Brooklyn-based bassist Nicholas Cummins found temporary homes in PWR BTTM and Fern Mayo before forming Fits with friends last summer. Their bass-driven melodic ideas and vocal samples eventually turned into fully realized punk constructs-all succinct, all catchy as hell.

At age 69, Robert Plant can still unleash a youthful holler that Tarzan would marvel at. But on his 11th solo album, the golden god is aware that he’s in his golden years. At the end of “The May Queen,” a cantering acoustic guitar pauses and Plant’s voice emerges from the dust to repeat the refrain, “The dimming of my light.”

There’s not much left to say about The Queen is Dead, arguably the high point of The Smiths’ formidable catalog, that hasn’t been written before. Nevertheless, the notable thing about this reissue is the previously unreleased material on the bonus discs, which is enough to entice the interest of long-time fans who thought they’d heard everything there is to hear.

Earlier this year, Shamir self-released an album on SoundCloud called Hope. It was about as homemade-pop as you could get, complete with background noise and a buzzing amp. With that came the news that he had been dropped from his label, XL, and was abandoning his debut’s dance-pop sound for something that came more naturally to him.

Fashioned out of a musical bond formed during the days when their bands shared the same eclectic label 4AD, Lost Horizons consists of Simon Raymonde (ex-bassist of Cocteau Twins) and Richie Thomas (ex-drummer of Dif Juz).

Mood swings abound on Baxter Dury‘s whimsical album Prince of Tears. It’s what can be expected from an artist that creates original music sounding like a combination of a less trippy of Montreal and a less quirky The Real Tuesday Weld all while channeling Lou Reed.

George Harrison would have turned 74 this year. He died in 2001 and his untimely death at such a relatively young age still haunts his fans, whose admiration for Harrison extends far beyond his role as one of the four Beatles, or even as a solo musical artist.

The indie world doesn’t exactly embrace sentimentality. There’s emotion, sure, and lots of it, but it’s often more on the side of heartbreak and depression than the side that celebrates love found, loyalty, and devotion. Perhaps it seems too easy to swing for the fences, to make a bid for big, relatable, emotional sentimentality.

If the test of time is the only true measure of an album’s worth then John Maus‘s We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves is close to being a classic. In the six years that have passed since it was met with unanimous acclaim, the record’s synthesized enclaves feel as alive and energized as they did in 2011.