Beaus$Eros plays in that same tradition, the look of the title demanding that dollar sign be an ampersand, Busdriver chuckling because it just isn’t. His insistence on frustrating and playing with expectations is often downright funny, if not antagonistic. Where Childish Gambino’s “Bonfire” took over last year with its rough-hewn insistence, the candy-coated, sing-song cuteness of “Bon Bon Fire” is the smirking, fun-house response. A line like “I appeal to folks that you can’t by acting awkward” on that track, or “Me and Medgar Evers and Arthur Ashe in the conference room/We’re picking band names” could each embody Busdriver’s ethos for the new listener.

The production on the album is a very wide spectrum that still manages to feel cohesive. Opener “Utilitarian Uses of Love” borders on trippy Animal Collective territory, and electro-head rush “Kiss Me Back To Life” is incredibly different sonically, but a fun-loving, free-wheeling, psychedelic spaciness overrides any difference.

The off-kilter, eccentric mind of Busdriver unfurls (as it always seems to) in an engaging, surprising way. “You Ain’t OG” sounds like it could be a TV On the Radio hip hop ballad, while the track that immediately follows it, “NoBlacksNoJewsNoAsians”, filters a rapidfire spray of disjointed, dystopic imagery along with a big brother voice insisting that silence is golden. The two tracks couldn’t be more different (the former direct, largely sung, and smooth, while the latter is scattered, rhymed hard, and sharp as a knife), yet they fit organically in the esoteric, exciting world of Busdriver.

Essential Tracks: “Bon Bon Fire”, “Picking Band Names”, and “NoBlacksNoJewsNoAsians”

The juxtaposition of “Deserted” and “Delirium Tremens” at the center of the album makes this point rather succinctly. The former thrives on thrumming bass, Dinosaur Jr. guitar atmospherics, and Kaden’s wailing, sky-scraping voice, while the latter buries the guitars in a subdued, shoegazey warble, the bass suddenly stuttering and popping. Both songs sound completely fluid, the band locking pieces of the puzzle together like they’d been built that way. That said, neither really finds a hook to match Kaden’s impassioned, high-flown delivery.

The little flourishes of Albini’s influence (whether directly from the recording process or through inspiration) are extremely successful. The bass on “Must’ve Been” is incredibly gritty and rich, and the off-kilter punches and feedback-y guitar solo of “Drama Junkie” represent real highlights, the band letting loose together. But too often the album sounds like a band trying to fit songs into a certain, controlled, dramatic position, rather than developing an organic power. The musicianship is nothing short of excellent, but there’s a deficiency in memorable hooks and raw energy.

Essential Tracks: “Drama Junkie”, “Deserted”

Simply put, Tennis’s cute gimmick beats every other band in the world’s cute gimmick, in that it seems to come from such a real place. Cape Dory certainly was gimmick, no matter the fact that husband and wife actually spent months on a boat, traveling and writing. The story was just too cute to deny, and going back to that same tone would seem to be too easy and worthwhile to avoid. However, being “the cute band” or “the sailing band” is to be typecast and isolated. The “cute” songs on this album are still the strongest, but the songs that show them stretching their wings are still worthwhile. Sure, there may be some awkward difference, but even those songs have their punch. On “High Road”, Moore’s lush, sweet voice rings out unconvincingly about frustrated love, but its thumping drums, twirling guitar, and rollicking melody still make it one of the more enjoyable songs of the bunch.

Produced by Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney, Young & Old pulls off the equally difficult, opposite feat of its predecessor: While their first album felt varied despite being based in a single summer (the songs were all written on the couple’s seven-month sailing journey), this album feels united, flowing, even though Carney’s production flourishes carve out unique worlds for each song. The clonking synth and fuzzy, distant guitar solo of “Origins” couldn’t be more different from the silky, smooth piano and insistent maracas on “My Better Self”.

Moore’s voice may be the overarching unifier, her lithe coo grown in intensity in places from its precocious lovey-dovey warmth on Cape Dory. Whether it’s one of the trademark adorable songs or one that aims to challenge preconceptions, the effortless guiding force over the top keeps things constant. The falls and lilts on the 60′s pop/R&B “Petition” prove that she can do more than the saccharine, but head-bobbing familiarity of “Robin” immediately flowing feels completely natural, the worlds unified by that one, powerful constant.

