Heron Oblivion is filled with raging rock riffs and quiet, pastoral moments that singer (and drummer) Meg Baird fills with an angelic sense of calm despite the overwhelming sense of unease present through the record.

The tone lends itself to wandering: Rama is over ten minutes long, with the band unafraid to explore their psychedelic leanings. Few songs have the immediacy of Oriar and Sudden Lament (which sounds like it would have fit it well in an alternate universe’s Pulp Fiction soundtrack).

Faro is the stand-out track (among many) on the record. Clear riffs and building tension set it apart from some of the other tracks, but the growing tension feels a constant need to reach catharsis with the guitars.

It’s an excellent summary for the album: despite the unusual calm that Baird is able to bring to the record with her vocal work, as the tension piles up, the album has to resolve itself with nothing less than cathartic guitar solos and pummelling riffs. It’s the sonic equivalent of a conversation in a diner leading to a film’s climactic shootout, as if two opposing sides can’t reconcile themselves.

All of that comes together with Heron Oblivion’s debut with shocking ease. Well aware of their clashing styles, the band doesn’t attempt to marry them without first embracing the tension and allowing it to dictate where the music needs to go.

Heron Oblivion is at its most transcendent when that tension explodes into guitar solos and drum batteries. The styles clash and complement each other in a way that feels original and unique to Heron Oblivion, and makes for an incredibly strong debut that’s not shy about the band’s aspirations.

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Their latest release, No Cities to Love, comes after a decade-long hiatus. It might be their best record, which is incredible. If you’ve been living under a rock, it received practically universal acclaim from critics last year and has been dominant on Best Of lists.

What makes the record so special isn’t just great songwriting or intricate and unique chunky riffs. It’s that all of this greatness is stuffed into a collection of raw, unnerving three-minute punk-like songs.

With great songwriting, awesome riffs, left-leaning politics, and perfect cover art, there isn’t much not to love here. You’re missing out if you haven’t heard No Cities to Love yet.

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What makes Expo 86 different from Wolf Parade’s other work is that it has a little bit more of a riff focus, and it feels a bit more digestible. There are also moments of maturity that are highly memorable. The album shows signs of maturity for the band.

If Modest Mouse and Led Zeppelin had a weird, rebellious baby, it might sound like Wolf Parade. They are unto their own, and hard to define, but I think this is their best output.

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The album is raw and honest, poignant and emotional, open and intimate. The album chronicles the early years of Tillman’s marriage, as well as his struggles with being American in the current economic and current climate.

It’s tender-hearted while being closed-off, loving until it’s suddenly dispassionate, tender until it becomes cynical — which is often how marriage feels, if you’re not married already and curious. Chateau Lobby #4 an ode to losing virginity and falling in love, while Nothing Good Ever Happens at the Goddamn Thirsty Crow and The Ideal Husband revel in their sarcasm and negativity. Bored In the USA is so openly cynical and depressing that it requires a canned laugh track to make it palatable, as if discussing being broke and miserable is something so horribly unfamiliar that we can’t laugh at our own knowledge of the subject without somebody to encourage us to do so.

But it’s also illuminating that, for Father John Misty, much of this is intimate and uncomfortable territory. The music in I Love You, Honeybear often serves as little more than a backing track for his Sufjan Stevens-like focus on lyricism, and Ideal Husband and Bored are both perfect examples. Misty sets the former to rock guitars to make the fears he has of being a horrible father less distracting. He sets Bored In the USA to a laugh track because it makes the uncomfortable feel comfortable, but it’s really more for him than it is for us.

And that makes sense: Holy Shit was written on his wedding day, and we get to come along for the ride as he exposes his deepest fears and joys to us. It’s not an easy thing for any artist to do: being human is messy, and not unlike I Love You, Honeybear, contradictory. Even though uses Father John Misty as a sort of alter-ego to make exploring these themes somewhat safer, Honeybear is an incredibly brave record.

It all pays off: we have a contender for best album of the year with this record, and its success on vinyl doesn’t surprise even a little bit. I Went to the Store One Day might be the last track on the record, but by the time Misty tells you the story of how his relationship with his wife started — and how it will end — you’ll be weeping. I Love You, Honeybear is a new standard in musical story-telling.

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And rest assured that this is an unusual album for The Helio Sequence. With several records under their belts now, the band has dared to try something different and reconsider what it might look like to be a part of the band.

The Helio Sequence is a result of experimentation. Reportedly, the band wrote more than twenty-five songs in one month and picked ten to record. It let the duo be more free-form with their ideas and forced them to avoid being detail-oriented.

The experimentation makes the band feel refreshingly buoyant and alive. Stoic Resemblance has a spring in its step that belies the band’s age. Upward Mobility feels like danceable rock, in a weird experimental Radiohead-esque way. That song’s post-chorus guitar riff is a single note, hit repeatedly and very quickly — but with unpredictable rhythm. It feels like it sums up the album as a whole.

While The Helio Sequence is getting older, they’re daring to reinvent themselves as a more youthful, energetic band. And it pays off.

Even the album art is a nod to this new direction: the colourful, energetic sunset could also be a sunrise. Is the band running to the horizon or embracing the very edge? The answer is undoubtedly a mixture of everything.

The Helio Sequence’s self-titled record comes late, but it makes them sound young again. It’s both a great time to be a fan and a great time to listen to them for the first time.

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For the most part, the experimental musicianship on Close to the Glass exists only to serve the songs, meaning that this record is their best one in a long time and one that just about everybody can appreciate. The general consensus is that Kong seems to be the big hit on this record, and I’d agree with that. It’s so catchy. Casino and 7-Hour-Drive are both great too, but Casino is a quieter track. Signals reminds me of the experimental musicianship of Flying Lotus at times.

All that being said, Run Run Run is the emotional capper of the album for me. It’s a tremendous mark of the band’s growth and maturity that we can talk about the emotional heights of a Notwist album. Even when they play through the staple instrumental track, it never feels as if they’re drifting too far from pop-rock. For a band who often struggles to maintain my interest beyond an intellectual level, Close to the Glass is a refreshing change of pace.

It might also be the best Notwist album yet.

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Spun Out sounds like something Nirvana might have recorded in a more drunken and relaxed moment, sort of like if Nirvana and early Arctic Monkeys got together and made a baby. This Must Be Done channels old-school rock and roll in a uniquely modern way, with a bass line thumping through the whole song. I love Pet Trust, which is my favourite in the record. We’ve all said it: “Screw people, my dog is the only person I can trust.” Malpractice sounds vintage, but again, it’s more out of respect than it is Obits trying to rip anybody off.

The later tracks don’t always maintain the same energy, but for some people that might be an improvement. Receptor is more melodic than some of the punk-filled earlier tracks, while Machines almost sounds like a whole different band.

The bottom line? If your favourite music comes from groups like Nirvana or the Pixies or any of those great hardcore groups from the 1970s, Bed & Bugs is a record you’ll want to give a listen to.

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