anymore”
5. “Some Dandruff on Your Shoulder”
6. “I Want a Pair of Cowboy Boots”
7. “The World Moves On”
8. The End of the World Is Bigger Than Love
9. “I Know What Love Isn’t”
10. “Every Little Hair Knows Your Name”

Since its conception, Grizzly Bear has a seen a tremendous evolution.   The eerie, lo-fi bedroom musings of leading man Ed Droste were appropriated for their debut Horn of Plenty with the aid of drummer Christopher Bear.  Grizzly Bear’s second release, Yellow House, saw an unexpected and exponential sonic expansion with the admission of multi-instrumentalists Daniel Rossen and Chris Taylor.  With the ante upped and a challenge to write music as a whole band, the four-piece song architectural firm built the skyscraping Veckatimest.  To keep a long[er] story short, in 2009 Grizzly Bear could have boasted (if they weren’t such humble guys) to be one of the only “do-no-wrongs” to emerge in the 2000s music scene, an era of numerous successful debuts and subsequent failures to launch.

Until a few weeks ago Grizzly Bear’s fourth album, Shields, had fans tweaking with ached anticipation.  Would the new album potentially risk indie rock credibility and become a “sell-out” record dominated by poppy fare?  After all, “Two Weeks” found its way onto college bar soundtracks a few years ago sandwiched in between MGMT’s “Electric Feel” and Animal Collective’s “My Girls.”  Would Shields be too conservative and latch onto the successful cross-over aesthetic of Veckatimest and its predecessor Yellow House?  Or would it be too out-there, ultimately turning off their recent converts?

Shields streamed on NPR’s website last week for an early listen.  One thing became apparent very early on–the new album isn’t challenging per se, but it certainly doesn’t have a one-spin snare like “Two Weeks.”  This, however, should not discourage the listener.  Shields is an album that builds on itself with multiple listens.  At first it might seem like an average rock record, but a few listens through and one will notice innumerable production intricacies: Chris Taylor’s sprinkled effects, Bear’s clever percussion, warm but subtle instrumentation, frequent and seamless musical segues.  For a breakthrough, throw on a pair of headphones to check out the gorgeous stereo mixing.

As per usual, Grizzly Bear has an incredible introductory track.  Shields begins with “Sleeping Ute” which sounds like a not-so-distant cousin of Jeff Buckley’s “So Real.”  Bear’s quirky time signature and Rossen’s dainty little riffs and finger-picking are at the forefront with jarring percussion at every turn.  “Sleeping Ute” forecasts much of what is to come on the album: angelic guitar work, fluid major to minor shifts and rich, sprawling soundscapes.

“Speak in Rounds” begins with a chugging bass and aped drum before taking off with a skittered Feelies-esque strum, cruising into a powerful, echoed chorus and fiery horn-blared outtro.  Initially, the Alt Rock conventionality of “Yet Again” feels like a deliberate beg for mainstream radio play (complete with twinkling a-ha synth), but the track is delightfully twisted with a frightfully aggressive guitar solo and punctuating drums.

“What’s Wrong” has an effect not unlike the melancholic gramophone filter of Yellow House‘s “Marla.”  The result is a talkie soundtrack for a speakeasy bar fight.  “What’s Wrong” is also tracked ironically right after “A Simple Question” which may account for some of the emotional unrest at Shields‘ core.  The penultimate track, “Half Gate,” contains some of the most impressive lyrics on an overall well-written album.  “A quiet picture drawn each day before it ends / To remind me once again / Why I’m even here,” is an applicable, albeit somber, image for each of the songs on the album.

The weaker tracks on Shields (read “out-shined by their neighbors”) call up third-party vocal stylings.  The pretty but plodding “The Hunt” echoes Hail to the Theif-era Thom Yorke and the jaunty “A Simple Answer” sounds similar to Win Butler’s delivery on early Arcade Fire.  Thom Yorke makes sense as Grizzly Bear toured with Radiohead not too long ago and one could do worse than echoing Win Butler, but truth be told, Grizzly Bear sound their best when they sound like Grizzly Bear: smooth yet complex, multi-layered harmonies.

Akin to their awesome intros, Grizzly Bear is also wont to have epic finales (think of the wondrous monument “Colorado” at the end of Yellow House).  “Sun in Your Eyes” is a testament to Grizzly Bear’s ability to build a song from a simple piano chord progression and snare-tick to an absolutely grandiose ballad.  “So bright / So long / I’m never coming back,”the lyrics backed by the staccato piano boom with all the power of an Icarus death-cry; but unlike Icarus, Grizzly Bear’s wings don’t melt away and they instead soar off like a shrinking spec into a distant, blinding light.

Shields isn’t indie rock perfection, but it’s the closest that anyone has gotten in some time.  It is well-orchestrated, well-executed and well, worthy of your attention.