The twist on prayer and rich sweetness of “Take Me to Heaven” proves that the closer Moore and Riley stick to the formula of Cape Dory, the better things turn out. While the tropes are all still familiar (the plinking piano, the sidelong reference to their boating, sweet lyrics, and Moore’s grand emotionality), there’s something undeniably bigger, fuller about the song. Carney’s production likely has something to do with it, the perfect mix of trembling upright piano in the emotive upswing and tingling synth at the climax. Plus, if given the choice between this and the denial of happiness on “High Road”, the choice is easy; there’s just something so right about her singing a line like “If all you say is true, then take me to heaven with you.”

The following conclusion may be super cheesy, but hey, it’s almost Valentine’s Day, and it fits: The presentation and themes may awkwardly grow to eclipse the ultimately simple gimmick of the sailing trip, but the fact that the music is written by two talented people in love is something that can outlast the gimmick. It might take a while to find the precise percentage of cute in the mix, but it’s a process worth listening through.

Essential Tracks: “Petition”, “High Road”, and “Take Me to Heaven”

Feature artwork by Kristen Frenzel.

Based on the title of album opener “Hidden Things Are Asking You to Find Them”, the journey should be clear. There’s something of Spencer Krug’s work as Sunset Rubdown to the first half of the short-player, but a notably sedated version. His echoed whoop at around four minutes into the first track precedes a shimmering, slippery tangle of crash cymbals and plunging chords. There aren’t as many echoes of the San Fran scene here as there are of the British Columbia scene that spawned Krug and Frog Eyes’ Carey Mercer.

The stormy effects, violin, and lurching acoustic guitar of “As the Orchard is With Rain” set an atmospheric tone for the second half, one that is then twisted by delayed effect swirls and the eventual rough-hewn crackling. The six-minute instrumental is a nice diversion, one that fits with the world of the two previous songs. This meandering, whirling scope closes the set out with a sigh. Rather than shutting the door on Earth, Miles leaves it open, a marshy ether floating away. A definite mixed bag, the first half of this debut shows some serious power, while the latter merely lingers.

Essential Tracks: “Temples of Magick”, “Hidden Things Are Asking You to Find Them”

That sameness is something that gives their tightly wound, little post-punk tunes such a mesmerizing quality. When Prinz blithely barks that “It’s cyclical/it’s circular/it’s human nature” on “Usurper”, the single bass note and bass drum rhythm that pound out behind him reinforce it the same way that the 11 songs on the album reinforce each other. When they do alter their sound, it’s for a stark effect. The twanging guitar and deliberately sweet harmonies on “I Want You” keep the same insistent simplicity but soften the whole palette severely. Where their debut felt powerful in its saturation of a single tone, Clay Class shines in its subtle changes to that tone.

On “The Flora and Fauna”, Prinz’s voice is echoed at various times by the interlocking bass, guitar, and Horn harmonies, and the simplicity is suddenly a multitude. Their messages may still be repeated ad nauseam (turning simple social commentaries into absurd slogans), but the shading that surrounds them is enhanced tenfold. The straightforward dance-y quality of much of their last album is replaced instead by a lithe slinkiness here, a sweet tottering there. But rather than losing any consistency, the fluidity of form builds a richer world.

Essential Tracks: “Usurper” and “I Want You”

With all of that history and acclaim, here Cohen is at age 77, resonating about his own failings, the dark looming at every corner. The fact that Cohen’s one-time manager made off with a good deal of money that Cohen could be living off of now instead of needing to go on a world tour is something that seems fated, a necessity to give more bleak reality for him to write beautiful lyrics about. I mean, there’s a reason his Wikipedia page includes a link to “List of people with depression.” Opening the album on “Going Home” with lines to a fictionalized self, a “lazy bastard living in a suit,” re-introduces the listener to Cohen’s world succinctly. The song proceeds to discuss the failed desire for “a manual for living with defeat,” the old man attempting to convey the necessity of a pure, personal reality.

While Cohen’s always played on the insistence of mortality, the album tremors with a sense of finality that leaves one to wonder whether this is the last batch of Cohen originals. This is certainly at least partially due to the assumption that he can’t keep doing this forever, but songs like “Amen” (which visually strikes like a conclusion to the grandeur of “Hallelujah”) with its graveyard horn solo and talk of the Lord’s vengeance strike that note too strongly to ignore.

