1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

A lot of indie-pop bands catch flak for making sickly-sweet songs, but Islands have a different vice: the sweetly sick. Since the early 2000s, Nick Thorburn has been penning morbidly sunny-sounding anthems -- first as a member of the brilliant broken-pop trio The Unicorns, then on Islands’ apocalyptically catchy 2006 debut, Return to the Sea.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

Like seemingly everyone emerging from Baltimore's pogo-stick-and-glow-stick indie music scene, Australian natives the Death Set rock out à la Looney Tunes -- maniacal, colorful, and giddy. They're punks with lo-fi drum machines and keyboards, crafting spastic sing-alongs that channel the Blood Brothers and rarely top two minutes.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

If Boris's 2006 American breakthrough, Pink, was one long earthquake of speed metal, shoegaze, and stoner grunts and shouts, consider the Japanese sludge trio's follow-up album the aftershock.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

These proud parents ditched their old-timey organ, and with it much of the band’s hyper-active, carnivalesque vibe. About time, too: Adorned with piano and synth, the ten songs on Re-Arrange Us are fuller, more elegant vessels for the duo’s warm, intricate melodies.