On their third outing, Two Door Cinema Club tells a similar story. They grow in their abilities as songwriters, and the tracks carrie additional pop weight. But this time, it’s easier to compare Two Door Cinema Club to nostalgic 80s throwbacks like Chromeo.

From the first hand-clap on “Are We Ready? (Wreck)”, it’s clear that Two Door Cinema Club’s latest presents a few changes. The hand clapping, danceable riffs, and background vocals all add up to a version of Two Door Cinema Club that feels fresh and new — while still using some of their trademark grooves.

For a band newly focused on a danceable groove, Two Door Cinema Club still uses a lot of guitar-based riffs. And their chorus leads are still excellent. So while there are a lot of 80s references here, it never feels overplayed. More importantly, it never feels like it departs from who Two Door Cinema is.

There are times, however, when Two Door Cinema Club intently pursues the new direction with wreckless abandon. “Bad Decisions” follows the same groove-based style that “Are We Ready? (Wreck)” sets up. It’s a dance floor-ready track that shows off where Two Door Cinema Club is going — and it might have their best chorus ever. But it’s completely different from what we’ve heard before.

None of that is bad. Gameshow is the sound of a band successfully exploring new soundscapes. These experiments make the record better.

In that light, because of their expanded musical vocabulary, the album is incredibly strong from start to finish. It rarely feels stale, and there are a lot of dynamics throughout the record. It never feels like Two Door Cinema Club is pummelling the audience from one track to the next. Gameshow is well-balanced.

Even its mid-section tracks are great. The title track and “Invincible” are both impeccable. (“Invincible” is so good; I’m surprised they didn’t name the record after it.)

On Beacon, it felt like Two Door Cinema Club were getting better as indie rockers. On this record, where they transition even further towards pop, it feels like they’re becoming more comfortable being themselves. To reference Phoenix again, if Gameshow isn’t Two Door Cinema Club’s Wolfgang Amadeus, it’s at least their It’s Never Been Like That. It’s the record where they fully come into their own.

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The past two Phantogram records have been fine, technically speaking. They’re fine indie records. But they’re original to the point that they’re bothersome. It feels like Phantogram tries too hard on them. I remember listening to Voices and being unable to recommend it here. I love weird music, but Phantogram just made me feel uncomfortable. Something was wrong.

With Three, I don’t have that feeling. The record is inventive without being polarizing. It’s familiar without ever being a retread. In short, it simply feels right.

“You Don’t Get Me High Anymore”, the album’s lead single, is a perfect example of this style. The duo’s energetic style translates perfectly to this rock-infused pop style. It’s got a great chorus, a great verse, and a fantastic flow.

The only complaint you could leverage against the record is that it feels stuffed with ideas. They don’t all work well, but so many of them do that it’s hard to hold the bad ideas against the band.

For those of us who have musical ADD, all these ideas make Three refreshingly interesting. Each song is different from then one that came before it. Eight tracks in, “Run Run Blood” is different from anything that came before (and still an excellent song, with a totally surprising verse).

For some people, though, I suspect it’ll be the quieter songs that are more potent. Tracks like “Barking Dog” are impeccably well written and emotive. “Answer” is a track that hits exactly where it hurts, with a piano line that wouldn’t be out of place in a soap opera. (That’s not an insult; music should make us feel this way.)

For Phantogram fans, Three won’t be what they expect. Some of them will acclimatize, and some will not. For the rest of us, I think Three might be their best record yet. Time will only tell. In the meantime, ignore the critics. This record is the most approachable Phantogram record. Three is easy to listen to, easy to love, and still different enough to surprise.

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Meshuggah’s been around for thirty years now, so what could they still have left to prove? It turns out: quite a lot. This is the band who single-handedly invented progressive death metal. They brought polyrhythms into the genre, and proved that math could play a role in the music.

But since then, progressive metal has become a “me too” genre. Today, it’s filled with young upstarts offering sounds that are more populist than Meshuggah’s without sacrificing their technical strengths.

But the genre is also filled with perfectionists. Today, so many progressive death metal bands are using drum machines and computer trickery to perfect their sound that it’s becoe part of the de rigeur of making a metal record.

Not Meshuggah, though. For The Violent Sleep of Reason, the band played everything live in the studio. It’s proof that the band practices what they preach. It’s an impressive metal record, but more impressive is the band itself.

To my ears, this is also the grooviest Meshuggah has been in a long time. “Monstrosity” loosely borrows from Metallica’s “Through the Never”. “By the Ton” has some Pantera influence, notably in its verse groove.

These aren’t necessarily new sounds for Meshuggah, but they haven’t made music like this for a long time. Their records are technically proficient, often to the point of sacrificing the song for the sake of the instrumentation. But on The Violent Sleep of Reason, the music has a higher priority.

