As their fan base grew, it didn’t take long for Karmin to attract the notice of a major label. In 2012, they released Hello, an eight-track EP, with Epic Records. In 2014, they released their full-length debut on Epic: Pulses.

After disappointing sales, Epic let them go.

(Turns out the Venn diagram between Youtube addicts and record purchasers doesn’t overlap much. I kid, but… Well, I don’t kid. If you’re reading this and you work at a record label, your single takeaway from this review should be that Youtube views are rarely indicative of record sales. That being said, the opposite is true: a record that’s selling well will almost always get a lot of Youtube views. Anyway, moving on.)

After getting let go by Epic, Karmin decided to release their sophomore effort independently. As a result, Leo Rising feels like a record they wanted to make.

Each track in Leo Rising is based off a different sign. “Blame It on My Heart” is based on Sagittarius, for example. “Save Me Now” (one of the best tracks on the record) is Capricorn. (Sadly, the album titles in Apple Music don’t indicate which track is meant to be which sign — I had to look it up.)

The result is a smart collection of alt-pop tracks that offer a wide variety of styles. “Come with Me (Pure Imagination)” is a cover/remix from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that’s unapologetically pop. This is the sort of music that Karmin is known for. (It’s well-timed, too: R.I.P. Gene Wilder.)

“Didn’t Know You” competes with the best pop: the verse reminds me of Lady Gaga, and the chorus competes with the best indie. “No Suitcase”, my favourite track on the record, offers a fun chorus and a shiny verse that feels like L.A. (It could also double as a “love letter” to Epic Records, although I doubt it’s intended to feel that way.)

There’s an infectious sense of fun throughout this record that was missing from Karmin’s records with Epic. Although the duo is rapping less than they used to, it feels like they’re finally making the music they want to make. This is the first record from Karmin that’s caught my attention, and if you haven’t heard the band yet, this is the first one from them that deserves your heavy rotation.

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Despite that, and perhaps because of my comically low expectations, Air for Free surprised me. It’s a true follow-up to their 2009 record Forget and Not Slow Down, which was a post-breakup album of the first order. If Forget was a record about letting go, Air for Free is a record about growing up. I haven’t stopped playing it all week.

Stylistically, Air for Free is similar to Forget — poppy tunes that have little to do with the band’s punk origins abound. But the songwriting is as good as it’s ever been, and there are hints of that ska formula left over that remain a ton of fun. “Elephant Parade” has some of the horns ska was known for during its chorus.

Songs like “Mrs. Hippopotamuses’” have that classic Relient K vibe to them too — along with the sense of humour and melodrama that the band is so well known for. “Cat” carries on that tradition as well. And on “Mountaintop,” the band feels like they’ve found their creative mojo again, with the whole band in perfect skip-step form.

As usual, though, the meatiest tracks on Air for Free are the ones where singer Matt Thiessen becomes more introspective. “Man” sounds like the theme song on the record, in which he ruminates on his past mistakes and poor life choices and sings in the chorus that “it’s time to be man.” It carries both nostalgia and the pangs of facing adulthood.

On “God” and “Prodigal,” which both sound U2-inspired, Thiessen admits to his belief in God and his struggles with his faith. They almost bookend each other on the record and, for fans, I suspect they’ll be among the album’s high points. When Thiessen sings, “I am the champion of wine; You’re the bread on my tongue. I am the last one in line — the prodigal son,” it feels like the culmination of everything the band has been struggling to say for over ten years.

If the album has any weak point, it’s that too much of it sounds canned in the studio. “Empty House,” which relies on autotune, is a black eye on the record; Thiessen can sing and it’s disappointing when his voice is relegated to the side for the sake of a poorly-used effect.

Yet those moments are few and far between. By and large, Relient K’s eighth album feels like an oddly self-aware and cogent album for a band that’s been around as long as they have. For the first time since the band was putting out joke-heavy Christmas records in 2007, it feels like Relient K is having fun again. And it’s been too long.