That eye for the religious finality returns on “Show Me the Place”, Cohen taking the role of “the slave” looking for orders from above, his deeper-than-ever baritone murmuring over a lilting piano. “Come Healing” is perhaps the most blatant version, definitely the most hopeful, and the least effective, saccharine synth and female harmonies draped all over. But here Cohen asks to “see the darkness healing that tore the light apart,” his heart calling out for a Christian redemption. The song is a “penitential hymn,” a phrase that works well with much of Cohen’s catalog.

The intricate fingerpicked guitar of Cohen’s early work returns on the intro of the rollicking “Darkness”, but this too is taken under a rush of calamity, the grim smirk in Cohen’s voice recalling the darkness “drinking from your cup.” That bad boy bravado is still there, too, the man just as seductive despite nearing 80. The sardonic tone he perfected so many years ago returns so easily for a line like “I dreamed about you, baby/You were wearing half your dress/I know you have to hate me/But could you hate me less?” Album closer “Different Sides” discusses the possibility of remaining “good” in a tough world and the influence of sex in a relationship. Rounding out all of his old tropes in one go gives this album even more of its conclusive tone, his lyrical voice unified and singular.

Cohen is, first and foremost in many minds, a poet, as evidenced in his highly evocative imagery throughout, whether in the service of grim biblical apocalypse or playful sensuality. On first listen, the prostrate, lovelorn language in “Crazy to Love You” brings to mind an epic relationship, but it’s only foregrounding his own fallacy. “I had to be people I hated/I had to be no one at all,” he drolly explains, insisting on the “souvenir heartache” that brought everything together.

As such, much has been made of the poet’s musical side, especially in his shift from acoustic folk to 80′s synths, replete with glossy backing vocals. Old Ideas, however, succeeds in largely keeping the music subservient, buoyant enough to keep things moving but not distracting any attention from the lyrics, the true star of the show. The Webb Sisters are still on board with soulful harmonies behind Cohen, but their presence is nowhere near as present as on his 2009 tour.

“If the night is long, here’s my lullaby,” Cohen croons on the song of that same title, offering something to guide the listener through the night. Listeners have been relying on Cohen’s heartbroken yet grinning, world-weary yet hopeful voice to get through that night for decades, and this album should continue that for a whole new batch of souls.

Essential Tracks: “Going Home”, “Amen”

Featured artwork by Cap Blackard.

When A.D.’s Palm Wine Drinkard mixtape hit, there was even more cause for concern. The whole thing felt half-baked, with a severe deficit of actual rapping. But we all know that Heems is “fucking great at rapping,” so there was no way he’d turn in a similar effort. When the very first track of his solo tape, “Thug Handles”, unfolds like the Das Racist we all know and love, it’s like a sigh of relief. There’s the repetition of mindless buzzwords and the boasting about something as innocuous as his “junk food game,” boasting “burritos til’ I die.”

Kool A.D. gets a verse on the trippy “Swate”, giving a shout-out to his dad’s Bluetooth and calling Slavoj Zizek sexy. This is the Victor Vazquez that should’ve been on Palm Wine Drinkard, and a track that could’ve easily been on a Das Racist album. On the super-goofy “Womyn”, producer Mike Finito contributes a stellar, stumbling marimba and female vocal beat right in Heems’ wheelhouse, from which the two sing that “these chicks is women” to the tune of Bell Biv DeVoe’s “Poison”, reminding us that women are “better than steak, or high-stakes poker.”

But Heems isn’t all Now And Laters and jokes; he’s got some well-informed social/political views, and he can let that fly as a solo artist. On “Bad, Bad, Bad”, Heems begins his screed against the New York police, repeating the line “if you wear a turban you can’t be a cop/but you can shoot one.” Later, on the particularly brutal “NYC Cops”, he lists a gut-wrenching number of police brutality cases before hitting the hook with a pointed question: “Who wants to be a cop but a power hungry idiot?” The deep discussion isn’t all aimed at the police, either. He references his late night Twitter conversations with acclaimed author Salman Rushdie, one of the better name-drops of recent rap history.

