Petite Noir – La Vie Est Belle/Life Is Beautiful: Petite Noir is from Cape Town, which plays a huge part in the sound of his first album La Vie Est Belle / Life Is Beautiful. Noir has coined his sound as “noir wave” meaning a mixture of new wave and South African influence, which is apparent in the album’s instrumentation. Many of the songs start loud and get louder, reminiscent of Twin Shadow’s Eclipse, which makes the restrained tracks more alluring. After a few listens some of the tracks blend together, but overall this is a really good album worth listening to. KEN
RIYL: Twin Shadow, Shamir, Kelela, Young Fathers Recommended Tracks: “Best” (2), “Seventeen (Stay)” (4), “MDR”(7), “Chess” (11)

Low – Ones and Sixes: I am not too familiar with the music of Sub-Pop but after listening to this I am definitely getting more familiar with the artists signed to it. Low has been making music known as “slowcore” for the past 22 years; music characterized by slow tempos and minimalism. Their new album Ones and Sixes continues this legacy. The album begins with the song “gentle”, which offers a very slow beginning to the album. Gentle leaves us with as little sound as possible while still filling up the room. Like the rest of the album it has a dirty sounding synth that pulls everything together. The next song, No Comprende,picks things up in a dark direction. The guitarist strikes the same power chord until it hurts. One thing that stays consistent throughout the whole album is its melancholy tone. One of the only songs that can pass for being happy is the single What Part of Me. It feels rather uplifting and like a pop song, however the lyrics are still on the darker side. This album is best for chilling out to, and I would not recommend it for parties. After 22 years Low is definitely staying on par with all of the other great music throughout their career. HARRY
RIYL: Pavement, Wire, The Strokes
Recommended Tracks: No Comprende (2), What Part Of Me (7), Lies (10)

FIDLAR - Too: You know how there are those kids that you graduated with but somehow, many years later, only make sense within the context of high school – the kids that are so firmly cemented into adolescence and resistant to change that they eat delivery pizza at least twice a week and still think it is socially acceptable to buy tee shirts at Hot Topic? Well, FIDLAR are – or, rather, were – those guys. Fuck, they aresupposed to be those guys: I mean holy shit, their band name stands for “fuck it dog, life’s a risk” and they allowed their song to be used in MySpace advertisements like last year. Yet, this pack of man-children accomplished the unthinkable and actually grew up – sort of. Certainly, front man Zac Carper’s newfound sobriety is a change for the better, but, unfortunately, it sounds as though the singer is not the only part of the band that “got clean,” as Too mostly sounds like a sterilized version of the band’s self-titled debut album. The band’s iconic cacophony that was as dirty as the band members’ (presumably) grease-streaked, sand-dusted manes is replaced with a clean, almost pop-inspired production. Let’s put it this way: there is a reason Too is going on the gold wall – the band has lost its punk sound as well as its originality, sounding more like a Wavves or The Orwells album than a new FIDLAR release. But hey, at least it doesn’t sound like the fucking garbage that is perpetually churned out by Burger Records… ASHLEY
RIYL: Wavves, The Orwells
Recommended Tracks: “Bad Medicine” (11), “Punks” (2), “40 oz On Repeat” (1)

Foals - What Went Down: This album is interesting to me because it seems rather like a giant juxtaposition. It shoots straight out the doors with heavy guitar rifts with tons of distortion and energy, then turns around and becomes far more thoughtful and introspective only two tracks after. The latter will be a waterfall of synths and textures, and it's definitely softer. Like the Black Keys suddenly turned into Local Natives. And it continues make this switch consistently for the rest of the album; one charged with emotion then another falling down in thought. Yet, Foals while holding two different faces, still seems to maintain their personality through each track, and they sound very comfortable with their own sound. Maybe too comfortable. DYLAN
RIYL: Local Natives, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Black Keys
Recommended Tracks: What Went Down, Give It All, London Thunder

Widowspeak - All Yours: Widowspeak's fourth studio album All Yours is a wistful collection of songs that are a little pop, a little indie rock, a little country, and a little psychedelic. These guys are on Captured Tracks and definitely fit the vibes of some of their other signs, so if you like Mac Demarco or Beach Fossils you might be into this. Lead singer Molly Hamilton's breathy vocals gently string All Yours together. This album's a real chiller - when it puts you down, like on "Cosmically Aligned," it really wallows in that slow, drifty space, and when it picks you up, like on "Girls," it does so ever so gently. It's an album to drive around at sunset to. CAROLINE
RIYL: Mac Demarco, Beach Fossils
Recommended Tracks: All Yours (1), Girls (5), My Baby's Gonna Carry On (8)

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