Michael Angelakos emerges as the sole creative force behind Passion Pit on the group’s second album, Gossamer, and at first glance -- er, listen -- he sounds almost overjoyed. The album is literally bursting with synth-pop exuberance -- check out the second track, "I’ll Be Alright," which erupts in a manic flurry of beats and candy-colored melodies, finally settling into a merely speedy rhythm with tinkling keys, squished-balloon sound effects and Angelakos’s breathless vocals. It’s all so sunny that you almost overlook the song’s title, which is just one clue of many: "Cry Like a Ghost," "Two Veils to Hide My Face," "Love Is Greed" -- hey Michael, is there something you want to tell us? In fact there’s a lot he wants to tell us. Gossamer is just as packed with lyrics as with synths, and only a bit of closer inspection reveals Angelakos in dire relationship hell, spread across a dozen deceptively upbeat tunes (though one is a mere 34 seconds long). But of all the ’80s-biting synth sounds coming down the pike these days, Passion Pit’s seem the fullest and best executed -- you can hear all the sweat and effort that went into a dynamic construction like "Love Is Greed," which seems to collapse any perceived boundaries between what’s indie today and what was mainstream pop in the decade of John Hughes. Enjoy getting caught up in the Gossamer sounds, but don’t forget to peer through the layers to the wounded heart behind them.

From name and image to sound, Om (led by Sleep bassist Al Cisneros) has always directed its energies toward a palpable reverence—for the spiritual, meditative and even healing possibilities of its music. But on the new Advaitic Songs more than ever before, that abstract religious quality takes sonic form: The five long-to-longer tracks begin with "Addis," a stately, haunting piece that features a lovely female voice chanting in an ancient (well, I’d like to believe) tongue as strings harmonize the spheres around her. Taken on its own there’s really not a lot to identify it as an Om song, though even when the strings open the next song, "State of Non-Return," with the same motif, the band’s uniquely intense bass presence introduces itself unmistakably, and rumbles ever higher in tandem with Cisneros’s measured roar. It’s heavy rock suffused with an almost impossibly placid air, and it is magisterial. These themes dominate the three remaining 10-minute-plus pieces: "Gethsemane" is at times crushingly sad in its orchestral splendor, dramatic drum fills sharing space with a mesmeric tambura and Middle Eastern-flavored string arrangements; "Sinai" comprises some of the most atmospheric heaviness you’ll ever hear; and the closing "Haqq al-Yaqin" trots through a nocturnal desert, spare yet thick with portent. Keep in mind that the short audio clips below give you an idea of the quality of Om’s sound, but not the power that accrues over a 10-minute song. This is sublimely awesome stuff.

Combining indie-rock’s current electro-R&B-naif stylings with its longtime DIY drive, Canadian duo Purity Ring sound far more advanced than a debut album on Shrines—which comes on a billowy cloud of hype spurred both by its presence on 4AD and the band’s friendship with fellow Montrealer Grimes. The angelic, almost purred vocals are courtesy of Megan James, who sings through and around the stuttering hip-hop flavored beats turned out by her partner, Corin Roddick (who’s also responsible for the sound and light—from the stage—at Purity Ring’s captivating live shows). "Fineshrine" adapts a familiar hook from pop’s past, but in typically slippery fashion, Purity Ring have made it nigh impossible to place. Co-conspirators Young Magic guest on the slinky "Grandloves," with James’s textured vocals hitting true heights, while the wobbly "Ungirthed" pairs a bit of low end borrowed from dubstep with tinkly synth keys. Shrines feels designed for the late hours of a party—the rhythms are medium to slow, crafted to let you down easy in the post-midnight hours so you can make it back the following night.

