LORD HURON: Lonesome Dreams

IAMSOUND, 45 minutes

Rating: 5/5

Lord Huron’s 2010 EPs Into the Sun and Mighty were small miracles; they sounded excitingly new with their blend of warm, choir-ready vocals and hyperactive tropical rhythm - Jackson Browne trapped on an island - but free from the pressure of innovation. Fresh sounds in this day and age rarely feel so effortless.

Some two years later Lord Huron founder and songwriter Ben Schneider have finally released the proper LP Lonesome Dreams and, some added Southern twang aside, it matches the promise early fans might’ve since forgotten. Like EP highlights "We Went Wild" and "The Stranger," its standouts feel truly alive - the bounding, sentimental “Time to Run,” the traveler's lament “She Lit a Fire” in particular. Lest anyone peg Lord Huron as a rustic Fleet Foxes clone on voice alone some songs, like "Lonesome Dreams," make more direct lyrical and melodic reference to life on the shore.

Lonesome Dreams perfectly demonstrates how character and colour can make decent singer-songwriter music great. There’s nothing complicated about any of the songs here, and Schneider’s lyrics are straightforward in their yearning for love and adventure, but his added sun-lit layers bring them to a whole other level.

TAME IMPALA: Lonerism

Modular, 52 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5

Kevin Parker may sound as much like John Lennon as possible for any living person, but the music he makes as Tame Impala isn’t exactly Beatle-esque. It’s much heavier, for one, and sees drug use as more of a crutch than a mind expander. The first words on the album are a whispered, looped “gotta be above it ...” and the album that follows is a sometimes fraught battle between focus and distraction.

The gap between the focused, instantly-memorable tracks — the groovy “Mind Mischief”, enormous “Elephant” — and those that search in vain for pop appeal — “Apocalypse Dreams”, the warped, jammy “Keep On Lying” — is noticeably wide. Psychedelic bands are rarely this bi-polar.

The effect, while unusual, is ultimately positive. Lonerism is neither hard to get into nor easy to get sick of, its more immediate moments complimenting its flights of fancy. Nothing quite touches the glory of “Elephant” but, stoned or sober, this is a constantly interesting album.

DAPHNI: Jiaolong

Merge, 48 minutes

Rating: 3.5/5

Daphni is a side-moniker of Dan Snaith (popularly known for his Caribou project) a guy I’ve never quite forgiven for playing the most irritatingly loud concert of my life. That’s neither here nor there when it comes to Jiaolong, a smoother and more accessible record than Snaith’s recent efforts.

Jiaolong is mostly instrumental electronic music, capturing the precision of Kraftwerk and the populism of Daft Punk. It opens at its peak with the infectious, soul-sampling “Yes I Know” and moves through Afro-beat (“Cos-Ber-Zam - Ne Noya”), eerie Knife-like electro-pop (“Ye Ye”, “Ahora”) and a whole lot of house / rave house material.

Even with its emphasis on getting the listener up and dancing, Jiaolong is deeply nerdy music — fitting given Snaith’s background in mathematics. It’s an album that might get blasted around the Large Hadron Collider. If that sounds like your thing, dig in.

DEATH GRIPS: No Love Deep Web

Self-Released (?), 46 minutes
Rating: 4/5

The actual cover of No Love Deep Web is not safe for work (or anywhere) but its censored version is apropos. If any major-label album this year deserves representation from a black monolith it’s this one; Death Grips second LP of 2012, ostensively leaked after Epic refused to confirm its promised release date, is completely uncompromising and colourless. Engaging with it even slightly means blocking out the world.

A minute-and-a-half into the album and opener “Come Up and Get Me,” MC Ride already sounds exhausted. Understandable, considering his rhymes are constantly delivered in a shouted monotone. I get winded climbing some stairs and, over 46 minutes, this guy never seems to take a breath. Of course, while Death Grips brutality is their selling point, their weird pop appeal is the payoff. Ride is a rapper but they’ve rarely sounded more hip-hop than “Lil Boy” or “Whammy.”

Their first record of 2012, The Money Store, was excellent, but pushed their sound to its apparent extreme. No Love is a mild retraction in aggressiveness but still, somehow, the hardest thing you’ll hear this season.