Phoenix – Bankrupt!
If it sometimes seems that Bankrupt! is bursting at the seams, it’s because it is. A song like album highlight “SOS in Bel Air” has no less than three different hooks running rampant through its breathless structure, while “Trying To Be Cool” pokes fun at itself and the band with a breezy, gleaming bit of ‘80s trifle that is decidedly uncool for 2013 – and that’s before the R&B breakdown that ends things without a hint of embarrassment. Read the full review on Sputnik Music

Flaming Lips – The Terror
After resisting for so long the miniaturization of rock—the entry in Continuum’s 33 1/3 series on Zaireeka aptly describes that album’s synced-up, four-disc experience as “the anti-MP3”—The Terror is The Flaming Lips record that fits in your pocket. Not that this detracts from its potency: This is a lonely record, epic in length and intimate in scope. Read the full review on The AV Club

Iron & Wine – Ghost on Ghost
Ghost On Ghost is the fifth Iron & Wine full-length, viewed by Beam as “a reward to myself after the way I went about making the last few.” This is a curious statement, as the record doesn’t initially feel or sound too far-removed from 2011’s Kiss Each Other Clean, nor The Shepherd’s Dog. The instrumentation is lush and expansive, song titles like ‘Grace for Saints And Ramblers’ are quintessentially Iron & Wine, and the sinners, naked boys, morning birds and country fairs that appear on the opening ‘Caught in the Briars’ are lyrical staples for Beam at this point – ones he has contemplated plenty across his discography. Read the full review on The Quietus

The Knife – Shaking The Habitual
Overt politicizing isn’t the only thing that’s new here. Gone, for the most part, is the frosty electronic base of their past. Shaking is far thornier and more organic, full of industrial blurts, stormy drum and noise passages (ala Olof’s work as Oni Ayhun) and extended drone sequences. Fans seeking another “Marble House” are offered only two throwbacks: the gorgeous vocal hook that emerges from the frothy murk of “Raging Lung” and the rippling electronic pulse of “Ready To Lose.” Instead, across its expansive breadth, one hears echoes of Amon Duul’s epic krautrock jams, the fried-brain electronics of Einstürzende Neubauten, and the urban tribalism of Gang Gang Dance. Read the full review on Resident Advisor

Kurt Vile – Wakin on a Pretty Daze
Written on the road and recorded across America in upstate New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, the follow-up to 2011′s Smoke Ring for My Halo turns the Philadelphia songwriter into a seasoned explorer, conjuring up the rugged frontier magic that Young, Browne, Fleetwood, and Petty sharpened in the ’70s. This album’s alive and far removed from the claustrophobic confines of his last outing, whose dreary black and white cover offered a succinct portrait of that album’s introverted personality. Read the full review on Consequence of Sound

James Blake – Overgrown
Blake’s real argument for the continued relevance of his dewy, electronic gospel-folk comes via his second LP, Overgrown. At a few points on the record, he seems to be demonstrating to the wub fetishists that he’s also capable of sonic mayhem. Whether they’re meant as representations of conflicted emotions or simply designed to get crowds moving, the codas to “Digital Lion” and “Voyeur” are as bass-first and funky as anything Blake’s done to date. The last minute of “Lion”, which credits Brian Eno as collaborator, prominently showcases Blake’s gospel fixation, his wordless vocals present to acknowledge the powerful groove. Read the full review on Pitchfork

Bonobo – The North Borders
If “slow and steady wins the race” is indeed a truism, then Bonobo’s fifth LP in nearly fifteen years The North Borders is an model illustration of it. After the hearty reception to his last LP – 2010′s Black Sands – The North Borders sees the confidence and scope of his sound blossom; tracks unfolding in ornate, colourful flourishes to reveal an attuned sensibility for orchestral grooves and delicate textures, as strands of garage, house and trip-hop are woven into ripe, expertly crafted progressions of down-tempo electronica. Read the full review on Fact

Tyler the Creator – Wolf
Wolf as a whole also sounds gorgeous, and that even goes for the bruisers. The polyrhythmic hi-hats of the madcap posse cut “Trashwang” eventually give pause to a piano bridge, and the blustery lead single “Domo 23” gets a bump from a boisterous horn section. Foreboding numbers like “Rusty” (a lush reimagining of 1990s RZA production) and the nightmarish, tribal “Cowboy” are declawed by rich textures and melodicism. “Answer” sets Tyler’s longing for his late grandmother and absentee father to a bright guitar figure and shimmering organs. Read the full review on Pitchfork

Charles Bradley – Victim of Love
Compared to the airing of grievances that was No Time for Dreaming — standout “Why Is It So Hard” seemingly let out decades of frustration over the course of its four minutes — Victim of Love is nothing but smooth sailing. But that doesn’t mean Bradley’s totally content these days. The major theme here is, of course, love, and Bradley’s walloping sob of a voice is more than capable of extricating all the feelings that come with his subject. There’s adoration in that voice when he sings lines like “My life was cold / You put the flame on it”; he sounds both desperate and lost when he asks, “Where do we go from here?” Read the full review on Consequence of Sound