It was the early ’90s. Bob Mould had followed up his time in Hüsker Dü with a pair of taut solo albums, and in 1992, the debut from his new band Sugar entered the world. The trio, with Mould on guitar and vocals, also featured bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcolm Travis. And while the "Bob Mould in a power trio!" tag line may have evoked his previous band, Sugar’s songs were their own. They could certainly play furiously (as can be heard on the live sets included on these reissues), but their songs just as frequently featured moderate tempos, finding their own appropriate rhythms. The trio’s debut, Copper Blue finds Mould precisely channeling his gift for pop songwriting; "Hoover Dam" and "If I Can’t Change Your Mind" can get lodged in your head for decades, while the blissed-out "Man on the Moon" ushers out the album perfectly. And "A Good Idea" is the most emblematic of its era, with a strong nod in the direction of the Pixies’ "Debaser." Copper Blue is joined on this deluxe reissue with the sinister concept mini-album Beaster, as well as B-sides and a frenzied 1992 live set, recorded at the Cabaret Metro in Chicago.

See also Sugar: Copper Blue + Beaster, above. Sugar’s second full-length album, File Under: Easy Listening, finds them exploring the boundaries of their sound: The ballad "Believe What You’re Saying" is one of Bob Mould’s gentlest melodies, while "Explode and Make Up" heads into more emotionally wrenching territory. And on the opener "Gift," you can hear a slight shoegazer influence—or a variation on the surreal wall-of-noise sound that anticipated Mould’s eventual onstage collaborations with No Age. Here, as on the deluxe reissue of Copper Blue, can be found a chunk of B-sides, along with a 1994 live set from Minneapolis.

Rumored to be part one of a doom-metal trilogy, Omo opens with "Empireum," a 15-minute molten sludge exercise that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Sleep album recorded on Neptune. Taking cues from the early progressive experiments of Amon Duul & Ash Ra Tempel, along with the tribal stoner-rock exploration of Melvins or Kyuss, Italy’s Ufomammut create a unique world. Ufomammut started their sonic journey in 1999, releasing records that dared to expand the palate of what heavy doom-laden music could be. Although always impressive, Omo sees the band further expanding their sound to include more progressive and electronic influences while still remaining loyal to their heavy roots. Fans of Sleep’s classic Jerusalem album would be wise to investigate this one.

Sounding a bit like slowcore-era Low immersing themselves in Americana myth and mystery, the atmospheric Family Band makes its "proper" debut after self-releasing two records. The wider world will be glad to hear this duo: Singer Kim Krans and her guitarist husband Jonny Ollsin craft achingly pretty and haunting songs that engulf you in darkness, but almost always lead you back to the light—or at least to the edge of dawn. "Your Name" is devastating, simple and pure, with Krans singing over her man’s picked guitar, "The sound of your name is no good," and it is truly a curse that cuts deep. The album is Grace & Lies but the first tune is called "Night Song," and they might well have named the album "Night Songs"—it’s dark and magical, a glow of guitar tones hovering in the air as Krans issues incantations and a clicking rhythm marks the space. Not everything is so soft, as proved by the following "Lace" and its clipped electric guitar, but the tone and tenor tend toward the astral and the vaguely twangy, as the siren-like lap-steel guitar of "Keeper," which just howls sweetly at a moon you can really picture. Sweet, darkly affecting stuff.

There are summer records, where a singer or a jangly guitar might evoke carefree days at the beach or picnicking in the park under the sun. And then there are heatwave records, which is how I came to see the magic in Dntel’s new Aimlessness, the seventh (we believe) solo album by Jimmy Tamborello, perhaps better known as half of the Postal Service. The mostly instrumental tracks on Aimlessness seem to merge with hot air and humidity on an elemental level, like vines and flowers growing wild in a steamy rainforest. At the same time, they seem to snap you out of the doldrums that such weather inevitably brings on. "Retracer" skips and burbles lightly, with blossoms of colorful computer melody erupting rhizomatically even as an insistent throb beats beneath. "My Orphaned Son" buries its beat so deeply under a canopy of digital underbrush that you sense it down there more than hear it. (The song takes on a new kind of life with Tamborello’s effected vocals toward the end.) "Santa Ana Winds," like their namesake, seem to blow in off a hilly range, light as air but kissed with sunshine (and some lady vocals), and of the two versions of "Jitters," we prefer the Geotic mix, which drips along at a syrupy gait—like the way we’ve been walking around NYC this summer.