With 2008's Only By the Night, Kings of Leon fused their characteristic Southern rock guitars with more exploratory studio sounds -- but the boys haven't satisfied their experimental side just yet.

Depressing lyrics about bad breakups and toxic relationships don't usually make for good dance songs, but Swedish producer Andreas Kleerup has somehow managed to defy this rule on his debut album, Kleerup.

This week's top stories had us thinking that summer couldn't come soon enough: Green Day announced their summer tour plans, while officials unveiled the lineup for this year's Lollapalooza festival. Meanwhile, Eminem unveiled the pilled-out cover of his summer release and Oasis announced plans to take a summer vacation -- for five years!

To chart the success of Swede popster Lykke Li would be the equivalent of drawing blueprints for an Olympic ski jump -- the 23-year-old has gone from obscurity to ubiquity on a steep trajectory.

Four years after the release of 2005's SPIN-approved The Understanding, Norway's downtempo electronic twosome Royksopp have finally unveiled details of their third studio album, Junior.

From the pages of SPIN's July issue to the release of one of the year's hottest debuts, Youth Novels, Sweden's own indie-pop princess Lykke Li has had a busy 2008.