It is very rare that a band returns from a 16-year hiatus and makes as much of an impact as Dinosaur Jr. have since reforming. Granted, J Mascis never went anywhere in the interim, but truth be told Dinosaur Jr has always been J, Lou and Murph. Which brings us to Farm, their second album since reuniting and their best sounding record since the SST days. Mascis may be looking more and more like the white wizard from Lord of the Rings (fitting, considering the album cover depicts Ents) but Dinosaur’s sound remains youthful and vibrant, and Farm easily outshines the otherwise good Beyond. Dinosaur have only grown tighter over the years and the interplay between the three of them cannot be duplicated. As proved by the new single, “Over It,” the trio have not forgotten how to write catchy rock hooks; this album is full of them and they’ll be stuck in your head all summer. The crop is good this year. (Christopher)

Let’s just assume that you haven’t been reading about and living in anticipation of this record for months. So! The new Belle and Sebastian album is in fact this Stuart Murdoch-directed non-B&S affair, based on a story that’s been rattling around his indie-brain for a while. And it is with 100 per cent certainty that I inform every B&S fan out there that they will swoon over the moon for this at times abstract love-tale-in-14-movements. By “movements” I mean discrete, perfect songs, informed by classic soul, indie-pop and chanson, and orchestrated with an ultra-fine hand that very clearly belongs to Murdoch. The revelations are the trio of cool lady singers recruited for the God Help the Girl project, especially star-in-the-making Catherine Flutter like mad, you indie hearts. (M.L. Thrope)

The follow-up to Regina Spektor’s 2006 breakthrough, Begin to Hope, is every bit as gorgeous and whimsical as you’d expect. It’s no secret that she can work magic with a piano and her inimitable voice, both childlike and sultry, full of wonder and wisdom. Her miniature pop masterpieces are full of quirky surprises at every turn, whether she’s singing in made-up words (“Eet”) or dolphin sounds (“Folding Chair”), from the perspective of someone in a creepy Orwellian future (“Machine”) or to a man whose billfold she found on the street (“Wallet”). She always has a few powerful ballads up her sleeve, too, like ”Laughing With,“ on which she observes, “No one laughs at God in a hospital / No one laughs at God in a war.” Spektor continues to prove that she is one of the most unique and endearing songwriters out there. (Kiri)

Association with such a debated term as “post-rock” has made it difficult to hear Tortoise’s music for being just music, you know? The modern Chicago legends’ first album in some years needs no external referents, though I’ll toss one out there anyway: sometimes Beacons of Ancestorship sometimes puts me in mind of early Trans Am, specifically the clean-lined through-a-lens futurisms. Ultimately, this record is classic Tortoise: 11 well-conceived and tightly executed variations on the notions of groove and vroom, with lots of unpredictable moves and moods: the sumptuous pan-ethnic soundtrack cool of “The Fall of Seven Diamonds Plus One” (which lends a sensibility, if not a sound, to the following track, “Minors”) and the massive, builds-to-no-real-resolution “Yinxianghechengqi.” In short: the genre is not “post-rock”—it’s “Tortoise.” (M.L. Thrope)

The Balkan sound that began invading indie-rock a few years ago finds its fullest, most sincere expression on Delivrance, the newest work by A Hawk and a Hacksaw. In fact . . . this stuff is quite pure! Onetime Neutral Milk Hotel drummer Jeremy Barnes and his partner, Heather Trost, recruited a cadre of some of the world’s finest players—including Hungarian cimbalom star Kalman Balogh (and his own band’s saxist, Peter Bede)!—to play along with their lovely, fiery accordion and strings on these ten tracks. How do you know Barnes and Trost write great songs and melodies? You likely won’t be able to tell the originals apart from the traditional tunes they adapt and pass along (unless you’re reading the inner sleeve). The entire assemblage plays with incredible, often feverish energy and devotion, sometimes evoking the speed and precision of Bulgarian clarinet star Ivo Papasov and his wedding band. Brilliant! (M.L. Thrope)

