Yeasayer is the rare band these days that can take more than two years to follow up a much-loved debut and find its fans waiting and hungry (as opposed to finding them moved on to something else). Odd Blood is sure to give them plenty to chew on, opening with the bizarrely distorted “The Children,” which will have some people checking their stereo equipment, before leading right into first single “Ambling Alp,” a bright collision of glam-pop ingredients that might be partly about Joe Louis (or not, who can really say?). Odd Blood doesn’t let up — credit the band for debuting with such an odd and free-flowing sound, which means here it can go in any directions it wants and still sound like itself. One song (say, “I Remember”) can foreground their romantic side, and the next (say, “O.N.E.”) can bump with Yea-funk. The group’s dedication to quirky melodies and rhythms, the kind that’d flop in other hands, binds all the disparate sounds, colors and songs. Clap your hands and say it. (M.L. Thrope)

How nice to have Massive Attack back after seven years, which was bad, and 100th Window, which was worse. The pioneering trip-hop outfit put out the groundbreaking, genre-defining Mezzanine in 1998, a true crossover hit that catapulted Massive Attack to cult status, but the group splintered and never gave us a true follow-up, wallowing in soundtrack work for most of the past decade. Here’s the return to form we’ve been waiting some 12 years for. Heligoland shows some new direction for Massive Attack, now featuring Robert Del Naja, Neil Davidge and Andrew Vowles; the songs are more spread out and spare (the opener, “Pray for Rain,” featuring TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe, is particularly haunting), but Massive Attack’s signature beats and steady tension loom throughout. As usual, we’re treated to a stellar cast of guest vocalists: Hope Sandoval, Martina Topley-Bird, Guy Garvey (Elbow), Damon Albarn and (of course) reggae great Horace Andy. The vocalists give the album warmth and scope, but the real story here is that Massive Attack is back, not unlike the way Portishead took us by storm a few years ago after their long absence. (James)

The slyly named Pantha Du Prince is German techno producer Hendrick Weber, who in his eight or so years of action (mostly confined to the Eurocentric electronic-music world) has dropped a couple of well-liked (if niche-noticed) albums along with a small handful of singles. Black Noise is his coming-out party both Stateside and in the less techno-exclusive indie world (note the Rough Trade logo on the back), and it’s already rippling across scene boundaries. Credit Weber’s style: clean and crisp but utterly approachable and warm, with a mind for techno-adornment that’s garnered appropriate mentions of both the best first-wave shoegazers and the Detroit/Berlin techno axis of rhythmic power. “Stick to My Side” features a winning vocal from Noah “Panda Bear” Lennox, making for the most obvious bridge between Weber’s techno provenance and the indie scene he’s now being exposed to, but his textural brilliance is even more apparent on “The Splendour,” with melodic curlicues swimming between beats, and “Bohemian Forest,” which suggests a low-key version of Thomas Brinkmann’s funky-tech excursions. Black Noise is an hour-plus of full-color techno, deep grooves that are safe for the groove-challenged. (Vinyl contains digital download code.) (M.L. Thrope)

Well, this is rather unexpected. And while it may not be televised, Gil Scott-Heron’s powerful new album — his first in more than a decade, and after just as long a period of run-ins with the law (including at least two stints in the house) — will certainly be blogged about, hailed and celebrated. And with good reason: Heron, who’ll always be identified with his landmark piece “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” may be a little bit worse for the wear of a hard life, but I’m New Here is a moving document, one in which his narrative and that of Black America — and in no small way, America period — blaze into life. Singing and speaking in his singular gruff baritone, which hides nothing of his experience, Scott-Heron voices truths ranging from the personal to the political over a variety of deep productions: spare piano, drama-inducing beats both electronic and real, and cavernous space in which his voice can reverberate like thunder across a night sky. Including covers of songs by Robert Johnson and Bill Callahan, I’m New Here is the kind of record that, from the outside, you’d probably try to associate with the radical African-American art movements of the early ’70s. But even shot through with strains of gospel and blues and a potent sense of history, this is a thoroughly modern record, and absolutely necessary. (Vinyl contains digital download code.) (M.L. Thrope)

What a rush! Completely aware that there just ain’t no reinventing left to do for some wheels, the Soft Pack — who you may have known as the Muslims in a past life — turn out a blistering album with ten songs that could each be a single on its own. The two Matts — Lamkin on vox and guitar, McLoughlin on lead axe — are diabolically effective, injecting each song with an air of garage-rock moodiness or indie-rock classicism (which is kind of hard to muster in this trend-manic hyper-indie’d scene). You will seriously struggle to pick a favorite song from this near-perfect batch, but my faves are the Feelies-recalling hard-strumming “More or Less,” the bittersweet “Mexico” and the cool roar of “Pull Out.” Breathlessly simple and simply great — the Soft Pack everybody! (M.L. Thrope)

Seventies revivalism is nothing new, but last time out Midlake struck the motherlode with The Trials of Van Occupanther by reviving the moody dark side of soft rock while banishing all cheesy aspects (unless you’re one of those misguided souls who thinks flutes in rock are inherently cheesy). Four years later we finally get a follow-up with Tim Smith & Co. reprising that sound. In the interim, big lush production sounds have become less rare in indie-rockland, but Midlake’s lovely pastoralisms remain utterly distinctive. Heck, even if the songs weren’t so solid, the combination of Smith’s mellow vocals and the band’s production style would be enough to make this enjoyable, but his knack for gently insinuating hooks and unpretentiously profound and poetic lyrics can’t be overlooked. While The Courage of Others doesn’t seem to be a concept album a la Occupanther, recurring themes of man in and vs. nature and melancholy retrospection provide coherence, and they mesh well with the band’s organic sound. (Steve)

Devonté Hynes, who is Lightspeed Champion, is only on album No. 2, but he’s already proved himself to be the sort of hyper-active artist who’ll never be confined by genre. His short-lived band Test Icicles was known for flavor-of-the-week dance punk, but Hynes has a more widescreen view of music, having collaborated with and/or written for more musicians than we can list here, including the London Saxophonic (which is exactly what it sounds like) and noted Dirty Projectors fan and Beyoncé sibling Solange Knowles. The best way to characterize Life Is Sweet! Nice to Meet You is “contemporary”: The 15 songs range from the Strokes-updating “Marlene” (hey Julian, get a load of the chorus!) to bouncy UK pop tunes such as “Faculty of Fears” and the swoon-inducing “I Don’t Want to Wake Up Alone” and “Sweetheart.” What binds the album is Hynes’s uncommonly gorgeous voice, a passionate lead instrument that lends depth and honesty to any and every style he tries — and pretty much everything he tries works. Nice to meet you too, dude. (James)

Splanking drum-machine beats, straight-out-of-the-box synthesizer timbres, the occasional disco move, minimal structures and production — the Minimal Wave genre is early-’80s DIY electronica at its most insolently charming. In 2005, Veronica Vasicka founded a label named for the movement and dedicated to unearthing its gems; now she and Peanut Butter Wolf have collaborated on this compilation of brilliant but obscure acts from the U.S., Belgium, France, Spain, Holland and the U.K. The skeletal nature of the arrangements and the chilly alienation of most of the vocals give the album a certain coherence, but within those lines there’s a great deal of variety; the opening “Way Out of Living” (by Linear Movement) has a strong R&B feel, while other tracks you’d expect to find on Sprockets or the Liquid Sky soundtrack; sometimes things get weird enough to suggest that the Residents were an influence. Wear black and smoke while listening. (Steve)