Field Music "A New Town"

The Brewis brothers of Field Music are masters of stoic, tightly composed formalist rock. Their melodic sensibility is clearly derived from Paul McCartney (and his various musical progeny), but they replace McCartney's loose ease with OCD rigidity. This could be a recipe for musical disaster, but they own it - it always sounds like a very honest expression of a particular sensibility. "A New Town," from their forthcoming album Plumb, breaks little ground for the band - well, unless you want to focus on the inclusion of odd bubble sound effects – but it's an example of the band at their best, when their precise, meticulous execution of layered rhythms and melodies serves to illustrate the mindset of the lyrics, which approach the dissolution of a relationship with an almost ridiculous degree of forced rationality in a highly emotional situation. Pre-order it from Amazon.

Sleeper Agent "Proper Taste"

Sleeper Agent aren't exactly ground-breakers, but they're exceptionally good with dynamics, so their straightforward rockers have a charm and charge that's lacking in a shocking number of their peers. This is especially true with regards to the chemistry and interplay between co-vocalists Alex Kandel and Tony Smith, who key into different but complementary styles of being a rock badass. While Smith navigates the aesthetic ground between Jack White and Neil Hagerty, Kandel is more Joan Jett – a bit cool, aloof and biting, but outgoing and aggressive enough to avoid receding into the track. "Proper Taste" is one of their most thrilling numbers, with the two spitting lines at each other over breakneck pre-chorus before joining for a big sing-along that opens with "call me pumpkin, carve me out," a line that I find incredibly appealing though I'm not really sure why. Buy it from Amazon.

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks "No One Is (As I Are Be)"

It's not as if Stephen Malkmus has been spending his years writing a lot of songs that make perfect literal sense, but I find this one to be particularly slippery – I can key into the central emotion here but I can't quite tell you what that emotion is, and the lines resonate with me in a major way, but when I really think about them, I am hard pressed to tell you why. And this may be part of why I love it so much, because it falls between the cracks of emotions and ideas in some distant corner of my mind. It's obvious enough that it's one of his songs about aging and maturity, but it flips the script from more recent Malkmus songs dealing with that subject matter, wherein he's the grounded guy giving someone else advice. This is more like the sound of a guy settling into the idea of settling in – discovering that he's happy to be out by the wood shed, pondering the depths of friendships, reflecting on the "never-ending nightlife that we shared." In the end, he asks "What does it mean?" and the only answer he's got is "I want to be there." And maybe that's the best summary of this song's mood we can get: It's the sound of wanting to be there. Buy it from Amazon.

Hospitality "Eighth Avenue"

"Eighth Avenue" starts off sounding like something that could've been on If You're Feeling Sinister or The Boy With the Arab Strap, but it veers slightly off that course into something a bit noisier. Not hard or heavy, but loud and abstract – there's a burst of guitar midway through this that makes me think of the amber cast of light on city streets in the middle of the night. That dovetails nicely with the lyrics, which are nostalgic for a night life that the singer seems to have found at least somewhat disappointing in retrospect. There's some interesting specifics suggested in Amber Papini's words, but this resonates because it's so easy to fill in your own early-20s dramas, or lack thereof, particularly if you're the type of person to be listening to this sort of twee indie pop to begin with. Pre-order it from Amazon.

Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire and Danny Brown "Killah Tofu"

Danny Brown and Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire have a chemistry on record that reminds me a lot of Ghostface Killah and Raekwon: A flamboyant, high-pitched guy serving as a foil to a gruff, growly dude with a more subtle rhyme style. As with the Ghost/Rae combo, it's easy to get caught up in the more cartoonish guy's raw charisma, but I'm very partial to eXquire and his talent for projecting hostile apathy. "Killah Tofu" showcases both men, and leaves no room for anything else -- it's just two verses and no chorus, a quick shot of two hungry emcees who complement each other perfectly. Buy it from Bandcamp.

The Hood Internet "The Exquisite Party" (Beyoncé, Kanye West and Andre 3000 vs Of Montreal)

The best mash-ups find a connection between two seemingly unrelated pieces of music and change the character of both pieces of music by putting them together. This new remix by the Hood Internet sets the a cappella track of Beyoncé's "Party" to an instrumental loop lifted from Of Montreal's "St. Exquisite's Confessions." The Beyoncé song is not altered on a structural level, and its luxurious, lazy pace is intact, but tweaked with a touch of lascivious and vague melancholy suggested by Kevin Barnes' repeated lead guitar part. I prefer this version of the song – Kanye West's production on the original is fine, but a bit too clean and airtight. This mix stirs up a lot more emotions, and is more effective as a sexy slow jam. Click here for the Hood Internet's Soundcloud page.