Anais Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer – Child Ballads
Harvard professor Francis James Child gathered more than 300 folk songs from England and Scotland during the late 19th century. Known as the “Child Ballads”, these songs form the canon of the modern folk music repertoire; everyone from Joan Baez to Fleet Foxes has recorded them. These tales of witchery and honor, curses and transformations, were old when Child first collected them. Mitchell and Hamer perform seven of them on their new disc. Read the full review on Pop Matters

The Strokes – Comedown Machine
On “Welcome to Japan” the band finally sounds like they are enjoying the music they are playing. Casablancas sings “I didn’t want to notice/ I didn’t know that God was loaded/ I didn’t really know this/ what kind of asshole drives a Lotus.” Comedown Machine has too few of these loose, innately enjoyable moments. “Partners in Crime” gives the latter part of the album a much needed injection of bouncy guitar riffs. The album’s emphasis on New Wave synths and 80′s aesthetic (probably a holdover from Casablancas’ solo work) is fine at times, but tunes like “Partners In Crime” and “All the Time” are simply more fun. The Strokes are a rock band from New York; the songs on Comedown Machine that embrace that are the standouts. Read the full review on Pretty Much Amazing

Wavves – Afraid Of Heights
Afraid Of Heights sounds bigger and more ambitious than anything Nathan Williams’ former backyard solo project has ever recorded. The big-name producer and studio certainly help; so does the three-year break between Afraid Of Heights and 2010’s breakthrough King Of The Beach. But unlike Wavves’ previous records (including two simply titled Wavves), Afraid Of Heights doesn’t sound like it’s filled with first-take toss-offs. Read the full review on the AV Club

David Bowie – The Next Day
A career spent courting otherworldliness, followed by a decade out of the public eye (and a 2004 heart attack), does tend to fuel morbid rumors. Fortunately, Bowie, at the age of 66, is perfectly healthy—or at least healthy enough to work, as only two days after I was assured he was drawing his last breath, his label announced he’d soon debut his first album of new songs in 10 years. The Next Day finally arrives this week, after a couple of videos and a pre-release stream on iTunes, and it’s quite good, too, although you should be wary of critics—even trustworthy me! Read the full review on Vanity Fair

Rhye – Woman
Even without a face to attach it to, Rhye’s music itself feels deeply intimate. Much of this comes from Hannibal and Milosh’s deft arrangements– each of Woman’s 10 songs makes its point with a bare minimum of moving parts. Beats, basslines, and Milosh’s voice are at the center of nearly all of them; although a majority of the tracks boast arrangements for horns and strings, most of these are so subtle that you might not even realize they’re there until you read the liner notes afterward. The lean production leaves little space between the listener and the songs, and they feel almost touchably close. Read the full review on Pitchfork

Devendra Banhart – Mala
[Devendra Banhard] has managed to keep his sound unique without coming across as trying too hard. Eccentric instrumentation, recurring thoughts, and otherworldly concepts just seem to find their way into his special brand of off-kilter, folksy freak-flamenco. His eighth studio album, Mala, although softer and a touch more dour than some of his previous offerings, proves that Banhart is still a strange fella leaving his mark on the world of popular music. Read the full review on consequence of sound

Josh Ritter – Beast in it’s Tracks
Masterful break-up albums are nothing new in music (personal favorites include Blood on the Tracks, Sea Change, Noah and The Whale’s The First Days of Spring). However, with The Beast in Its Tracks, the Moscow, Idaho native has crafted both the newest addition into the annals of the true greats, and he has crafted a personal journey of recorded heartbreak that is unlike any break-up album that came before it. The differentiation rests in Ritter’s heroic ability to turn pain and anger into intimate songs of nearly unthinkable empathy, kindness and, ultimately, optimism. Read the full review on No Depression

Robyn Hitchcock – Love from London
His capacity to surprise is in full effect on Love From London. Although the album’s psychedelic moments are quintessential Hitchcock—the jagged electric-pop jams “Fix You” and “I Love You,” the cosmic oceanic coda of “End Of Time”—the record overall is quite subdued. (The major exception to this rule is the album’s rowdiest moment: “Devil On A String,” a Bowie-circa-Aladdin Sane glam-blues pastiche.) Read the full review on The AV Club

Jimi Hendrix – People, Hell & Angels
The gifts continue to arrive, this time with the release of People, Hell & Angels. For Hendrix fanatics, each new installment signifies an event and is to be celebrated accordingly. Of course the aficionados will know in advance how much of this material has appeared, in various forms, on previous releases – both sanctioned and not. For the merely curious, or anyone who has not yet properly experienced Hendrix (are you experienced?), this is not the place to start. For anyone else, this disc, like the aforementioned Valleys of Neptune affords the chance to get caught up on a dozen tracks all in one spot as opposed to the aforementioned bootlegs. Put another way, this is hardly essential unless anything Hendrix did is essential and you want to hear everything he did. Read the full review on Pop Matters