Grizzly Bear – Shields tracklist:

1. “Sleeping Ute”
2. “Speak in Rounds”
3. “Adelma”
4. “Yet Again”
5. “The Hunt”
6. “A Simple Answer”
7. “What’s Wrong”
8. “Gun-Shy”
9. “Half Gate”
10. “Sun in Your Eyes”

The Avett Brothers, for all their possible quantifiers, are not a band to be branded as subtle. Powerful, yes. Emotional, certainly. Nuanced? Not so much. For X years the band has quietly ascended the mountain of folk-pop, from the potential filled Emotionalism and Second Gleam EP to the just off-center I and Love and You, now finally a culmination of their ascension to the pinnacle: The Carpenter. Again helmed by guru Rick Rubin, and again a willful tightening of the band’s already tightened, digestible essence, The Carpenter is destined to be the Avett’s breakout, be that a good or ill prophecy.

It’s hard to say that the success The Carpenter will afford the Avett’s is unearned. The band have fought tooth and nail to build themselves up from nothing, a genuinely appreciable backstory that the Brothers’ main rival, Mumford & Sons, can’t hope to co-opt as their own. Mumford may still be taking undeserved attention from the Avett’s, but The Carpenter’s overtness and pristine production figure to take a small slice out of the overrated Sons’ pie. The real issue lies in where that chart-topping iTunes hit will come from on the record: Perhaps “Live and Die,” even though it takes steals a little bit too much sunshine from the childish melodies of They Might Be Giants. But everything here is so earnest that it’s hard to begrudge some of the songs for being earnestly happy.

But it’s not as if the Avett’s were very complex from the beginning (“The Ballad of Love and Hate” from Emotionalism”). But things seem even a bit more on the nose here – a lovelorn ode to depression here (“Winter in My Heart”), and couple of bookend set pieces about the beauty of life (the first and last track, the latter of which is wincingly called “Life”). This overtness isn’t unwelcome, and the band certainly aren’t just screaming “I’m sad” into a microphone ad nauseum. Yet for some reason, label-dictated reasons or a sudden burst of maturity, emotional complexity has run dry of the Brothers.

Maturity is a large theme on The Carpenter. At least half of the songs wrestle with death in some form – from the obvious eulogy (“Through My Prayers”) or the opening track’s mission statement (“If I live a life worth living / I won’t be scared to die”). Elsewhere there’s a woozy mid-tempo number about accepting ones flaws (“Down With the Shine”) and a legitimately sweet dedication to one of the Brothers’ first children (“Father’s First Spring”). The latter even gives up a line directly about the band’s maturation – “I was a child before the day I met Eleanor.”

Scattered amongst the new fatherhoodisms and mature rumination about ones spot in life are a few old touchstones of the Avett’s former youthful heartbrokenness. The album’s best track is a vicious number, the rocking “Pretty Girl From Michigan,” which cops a mean guitar riff while telling about a (what else?) love gone wrong. Sadly there are also the woefully ill-advised changes of formula. “Paul Newman vs. The Demons” is an awful attempt at straight rock, but ends up sounding a bit like Incubus and betraying the entire aura of the record. The song is only slightly saved by its somewhat decent lyrical bent, a callback to former denial-of-the-past times. But the fact remains that twentysomething angst doesn’t really suit these boys anymore, not with the obvious turn towards middle age.

Rubin’s production helps to move this maturity on its way. Maybe their restless spirit, one of the gifts that brought them so far up the fame mountain, is blunted a bit by the increased production values, but it’s hard to deny that The Carpenter is gorgeously engineered, probably earning Rubin a Grammy nod. But the Avett’s were going to grow up sometime, best to be in Rubin’s ultra-capable hands. And maybe the band have grown into a different audience or demographic. The question then becomes whether The Carpenter is good enough to get the audience that got The Avett Brothers here to keep traveling the road with them. The bandwagons about to get a lot more crowded, and The Carpenter is divisively overt enough to give past fans just enough pause to get off before the Avett’s play their first stadium shows.

The Avett Brothers – The Carpenter Tracklist

1. “The Once and Future Carpenter”
2. “Live and Die”
3. “Winter in My Heart”
4. “Pretty Girl From Michigan”
5. “I Never Knew You”
6. “February Seven”
7. “Through My Prayers”
8. “Down With the Shine”
9. “A Father’s First Spring”
10. “Geraldine”
11. “Paul Newman vs. The Demons”
12. “Life”

Coexist marks the second album for English indie trio The xx. The 11-track follow up to 2009’s debut xx is available to stream on the band’s website this week; there’s even an interactive map for streaming background pleasure. It’s fan likability is definitely based on which elements from 2009’s xx were most favorable. Coexist lassoed the down-tempo, subdued expression of emotion full on this time. Standout elements stick to repetitive atmospheric riffs, soft and sexy vocals and electronic percussion that’s ever too gently sprinkled on top. The excitement of crescendos and intermittent energy provided by parts of their last release don’t make much of an appearance on this one.