“Desi Shoegaze Taiko” manages to reference Fab Five Freddie, Madonna, and Gandhi in one breath, but Heems divulges a lot of his personal life too, something not as prominent on D.R. group releases. Heems took this solo opportunity and ran with it, giving the fan base a closer look at his individual part of the Das Racist ethos, a better look at his world without too closely echoing or leaving behind his group.

Essential Tracks: “SWATE”, “Bangles”, and “Thug Handles”

Originally formed in Scotland as Woodpigeon Divided By Antelope Equals Squirrel, the now Calgary, Alberta based eight-piece have released three albums over the past two years and seem poised to keep pushing on throughout the new year. The set opening title track drifts by on bobbling guitar picks, subdued string flourishes, and breathy Iron and Wine vocals, harmonizing particularly sweetly as the song fades out. The Sufjan Stevens-y “Are You There God? It’s Me Mark” relies on lilting female backing vocals, fluttering violins, and lots of dramatic acoustic guitar.

Perhaps the most successful song of the bunch, though, would be “One To Many”, a dark-tinged, shadow-strewn track full of dismissive talk and lingering string attacks. When Hamilton moans that “we’ll talk about next to nothing now,” the floating, dripping female harmonies behind him seem misplaced. The vocalist is insisting that he’s watching his old flame from afar, so a female vocal so closely echoing his every word doesn’t quite match up. The play-acting imagery in the lyrics, though, reinforce the idea that this lost love was built on distance and insincerity. Whatever missteps Hamilton makes in the complex arranging, his overwhelming understanding of pushing through to big, dramatic soundscapes is real. These songs are instantly familiar and insistently powerful, making them perfect for those late night car rides.

Essential Tracks: “One To Many”, “For Paolo”

The minute-long intro “Scattered Branches” sets the atmospheric table, unfurling like a sedated Sung Tongs cut, wordless vocals churning towards the forefront, charming guitar swarms humming quietly. The last thing anyone would expect to follow that would have to be a My Bloody Valentine cover, especially something off of the shoegaze masterpiece Loveless. But there it is, a woodsy version of the five minute long “Sometimes”, making its watery way like a constant current. More chill fodder out than mindblowing re-envisioning, the track is a pleasant distraction.

That same easy, amiable experience persists throughout, each of the five tracks melting into the next. There are some unnecessary flourishes, though, additions to that simple formula that wind up jarring. The sharp lead guitar on “Perfect Lighting” cracks through an otherwise lilting track, the vocals just diffident and warbly enough to pass for a Phil Elvrum acolyte.

But perhaps summing the EP up most succinctly is the title to the penultimate track, “Politely”. Fiery Crash slides by, unwilling or perhaps unable to do anything flashy or attention-grabbing enough to be anything but polite. While that certainly works in its favor at times, the depth behind that polite, chilly ambient folk isn’t always there. To be able to survive in breathy near-nothingness, a la Grouper, the distance has to match the flow. Before an Interim is a nice listen, something ultimately pleasant.

Essential Tracks: “Sometimes”, “Politely”

Those halves, though, occasionally separate like oil and water rather than blend. The sweet, down-home harmonies of “Dreams=Heaven” seem to have nothing to do with the stompy, chanty folk-rock of “Dueling Twins”. The former tends towards weak, watery country twanging, and the rip-roaring guitar of the latter thrashes the mood set just before it. The moonlit border dance of “Down Down Down” is a smoother, country-fed Man Man, a song that strives too hard for pretty flourishes where it could succeed in embracing the grit.

The carnival weirdness of “Tommy Elfman”, with its twinkling piano, haunting vocal harmonies, rapid flamenco-lite guitar riffs gets closer to that blend. Easily the best track on the album, the song comprises equal parts psychedelic freakout and twangy instrumental control. The noisy, squarewave squawk-solo that closes the album is one of the few moments in which the band really lets loose, and it’s a testament to their power that they can keep things together in that maelstrom.

The long, spacy “Telegraph” shows a similar intrigue: cough-like sounds thrown into a percussive mesh of claps and ride cymbal, swirling guitars and harmonies recalling Akron/Family. The breathy inhalations and barks of “Breathe Trees” are similarly odd, and the werewolf howls and reverb surf of “Ocean Memories” are endearingly unusual. But, in both cases, a step further into the insanity would do some good, the controlled fragility standing in the way of impact.

Essential Tracks: “Tommy Elfman”, “Telegraph”