The latest rocket-to-stardom act out of Brooklyn in fact has a very good chance to hit it big: Sleigh Bells‘ debut, Treats, may have its roots in the local party-happy dance-rock scene, but with M.I.A.’s official stamp of approval (her N.E.E.T. label is co-releasing the album) and some genuine pop singles embedded in the record, don’t be too surprised if you hear this duo coming out of your radio before it’s all said and done. The sound that multi-instrumentalist Derek Miller and this-stage-ain’t-big-enough-for-me singer Alexis Krauss first caught attention with is the ultra-distorted guitar/noise/beats melange heard on “Crown on the Ground” and album opener “Tell ‘Em” (and you might want to turn down your stereo’s volume when you first drop in this disc). What could put them into the true upper echelons of the global pop marketplace, however, are tunes like “Rill Rill,” which has that utterly charming kids-on-the-playground vibe that makes you and your girlfriend(s) go weak. No wonder they’re playing both the Coachella and Pitchfork festivals this year. (Bosco)

The galvanizing Canadian noise-dance duo Crystal Castles is developing a saner, less abrasive side on its second album (which technically is self-titled, but since its first album, a collection of singles, was also self-titled, you know...II). Which isn’t to suggest that you won’t find serrated noise to spasmodically dance along to here: album opener “Fainting Spells” and the gasping-for-air “Doe Deer” each come hard and distorted. But despite titles such as “Violent Dreams,” “Pap Smear” and “Suffocation,” most of II finds Ethan Kath and Alice Glass moving toward a center that, for them, could be seen as the best of both worlds: shimmering synthetic melodies that rise to almost unbearable heights without that attacking stance. Check out the glisteningly chilly “Not in Love” and “Baptism,” on which aggressive staccato synths enter and depart, leaving space for a coolly aloof yet still fist-pumping beat. Strangely alluring, II could be the sound of a band knocking down the crystal walls its early singles had established. (M.L. Thrope)

It can be hard to do this job when a band that has so thoroughly established a presence returns with an album on which little has changed. (Pity me, yes!) But on LP4 (which is a far better title than the odd epigram on the back: “let your bird eat its beak”), the NYC duo Ratatat heightens everything that has made LPs one through three such hot topics on the indie scene: squiggly analog synths, crisp, simple-as-pie beats and sparely wielded guitar parts. The pair, guitarist Mike Stroud and producer/multi-instrumentalist Evan Mast, are also better at adorning their tracks: “Neckbrace” features coy vocal samples that recall techno titan Thomas Brinkmann’s funky stuff, while “We Can't Be Stopped” toys with the tough-guy stance of its title and delivers instead a ruefullly cinematic and swooping piece sans beats but with plenty of lovely strings. For a band that has hardly changed, Ratatat is showing that they've got a deep satchel of tricks. (Bosco)

A look at the discography of Portland’s Blitzen Trapper reveals a series of stylistic expansions and contractions. Wild Mountain Nation, from 2007, had an eclecticism that recalled Pavement while tapping into a version of Americana set askew, while 2008’s Furr was more restrained, more traditional. Destroyer of the Void, their fifth album, boasts more familiar-sounding moments yet manages to be endearingly scattershot in its stylistic reach. Certain moments recall the melancholy classicism of Harry Nilsson or Tom Petty’s declamations; others suggest a more expansive take on The Band. Elsewhere (the title track, along with “Dragon’s Song”), the lyrics turn cosmic on us, with the music shifting from folk-rock to something more in tune with the prog canon. But even with that stylistic range, they’re also capable of moments of focused beauty, as they do with the pastoral “Below The Hurricane.” (Toby)

Here we go again—singer-songwriter Luke Temple returns with his second album of sparkling indie-pop, building on the success of Here We Go Magic’s self-titled debut (which itself built on Temple’s relative lack of success as a solo performer). Pigeons comes springing out of the speakers with the nervy new-wave energy of “Hibernation” but immediately calibrates itself when Temple’s soft (I almost want to say “creamy” but you sickos can’t be trusted) vocals enter. That moderated tension describes a lot of Here We Go’s magic: the band frequently bounds along, as if early-era Feelies had weaned themselves on modern indie pop, while Temple’s croon glides above but in formation with each song, acting as both a unifying and calming presence. Not everything on Pigeons races by like “Hibernation” though; “Bottom Feeder” and “F.F.A.P.” tamp down the energy and somehow come out sounding smarter, while the only thing to prevent you from thinking “Old World United” is an OMD song is Temple’s au courant vocals. (James)

Style into substance—that’s the magical feat of San Francisco trio the Alps on their gently affecting (and at times subtly unnerving) fourth album, Le Voyage. This instrumental record provides one visually stimulating track after another, but transcends the tired “imaginary soundtrack” realm; the Alps don’t need anyone to shoot a film to go with their music, as powerfully evocative as it is. There are hints that the band knows how good it is, too—from the title of the album to the name of the first track, “Drop In,” a bucolic greeting of chiming guitar strings and piano. After one of the album’s few short pieces that veer into collage-like sound-art, the dynamic “Crossing the Sands” weds that visual—marauders stalking their way across a barren desert-scape on horseback—to a hypnotic bassline and copious wah-wah guitar, like Sabbath spliced with Zeppelin’s wanderlust fantasies. Le Voyage is clearly about that—the journey rather than the destination. The Alps seem confident that this trip’s terminus will come to life in your mind’s eye. (M.L. Thrope)