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The lead singer, Miles Arntzen, put on a heckuva show. He was practically manic: he played an upright, standing drum kit centre stage, pounding it with a palpable degree of ferocity. The bassist head banged through every track, but in the sort of dancey way that you might laugh at if you saw a friend do it.

The sax and trumpet player can’t stop dancing, wiggling on stage like they’re at an EDM show. The percussionist in the back has all the excitement of a DJ who’s really into the tunes. This show was messy, and the band wasn’t as tight as they maybe could have been, but it didn’t matter. It was an explosion of energy — one of the best lives shows I’ve ever seen.

That energy isn’t necessarily captured on their debut self-titled record, but the incredible music is. Emefe is straight out of New York, so their Vampire Weekend-inspired Afrobeat sound is almost familiar, but the way they layer in jazz and funk makes it feel like a whole different gig.

Same Thing is one of the moments on record where it feels like they manage to capture as much of their energy as a recording can handle, and their jazzy style is on full display. The keyboardist is oozing psychedelics, and the trumpet and sax are out in full force. Not to mention that the music is delightfully weird, and oddly danceable.

The One isn’t dissimilar: the guitar lays down a nice, groovey riff, the vocal line makes for a nice sing along, by and the time the song is over, the whole band is jamming over a gnarly riff that’s simply divine.

I also love Sun Spat, which might be my favourite track on the record. I love the way that the instruments interact with the off-beats of the drums. It’s cool stuff, even if it “feels” musically wrong. It’s an incredible track, played with power, delivered with gravitas.

The following track, Summer, feels nearly traditional by comparison. But it’s clear, at this point in the record, that Emefe is all about defying convention. I love the way the song slowly builds up, in a manner that feels reminiscent of some of the great funk of yesteryear. Plus, that guitar riff (and the surrounding instrumentation) about a minute and a half into the song is plain old delightful.

Every member of this eight-piece band feels important, and necessary. Even if the music isn’t your cup of tea, if it’s too avant-garde for you, they’re a band you need to see live the next time they’re in town. They’ll make a fan out of you yet with their incredible live show — among the most energetic and exciting I’ve ever seen.

I can’t recommend Emefe highly enough, and I cannot wait to see where they go next.

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The thing that I really like about Puggy is that they don’t over-indulge the synths. Maybe it’s because I grew up listening to rock and roll, but I love the way that Puggy functions as a rock trio who happen to make pop music and invest heavily in hooks.

This formula doesn’t always work — the album isn’t perfect, and there are some odd tracks here and there — but more often than not, you have a record that’s perfect for highway driving in the summer. The chorus in Soul is so easy to pick up and sing that my wife got it after hearing it once, and we sang along together like a couple idiots while driving to visit my parents recently.

Other tracks are great because they feel like alt-rock dance tracks. Where It Wants to Be is great because it has an awesome riff, but you still want to move your hips and dance with it. It reminds me of Jukebox the Ghost (in the best way possible).

I could say the same thing about Feel so Low, a country-influenced dance track that borrows the a-rhythmic claps from Radiohead’s The King of Limbs and its attitude from old-school country and Django Reinhardt-style chord changes.

The album’s quieter tracks don’t work as well. Sadly, there are too many of them in the mid-section that brings the album down. But the final three tracks are fantastic. I’m particularly fond of Territory, which is a surprisingly aggressive track that doesn’t fail to hold its audience captive. The chorus is so different from the rest of the record that it’s almost shocking.

If it were packaged as an EP with a collection of its biggest crowd-pleasers, Colours would be among the year’s best short spurts. As it is, it’s a refreshing listen that’s perfectly suited for summer parties and jamming out in the car. And sometimes, that’s exactly what you need.

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In other words, Wild Belle is a breath of fresh air in what usually feels like a sea of mediocrity.

Their sophomore album is, by all accounts, not a slump in any way. It feels like an experiment: the duo’s style continues to morph from one song to the next, with one track feeling jazzy (like the opener Mississippi River) and the next taking clear inspiration from reggae (Losing You).