Guided by Voices "The Unsinkable Fats Domino"

Let's Go Eat the Factory is the first Guided by Voices album since 2004, but given the sheer number of records penned by Bob Pollard between then and now, it's a rather arbitrary distinction. Pollard has reunited with his "classic lineup," but since those players aren't not especially distinctive, you only really notice the personnel shift in the inclusion of a few numbers written and sung by Tobin Sprout, who has resumed his role as Pollard's foil. The GBV-ness of Factory mainly manifests itself in the band's self-conscious bid to emulate the sound of their mid-90s output. (It really does sound like the natural follow-up to this lineup's final record, Under the Bushes Under the Stars, which had a similar blend of lo-fi and mid-fi recordings.) To some extent, Factory sounds like Pollard working very hard to reconnect with his past, and it's successful and listenable in as much as even his least impressive songs tend to be pretty enjoyable and he's largely playing to his aesthetic strengths. But aside from the delightful single "Unsinkable Fats Domino" and Sprout's "God Loves Us," there aren't too many keepers in this batch. And really, that's the best way to think of Pollard's output -- the records are all some degree of pretty good to pretty great, and sorta samey in their approach to sequencing, and some records have more keepers than others. Another new Guided by Voices album is coming later this year; maybe that one will be a little better. But it's basically the same deal as with Pollard's solo output or his work with Boston Spaceships. We just pay attention to this new GBV record simply because that is the brand we've been conditioned to favor. Buy it from Amazon.

Skrillex "Bangarang"

Skrillex is among the most popular of a new breed of electronic music acts that, in many ways, gives audiences the sort of intense, uncomplicated physical release that today's rock bands either avoid entirely or are to inept to provide. There is a lot of precedent for Skrillex's high-energy maniac pop – you can definitely hear echoes of Fatboy Slim, Basement Jaxx, Nine Inch Nails, Daft Punk, Girls Aloud and Justice, among others – but its concentrated thrill power is enough to make even some truly great rock bands seem anemic in comparison. As indie culture in particular has shifted away from this sort of release - with the exception of music derived from punk and hip-hop, which still has some coolness capital – there has been a concurrent rejection of anything that seems aimed at listeners with a more traditional sort of masculinity. I've had my theories about this for a while, and was starting to think I was drawing connections and ascribing biases where they might not really exist, but the way Skrillex et al has been written off as "bro-step" confirms a logo of my suspicions. This distinction has been made mainly to separate this music from the more cerebral, moody and far less populist strains of dubstep that are beloved by indie-centric music nerd culture. It's very precious and protective, and horribly dismissive of valid music that aims to thrill its audience, like most great dance music through the decades. Through Skrillex "rocks" pretty hard and has an audience that includes some "jock" types, the music itself isn't particularly macho. It's mostly just hyperstimulated, and in ways that ought to seem familiar by now. Skrillex isn't reinventing a wheel, but is making them spin faster and harder. Buy it from Amazon.

Wild Flag "Endless Talk"

If you read what Carrie Brownstein is singing here on the printed page, it seems a lot more harsh and biting than it sounds on record. Which makes some sense - she's addressing someone who is casually cruel and undermining, but never really goes beyond snide remarks. "Endless Talk" isn't exactly a cuddly song, but there's affection and respect in Brownstein's voice, and the tune is far too buoyant, nimble and sparkly to convey much bitterness. If anything, it's nudging this person to lighten up, to cool down, to drop the aggression and get back to the sweetness. Buy it from Amazon.

Helium "XXX"

"XXX" is a revenge fantasy in which Mary Timony sings from the perspective of a prostitute who murders her johns. (Which is, of course, very much the opposite of how things typically go.) The song is effective in large part because Timony is so good at conjuring a sound that is as provocative and seductive as the image of her street walker vigilante: The guitar tone is totally lurid; it actually sounds like the male gaze. Her voice is overtly sexualized in the song, but her deadpan affect twists the knife at just the right moments, bitterly deflating masculine fantasies and ripping into the emptiness of her objectification: "You want to have me / you watch me like TV / you want to hold me / collect me like rubies / talk about me like a movie." She's never a real person to these men, just something to conquer and possess. So if her existence is meaningless to them, is it so different if their lives are meaningless to her? What's the real difference between made to feel dead inside and actually being killed?