Iceage – You’re Nothing
Iceage’s self-produced second album is even better than their debut. It’s the quartet’s first offering for the larger label Matador (the album’s still being released by Escho in Denmark) and they come off even wilder and more chaotic than they did in 2011, but also more experienced and nuanced. They’ve honed the uncanny sense of classic punk songwriting– the guitar sound’s huge, the hooks more present, the charisma of dead-eyed, out-of-breath vocalist Elias Bender Rønnenfelt even greater. When you listen to the two records in tandem, you realize how brittle New Brigade was: “brittle” in an excellently fuzzed, rancid way, but You’re Nothing is a heftier experience. Read the full review on Pitchfork

Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside – Untamed Beast
I’m sure Sallie Ford is a lovely and polite woman but on record she comes across as brash, crude and not the least bit unapologetic for her actions. She’ll sex you up as easy as she’ll kick your ass, and is comfortable with every action. For someone who loves a little bit of dirt and grime with their music, Untamed Beast, really hits the spot. Read the full review on Hear Ya

Mount Mariah – Miracle Temple
Mount Moriah is also a surprising bit of beauty considering its genesis. Heather McEntire was the singer for the excellently brash rock band Bellafea, while guitar Jenks Miller is best known in North Carolina for his Southern-gothic-psych-metal outfit Horseback. But two years ago the two teamed up—for the second time, their first a pop act called Un Deux Trois—and released Mount Moriah, a soulful, bittersweet breath of fresh air. That album was lush and melted at the edges and pensive, Miller’s guitar lines circling around the honeyed vulnerability of McEntire’s voice. Read the full review on Pop Matters

unknown mortal orchestra – II
If their self-titled debut was any indication of an experiment in funk and garage, UMO’s II delves deeper into the jazz-tinged psychedelia end as guitarist Ruban Nielson’s riffs become a more prominent character alongside his strange, otherworldly vocals. Diverging a long way from The Mint Chicks, his previous power-punk outfit that indulged in two-minute hits of adrenaline, Nielson’s UMO has developed even further with this new collection of personal cuts that explore themes of loneliness and isolation. Read the full review on Pretty Much Amazing

Jim James – Regions of Light and Sound of God
If My Morning Jacket’s albums have mostly come together like a revival meeting– a group playing live, working together to create something larger than its members– James’ first solo album, Regions of Light and Sound of God, emerges from something closer to meditation. James holed himself away in his Louisville home studio, writing and piecing together songs, playing most of the parts himself. It’s process-based music, and he admits it in the album’s first seconds. On “State of the Art (A.E.I.O.U.)”, James breaks his creative process down to its primordial elements– vowels, nursery rhymes– like he’s leading a workshop on discovering one’s inner poet. Read the full review on Pitchfork

Richard Thompson – Electric
When Thompson isn’t working in peak form, this recurring theme can become tiresome. But this time around, working with producer Buddy Miller — who mostly favors spare settings for Thompson’s guitar and voice — the songs on the new Electric have a crisp clarity that wrings out most of the self-righteousness. Two songs stand out in particular. The first is “Stony Ground,” in which the 63-year-old Thompson imagines a codger older than himself, still feeling goatish and erotically greedy, and still getting poked in the nose for his urges. The result is what might happen if Philip Roth wrote the words for a song with roots in British folk music. Read the full review on NPR

Toro Y Moi – Anything in Return
The album contains an array of aesthetic flavors that are both interesting and accessible. Some, like “Touch,” simply create a sonic room, just to “fill it with stone.” And while the filling in of an emotional hole/space created by unsuccessful love doesn’t seem all that interesting or accessible, its lounge feel and Nicolas Jaar-like sparsity give it depth far beyond what you might expect from a pop song that essentially communicates the message, “I’m hurt.” The next song, “Cola,” makes brief use of a James Blake-ian synthesizer sound, and then, following it, “Studies” makes use of something which immediately reminds me of Delicate Steve’s distinct, screechy guitars. Read the full Review on Pretty Much Amazing

Bad Religion – True North
Some of the band’s most potent moments have been its most melodic, intricate, and progressive. True North leaves little breathing room for such luxuries, but there are bright flashes in songs like “Past Is Dead,” which begins with a brief passage of bleak, jangling folk, the kind that often underlies even the most blistering and distorted Bad Religion song. Accordingly, “Past Is Dead” carries a deeper, darker weight, as does “Robin Hood In Reverse,” a screed that attacks plutocracy and Graffin’s old punching bag, Christianity, while launching majestic rock solos and lifting a line from punk legend Sham 69. Read the full review on The AV Club

Joy Formidable – Wolf’s Law
Wolf’s Law comes out strong with “This Ladder Is Ours,” which begins with a swell of strings before bringing in Rhydian Dafydd’s fat bass and Bryan’s chiming guitar and voice, creating a feeling of precarious-but-thrilling ascent; and the album ends well with the title track, which starts as a plaintive piano ballad and then gets loud and stormy, like the climax of a blockbuster fantasy movie. The songs in between are just as evocative, with standout tracks “Maw Maw Song,” “Forest Serenade,” and “The Hurdle” sounding grand and ancient, as though they’ve come roaring out of the mystic wilds of Olde Europe. But the most important trick that The Joy Formidable finesses is to take that sense of grandeur and apply it to today’s world, to ordinary people trying to cope with stress and loneliness. Read the full Review on The AV Club