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If Glen Hansard's and Markéta Irglová's roles in the hit Irish indie film Once unintentionally wove the tale of their real-life falling in love, their second album as the Swell Season weaves the story of their falling out of it. Strict Joy is a glorious bummer.

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Anti-Pop Consortium's obsession with sound, be it analog, digital, or vocal, makes them unique among hip-hop artists; they're like a postmillennial Public Enemy, minus the political oratory. The MC trio rhyme with distinct cadences tuned like instruments, while engineer Earl Blaize compiles keyboards, drums, and software blips into an Afro-surrealist space opera.

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Ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr recently joined the Cribs, as is evident in the chiming intro to "Last Year's Snow," from the feisty British band's fourth full-length. He also brings a sense of calm to Ignorant, which could be frustrating to those looking for a snarling good time, but the pairing is mostly brilliant.

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Gemma Ray has a dramatic flair for jarring contrasts -- chanting the title of "Tough Love" in a shell-shocked deadpan as a toy piano plunks in the background or perfectly copping Beach Boys–style wooos in "Fist of a Flower." Had Phil Spector forced his girl groups in a more noir-soundtrack direction, this might've been the result.

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Too much sex, too little intimacy: It's a cocktail that, like most cocktails, leads to oversharing. Luckily, WHY? frontman Yoni Wolf offers an explanation for his fourth album's plentiful corpse visions and masturbation scenes: "You gotta yell something out you'd never tell nobody." Once seen as hip-hop provocateurs, WHY?