The album’s best tracks are the ones that are the most blatantly focused on the hook. There’s a lot of great moments here, and it’s easy to miss some: every track is peppered with great ideas. The more immediately memorable tracks include Cannonball, which has a great riff and sax line, Giving Up On Your (which feels as garage rock as this record ever could), and The One That Got Away, which feels like a tremendous slow burn (and a couple great verses).

Wild Belle is willing to flirt with slower, more melancholic tracks too. The best of those is It Was You (Baby Come Back to Me), which is a multi-layered track that impresses with both its styling and its composition. The chorus is particularly captivating.

Much of Wild Belle’s success is clearly owed to Natalie, who handles the vocals throughout most of the record. Her voluptuous vocal style is both attractive and unique, making her instantly recognizable despite the pop genre’s more familiar trappings.

But moving beyond vocals, Elliot’s musical additions are everything. The best tracks on Dreamland are filled with musical ambition that feels unparalleled in pop, and I suspect much of these ideas are the saxophonist’s contribution. Tracks like Throw Down Your Guns could have drowned in predictable mediocrity if it wasn’t for some surprising musical twists outside of the chorus; it’s these fascinating hooks that often separate Dreamland from the rest of the pack.

In short: Dreamland is one of the best albums of the year, a real treasure and a breath of fresh air in a genre that people don’t always associate with originality.

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The band tries to avoid being locked down as R&B, saying they’d prefer to be called pop. And with all the synths and beats overtop of their music, along with the generous production value of the record, it sounds like that category might be a better fit for them anyway.

But despite the polish of the record, Wet still remains incredibly raw emotionally. These songs are intimate in a way that pop records actively avoid: singer Kelly Zutrau invites the listener into a world of heartbreak for the entire runtime. Each song is about what sounds like one horrible relationship, leading Clash Music to thank the man who broke her heart.

And it’s true that Wet may have just released the definitive breakup record, but for those of us who aren’t going through an emotionally scarring loss or heartbreak, it might be a bit much for many of us. And Wet’s biggest downfall is that they don’t have any upbeat songs that are a little more, well, radio-friendly.

Despite that fatal flaw, though, Wet is an interesting record for its level of candidness. It’s rare that a record captures an artist at this vulnerable of a moment, and it will prove to be an interesting time capsule when Wet produces a (hopefully more diverse) sophomore follow-up.

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The music is slow and airy laid-back electronic built on the backbone of a piano and the soft harmonies of male and female duo Josephine Vander Gucht and Anthony West. I love the way their voices sound together: there’s a ton of contrast and an obvious distinction between them (thanks to their difference in gender, obviously), but there’s a hint of playfulness that reminds me a little bit of the harmonies in Of Monsters & Men.

For a debut release, this record is incredibly impressive: incredibly catchy pop songs spread across fifty-three impeccably crafted minutes, Oh Wonder no doubt understands the art that can go into making music like this. It’s refreshing to hear a band whose interpretation of the laid-back electronic pop genre believes so much in the art of the music, and not just the single. Highly recommended.

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The production value on each track is astounding too. Part of the reason that each track comes together so well is a tacit musical admission that most of these songs are about the pulsing mess of sex. From the beats of Waiting Game to the grind of This Is What It Feels Like, the production value of each track oozes sex.

Vocally, it’s hard to pin down BANKS’ influences. The Weeknd seems like an obvious one, but she’s reportedly obsessed with Fiona Apple. That’s a hard comparison to make, but I can see it: if you removed the dark atmosphere and electronic work in the background, and replaced it all with a sing-along performance, I could see BANKS covering Fiona Apple without a problem.

All these qualities come together perfectly for a four-track EP that doesn’t last a single second longer than it needs to. London is one of the most exciting debuts from an artist I can remember in some time.

I can’t wait to hear a full-length record from BANKS soon.

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