It’s no slight against Welsh band Future of the Left if I choose to mention their album-cover first—I just like the idea of portraying humans and individual personalities in terms of a Venn diagram. Now, the music: FotL stars singer-guitarist and sometime synth-player Andy Falkous, formerly of the mighty Mclusky (as is FotL drummer Jack Egglestone), so the lean but churning roar on Travels with Myself and Another comes as no surprise. These guys do a great job of mixing taut modern post-punk with keen political-tinged sentiments though—yes, they are pissed-off and are not shy in the least about showing it, especially Falkous and his part-sung, part-yelled vox. It’s the way that Future of the Left project their fury with such crisp, rhythmic and melodic exactitude that them apart. (M.L. Thrope)

City Center is the new moniker for the gifted Fred Thomas, leader of the now-defunkt indie pop outfit Saturday Looks Good to Me. Anybody expecting the sunshine melodies of that group is in for a shock; City Center is a dramatic departure for Thomas, who trades in his Brian Wilson-inspired songcraft for avant folk drenched in reverb, dreamy atmospherics, polyrhythms and warped electronics. It all works beautifully. The album floats like a dream, but it never meanders; Thomas is too much the master songsmith to abandon pop altogether. He brings some AM-inspired hooks to the mayhem, a la Ariel Pink and Panda Bear, giving the album a light touch amid the frenzy of exciting sounds. (James)

This compilation covers just one small country—but a lot of territory in terms of time (1969-81) and style (Afro-funk, Cavacha, Agbadja, Afrobeat). Aside from Antoine Dougbe & Orchestre Poly-Rythmo, most of the performers here will be unknown to non-collectors, but as the 14 tracks prove, they are well worth hearing. Fans of the superb Analog Africa label have some idea what to expect: Everything’s funky in different ways, so you can add this disc to the growing list of great ’70s African music comps that expertly explore areas that haven’t been covered to death already. Comes with a choice 44-page booklet of photos and notes, too. (Steve)

The final blow in the Loop reissue program is the heaviest and, by its nature, the most necessary: The World in Your Eyes collects all the old London psych-rawk band’s 12-inch and compilation tracks onto three remastered discs, throwing in a few early demos and the once promo-only live EP Prisma Uber Europa for good measure. Hearing this band in all its glory after so many years, it’s hard to remember how I only liked them at the time—as in, not loved. Perhaps they seemed a bit simplistic when compared to, say, Spacemen 3, but it’s now clear that was part of their appeal: basic, repeating riffs swelled into mesmeric events, and the band (which always revolved around Robert Hampson, who later formed Main) never abandoned the raw guitar sound and fistful of chords that drive all great rock music, from psych to punk and metal. Awesome covers among these 27 tracks are of Nick Drake (“Pink Moon’),Can (a worthy entry in the everybody covers ‘Mother Sky’ sweepstakes) and Neil Young (“Cinnamon Girl”), but it’s all about Loop. And Loop were frikkin’ awesome. (M.L. Thrope)

When a band’s records come out on in the context of an indie label, something in your head automatically orients them as being “underground” or an alternative to something or other. Which might be why I’d overlooked Deer Tick before—this quartet plays straight-up rusty rustic roots-pop, with a mainstream sound and no pretensions to anything otherwise. Frontman John Joseph McCauley III’s raspy vocals can feel a little too raspy at times, but they don’t seem affected, and Born on Flag Day — as he apparently is — features ten Southern-fried rave-ups that would do Hank Williams (the first!) proud , if he were around to hear them. (McCauley has cited old Hank as the main inspiration for his musical direction, coming of age in the noise-rock-dominated Providence, RI.) Lotsa highlights here — plenty of tasteful arrangements and a fair bit of pedal steel and harmonica to be found — but the highest of them all is the lean, sweetly snappy duet with band-friend Liz Isenberg, “Friday XIII.” (M.L. Thrope)