“Angels” opens the album with their signature minimalism and Romy Madley Croft’s confessional lyrics. She sings softly like there’s nothing to prove, like the song isn’t meant for anyone other than her lover. The result is a beautifully stripped love song, but also an undeniably easy one. Second track and single “Chained” follows similar suit, with Croft and Oliver Croft reminiscing in duet about a failed relationship. Its deep lo-fi electronic traits compare to James Blake, SBTRKT or even Bloc Party at their absolute lightest. The energy level of this album as one is really lacking, which wouldn’t normally be cause for complaint, except that almost every song regresses to become slower than how it began. This has a significantly painful effect on listenability, causing the album to drag into a state of heavy-eyed drowsiness.

This is certainly what we sign up for when putting them on though; it’s music that is meant for solitude, not socializing. The drowning effects in “Our Song”, a duet with Sim and Croft, waver akin to the ambiance of Future Islands. The minor downsteps in “Swept Away” similarly journey to slow, monotonic plains. “Tides” breaks into more varietal arrangements, which feel fresh and overdue. Coexist hymns generously for a select amount of listeners, among them those with patience or love heavy on the mind and a taste for extremely minimal music. Although we should hope now for a bigger transition to their next album, it should be recognized that this group has the power to creep up on a listener after the 3rd or 4th run though an album, and for that a unique merit is deserved.

The xx – Coexist tracklist:

1. “Angels”
2. “Chained”
3. “Fiction”
4. “Try”
5. “Reunion”
6. “Sunset”
7. “Missing”
8. “Tides”
9. “Unfold”
10. “Swept Away”
11. “Our Song”
12. “Reconsider”

Usually flanked by his tin-voiced, guitar-toting sister, Angus Stone has broken free from the hackneyed sibling-duo dynamic and headed in a newfangled direction—more accurately, the woods. Featuring loosely plucked banjo grooves and Mississippi Delta harmonica solos, Stone’s first eponymous solo release (he released an album in 2009 under the cryptic moniker “Lady of the Sunshine”), Broken Brights deserves the tip of a distressed straw hat, or however you praise a flannel-clad, bedroom-eyed folkster’s body of work.

The title track teeters between Americana influences and electronic dashes throughout the four-minute sleeper single. Stone’s silver-tongued chants complement smooth guitar grooves and a crisp, simple drum line. Rather than boring the listener, the simplicity of the piece lends an indisputable honesty to poetic non-sequiturs, “Shake them bones let me lost tonight. We’ll grow young make me feel alright.”

Singing nonchalantly over dueling acoustic and electric guitar dubs and jovial claps on “Bird on the Buffalo,” Stone poses potential as a milder, in-treatment doppelganger of melancholic indie royalty Kurt Vile. The combination of Stone’s sparse musical approach and charming electronic flourishes anchors the song without meandering into unwelcomed sonic territory.

“The Blue Door” leaves behind faint footprints in exotic territory with pipe flutes and tawny guitars. “Apprentice of the Rocket Man,” however, marks a weary middle for the album, with few musical nuances and a tired delivery. Relaxed is the phlegmatic Aussie’s vibe of choice, but it seems that even he has pushed past his pass-the-peace-pipe threshold. “Monsters,” one of many tracks exceeding the lengthy 5-minute mark, features an infectious banjo accompaniment that would make a Mumford envious and is undoubtedly the most complex Stone composition. With female overdubs and desperate wolf calls, “Monsters” is the creative highlight of the album.

“Only A Woman” musters up some musical girth with the help of aching backing vocalists. Stunning in its raw and blistering blemishes, emotional dips and cracks scatter as Stone wheezes through lyrics depicting yearning and heartbreak. Dejected pleas begging to be taken “back to them old days…when you held me close in that sweet rain” result in the a trembling tearjerker welcoming rivers of tears and mutters of regret.

The 13-track behemoth caps with aptly titled “End of the World” and features some of Stone’s most decipherable lyrics. Foreboding guitars drone as Stone warns of the impending doom approaching his camp of peyote-packing comrades with disconcerting serenity. Ultimately, the track strays from the overarching themes of the album and leave listeners with a mildly acceptable—and regrettably forgettable—ending.

Despite overtly clichéd Americana imagery and unremarkable musicianship, Angus Stone’s Broken Brights serves as a transition—undeniably bumpy, but a transition nonetheless—into a new vein of his career. The album explores common themes in unsurprising ways but Stone’s relentless approachability envelopes the album and redeems much of the heartbreak staple. But past the mild pitfalls and platitudes, Stone proves that however broken a man or song may be, it’s still possible to burn brightly.

Angus Stone – Broken Brights tracklisting:

1. “River Love”
2. “Broken Brights”
3. “Bird on the Buffalo”
4. “Wooden Chair”
5. “The Blue Door”
6. “Apprentice of the Rocket Man”
7. “Only A Woman”
8. “The Wolf and the Butler”
9. “Monsters”
10. “It Was Blue”
11. “Be What You Be”
12. “Clouds Above”
13. “End of the World”