People have been coming into the store and asking about this album for more than a year. Even though Western Australia’s hottest export since...since...well, I have no idea, sorry, but Perth quartet Tame Impala are about that good. More than a year since their debut LP, Innerspeaker, came out Down Under, it still sounds fresh and undated to American ears—mine and yours. Sounding a bit like Dungen in their easy swirl of melody, Tame Impala throw a spectrum of guitar techniques and textures into the air and every single one works: the airy mass and angelic vocals of "Solitude Is Bliss," on which guitarist Kevin Parker almost coos, "No one knows how I feel," sounding like an early-’90s Creation band; the fuzzed-out "Desire Be, Desire Go"; and "The Bold Arrow of Time" makes me think of a band that perfected "Smoke on the Water" in its garage and immediately moved onto the Spacemen 3 catalog. The album might’ve gotten to the States quicker if it had swam, but now that it’s here—no complaints. Dig it.

Don’t be put off by a band calling itself Mister Heavenly; these three guys can afford to be playfully cocky like that. Comprising core members of Man Man, Islands/the Unicorns and Modest Mouse (not Isaac), Mister Heavenly is—wow, kind of all over the indie-rock place, with a bit of bombast and tons of roaring melodies and, on the song named for the band, handclaps. Perfect handclaps. Most surprising is singer Ryan Kattner, whose work in Man Man is far more strained (and can put off some people). Paired with Nick Thorburn (the Islands guy) he spins some truly unique vocal magic, but the key influence on Out of Love is, oddly enough, classic doo-wop vocal groups (which is why things like handclaps become important). "Harm You" is for daring romantics, a swinging finger-snapper that bears the doo-wop vibe distinctly (you can dance to it and look cool doing so), while "I Am a Hologram" makes great use of a piano to power its (also very danceable) momentum. Kattner’s vocals are a bit coarse in context, but that’s why this stuff stands out. Stylish and unexpected in almost every way, Mister Heavenly wants to sweep you off your feet and swing you around a bit harder than you might like at first. Do try it!

The debut from Hercules & Love Affair drew immediate attention within the dance community for being good, and outside the dance community for having Antony "and the Johnsons" Hegarty on vocals, a pairing that worked brilliantly. Blue Songs, the follow-up, has no Antony, replacing him with four different singers from both inside the group and out. You might expect a drop-off, right? Au contraire, mes freres (et soeurs): Blue Songs is absolutely killer, a sublime mix of house music gone pop, and if the vocals lack the distinctness an Antony might bring, they are all on the money (and in the pocket). "My House" glides along a classic beat, a spray of crisp hi-hat over a muscular but not overbearing 4/4. "Boy Blue" is evidence of what a real band Hercules and Love Affair is, building on a simple, graceful guitar strum and a quietly pulsating synth; it's what you'd call "organic" when talking to people who think all dance music is just machines in motion. Both "Boy Blue" (male vocal) and "It's Alright" (female) work as late-late-late-night come-down slow jams, while almost everything else works to prepare a dance floor for such gentle landings.

There are "outdoor" records (especially in summer) and "indoor" records. The new Amen Dunes album is indoor and then some; Through Donkey Jaw is so internal that it feels a little awkward to play it in the store, where several people can hear it together. It just doesn’t seem made for that kind of experience (headphones: yes). That said, while the album sounds like it comes from the innermost depths of Damon McMahon’s being, it also exists in an enormous space: cavernous, multicolored if darkly hued, and deeply personal, with—a few listens in—worlds of feeling and emotion to reveal. With scant appearances by other musicians (identified by initials only), McMahon sketches out nocturnal musings in dramatic, sharp lines: searching vocals, low-ebb-lysergic guitar work and spare percussion; like another recent Sacred Bones release, by Religious Knives, the nature of the music itself seems to give off dark radiation. "Not a Slave" sounds a cry of solitary defiance, while "Lower Mind" and "Good Bad Dreams" are the kinds of outsider-mythic songs you’d hear on a radio in the middle of the night, changing lives one at a time. Highly recommended for the moodier types out there—and hey, we love you, moody types.

Hey, the long-awaited collab between hip-hop’s (and really, pop music’s) two biggest alpha dogs is finally here. What do you wanna know about it? At this point it’s possible you might have seen a review (or 50) in publications with a bit more heft than your faithful Sound Fix newsletter, but yes, we are on the job too, and after spending the better part of an afternoon with Watch the Throne we can tell you: This baby is maximal in just about every way. Yes, Jay Z and Kanye are, shall we say, immodest about their ability to make anything happen with money. You could say that this is the one of those hip-hop records where the boasts aren’t really boasting, y’know? Also, these guys truly are incredible on the mic—Jay about the most casually authoritative MC going, Kanye still sounding—always sounding—like he’s got something to prove, slipping and sliding around the beat. If you aren’t put off by rich successful guys going off about being rich and successful, then the record’s just plain dope! Beyond the early single "Otis" and a high-profile appearance by Beyonce on the massive "Lift Off," the impolitely named "That’s My Bitch" rolls hard on a classic beat and sample that Kanye surfs like a pro. Who’s gonna stop them? Who possibly could?

Only an English band could get away with jumping trends as brazenly as this—let alone as convincingly. For album No. 3 the Horrors have dropped all goth/darksider pretense and made a really broad, bright pop record that kind of surveys a lot of the past 20 years of UK pop. Seriously! The opening track on Skying, "Changing the Rain," sounds like a syrupy bit of old Madchester, half-stepping beats and all. "You Said" comes on like an English response to years of Brit-isms from Interpol: moody but full of melody, with shoegazey guitars. "Dive In" heads back to Manchester with an even finer updating of the baggy-jeans sound, crisp and clear, before ascending into clouds of quasi-ambience (with beats), while "Wild Eyed" pairs flutelike keyboard chords and swirling backing vocals with the kind of drums that keep the whole album moving: not a dance beat but one you could dance to. It’s a radical transformation -- you almost feel the Horrors should consider changing their name to go with the sound—but on Skying they pull it off with flair.

Sometimes you hear a record and it knocks you sideways and just leaves you with questions. (Like...I think Yellow Ostrich is a NYC band? How’d I not know that?) Here’s what we do know: The Mistress is a re-release of an album of material originally posted on Bandcamp by primary Ostrich Alex Schaaf, whose voice—stacked, layered, geometrically arranged in a way that might make you think of the Dirty Projectors—is the album’s centerpiece (even if on first listen I thought it was group vocals, not just one guy’s). The songs themselves are spare but affecting and powerful, rhythmic, fun and weird. "WHALE" is mostly Schaaf’s voice in formation with a few clubbed percussion things, with counterpoint from a couple of guitar strings here and there. "Libraries" is the one that’ll most have you thinking of the Projectors, which isn’t to slight the Spoon-like simplicity of its rhythm. While Schaaf has a band around him now, gigging and prepping for a tour, his initial work on The Mistress—which has three added songs on its CD version—will also make you think of Andrew Bird and other self-contained pocket-geniuses of pop.