None of that is to say that Meshuggah is less proficient than they’ve been in the past. But it feels like the technicality is embedded in the music, and not the other way around. The rhythm section is as tight as always (which is impressive, given the bizarre polyrhythms and time signatures), and the vocals are as insane as ever, but most importantly, these songs are their best in over a decade.

Playing these songs live in the studio certainly adds another dimension to the record. It makes Meshuggah feel young again, like they have something new to say — even when they’re going back to basics.

And after thirty years, sometimes the most important thing is revisiting the basics.

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It’s a pretty simple concept. Lock your phone’s orientation and watch the video by rotating the phone as the camera angles change. It keeps you engaged in the video, but it feels like it solves a pretty simple problem: what on earth am I supposed to do while I watch a five minute video on my main communication device?

It turns out, I just needed to fidget.

It’s a great video too. Shot entirely on an iPhone, the video is energetic despite its black and white. Chance fans will love this. Everybody else will find it novel. It’s just plain old cool.

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But to ignore Knxwledge, whose name is a big part of the NxWorries title, would be a major mistake. His production serves as the vehicle that .Paak hasn’t had yet in the hip hop world.

In short, Knxwledge is the reason that .Paak is about to explode from being an R&B saviour to a hip hop king.

It’s not that .Paak can rap (although he demonstrates some tenacity in that regard). It’s more that the beats on display here owe more to hip hop than most of the production on .Paak’s last record did.

This makes for a beautiful record. For .Paak, it’s jubilant. His voice is impressive throughout, but he’s clearly having a ton of fun. Tracks like “Livvin” and “Get Better/Do U Luv” have qualities to them that wouldn’t have existed on Malibu, the .Paak record that came out in February. .Paak knows he’s rising in the ranks.

Knxwledge has found a natural complement to his rhythms and beats. His beats haven’t flowed this well or felt this natural in a long time. The vocals lend them some charm, even when they feel too old-school or offbeat for their own good (pardon the pun).

There have been a few people who have compared the partnership to Dilla and Madlib. To me, it’s more directly related to the partnership between Madlib and MF Doom that resulted in Madvillainy. (Coincidentally, or perhaps not, Yes Lawd! was released on the same label as Madvillainy was.) These are two seemingly disparate voices who are able to come together and create something better as a whole than they are apart.

With all that being said, the question I’m left with isn’t whether or not Yes Lawd! is a great album. It’s an impeccably made, joyful record. It’s the record you make when you know you’ve finally “made it.”

No, the question I have is this: is Yes Lawd! the best Anderson .Paak record of the year? Malibu, I think, edges it out only a little bit. But the fact that it’s such a close contest is a remarkable testament to both Knxwledge and .Paak.

Clearly, .Paak has arrived. With Yes Lawd!, he continues to surprise. Knxwledge’s role in the record is the cherry on top of the cake.

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I think the concept behind this is beautiful. It sounds exactly like what Clem is describing: these songs all sound like they’ve been played by one pianist. It’s a remarkable trick that requires considerable talent and more than a little bit of luck.

Part of that luck comes from Clem playing both parts. Every pianist plays slightly differently, the same way that we all speak slightly differently, so Clem can match his own “speaking” intonations by handling every role.

But regardless of that, the compositions are top notch. It reminds me of Nils Frahm’s Screws, which he recorded while he had a thumb injury that rendered one of his hands almost useless. As a result, the album was played with one full hand and only one or two fingers on the other. It gave the album a simplicity that it would never have achieved otherwise.

Somehow, 2Pianos feels similar in its qualities. Texturally, this has all the magic of Screws. It’s nearly surreal in its composition, with clear technical ability. But it’s also incredibly simple music that’s easy to grasp, even for modern classical newcomers.

What’s most impressive about 2Pianos, though, is that it’s able to find simplicity in the complexity of its parts. Clem has written these tracks for two players, but plays them as if they were one. That’s still four hands playing piano at once — twice as many as most piano records, obviously.

But by the time you hit “Yuri”, the final track, it never feels like you’ve been subjected to that level of complexity. Instead, the music has washed over you. It’s a cleansing, calming feeling. It’s almost a ritual. Yes, 2Pianos has nearly magical qualities.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to 2Pianos II.

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We’ve all heard music like this before — and it’s hardly surprising to hear it again — but Liz’s video is doing such a good job of embodying the genre that it’s hard to ignore.

More importantly, Liz has created workshops in schools based around the song. The workshops encourage kids to start making positive impacts on their community. It’s a cool way to evoke change, and the definition of an artist putting her money where her mouth is.

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