Everyone just sort of automatically refers to Ellen Allien as “Berlin’s queen of techno” without really explaining how she got there. I mean, they don’t just give out crowns to anyone! Dust, her sixth album (by our count—it can be tough with electronicists, you know), features everything that qualifies her for the throne: Allien expertly inverts techno’s pounding (masculine, if you will) nature into slyly sexy new forms without subsuming its inherent dance imperative. The beats will get you, is what I’m saying; they’ll just get you in a different and perhaps more lasting way. Listen to the way she breathe-sings “Walking down the street you take my hand” on “Sun the Rain,” which knits an electric-guitar line onto a supple techno rhythm track. This is a full-on song, not just a catchy beat with some singing on top! “Flashy Flashy” comes from another angle: the track itself is where that full presence asserts itself, a rubbery synth tone taking on percussive attributes and holding up as the song’s lead melodic element at the same time. “Flashy flashy flashy flashy disco lights,” oh yeah man—this is the stuff! Make your summer dance party much cooler with a sprinkling of this Dust. (M.L. Thrope)

A lot of the finest Scottish bands burned bright but briefly; Teenage Fanclub has been a brilliant exception, and Shadows appears twenty years after their debut, and five years since their previous release. It opens with one of the most beautiful songs in this revered group’s impressive catalog, “Sometimes I Don’t Need to Believe in Anything.” A sort of joyfully melancholy effusion, its verses are powered by their trademark guitar jangle, and then on the chorus the sound blossoms into luscious richness topped by creamy horns. The following “Baby Lee” is similarly arranged, but with strings and synthesizer. The next track finds organ thickly applied. After that comes “Into the City,” as grounded in ‘70s soft-rock stylings as the average Midlake effort, complete with bittersweet vocal harmonies that by the end are chiming and counterpointing in a complex web. Next up, a piano-powered track with spare, dark string adornment. I guess by now my point has been made: Yes, Teenage Fanclub is incredibly consistent, but there’s a huge amount of sonic variety on this album; it’s easy to imagine the guys spending five years saying “how about if we add banjo here?” and the like. Lyrically, the songs bounce between profound (though not pretentious or bombastic) ruminations and the frothier love-song norm of power-pop. “Waiting for a friend to call, I'm adrift again” (from “The Past”) sums up the overall mood well. If Fanclub albums are now going to appear only every five years, I can live with the wait if the results—as seems likely—are always this good. (Steve)

For his sequel to 2006’s Berkeley Guitar, compiler Sean Smith wanted to expand the scope, as reflected in the title of this new release. It’s more than a matter of geography, though this time out the whole Bay Area is fair game; there are more guitarists here (seven as opposed to three) and there’s more stylistic variety as well, perhaps because though everyone lives in the Bay Area now, they are from many regions. Besides Smith himself, an imaginative player whose epic, brooding “Ourselves When We Are Real” (do I hear a Jimmy Page influence?) is the track upon which the album pivots, the guitarists (all solo acoustic, of course) are not well known beyond the cognoscenti, but are all well worth hearing. Richard Osborn is the most veteran performer heard from; his “A Dream of Distant Summer” is easily the most beautiful track here, the melody often played low under a filigree pattern that’s occasionally stripped down to drone to effectively vary the mood. John Fahey fans may be be most drawn to Lucas Boilon’s mercurial “Studies of the Oak as Pertaining to Druidic Rites of Passage,” while Ava Mendoza’s “Redwood Regional Park Blues: Between Hay & Grass” is paradoxically the folksiest creation, the most spontaneous and free-wheeling, yet the only one that’s double-tracked. It’s a dazzling conclusion to a thoroughly entrancing collection that also includes Aaron Sheppard, Trevor Healy, and Chuck Johnson. (Steve)

When I saw the title of the new Deer Tick album it kinda pissed me off, cause I was sure the band didn’t know the super-cool Black Dirt Studios in upstate New York (from whence many awesome underground/psych/roots records have come). I am currently eating my shoe because that is precisely why the Rhode Island quintet named its third album The Black Dirt Sessions, and with the help of house producer Jason Meagher, they’ve turned out their best work yet. The group’s casually instinctive mix of folk, country and pop songwriting was already in place, but this is the band’s best batch of songs by a country mile, now infused with full-on American-style haunt: “Piece by Piece and Frame by Frame” finds frontman John McCauley narrating a relationship breakdown in beautifully precise detail, sometimes emoting like Jeff Mangum, while a tune like “Twenty Miles” could (and should) catapult Deer Tick into the highest echelons of American bands playing American music. If it doesn’t, McCauley’s gorgeous duet with guest Elizabeth Rodgers Isenberg on “The Sad Sun” ought to. The aforementioned songs all appear on the first half of this record; I’d need a lot more space to get into songs like “Blood Moon,” “Hand in My Hand” and the stunning closer “Christ Jesus.” Highly recommended for fans of Americana! (M.L. Thrope)

As far as blog buzz goes, Twin Sister have been riding a surf competition-sized wave crest since bounding onto the scene at the beginning of the year. But where some buzz acts sound kinda random, or even shitty, to the rest of us, there is no mystery at all why this band have garnered so much attention in so little time (and so little music—this EP is the band’s first physical release!). The Brooklyn-via-Long Island quintet create clean, ethereal new wave—the kind of music that envelops you in a glimmering haze (insert Cocteau Twins reference here) of rumbling beats, shifty synth, a disco bass backbone, and singer Andrea Estella’s gorgeous, childlike croon. (Abby)