Thomas Fec, better known by his stage name TOBACCO, makes music destined for abstract adjectives. Squishy, dirty, fuzzy, vibey, bouncy are each appropriate, if ultimately inadequate to describe the psychic dirge of his fourth solo record,Sweatbox Dynasty. Whatever strange non-musical term comes to mind when you hear it, there is that intangible thing that just makes it buzz with life and animation.

Following the release of All Kinds of You (2014) and Primrose Green (2015), Midwestern troubadour Ryley Walker was met with near universal praise for his fingerpicking dexterity and ability to weave disparate strands of folk, jazz, and blues into a coherent whole.

What happens to an artist that specializes in youthful exuberance when they’re no longer young? On “Suffer for Fashion,” the first track from of Montreal‘s landmark 2007 album Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, Kevin Barnes put it thusly: “If we’ve got to burn out, let’s do it together.”

When “Book It to Fresno” blasts off to open Brendan Canning‘s return to a full band affair you realize how dearly Broken Social Scene has been missed in recent years.

There are few more reliably exhilarating sounds in contemporary garage rock than this: John Dwyer’s indecipherable vocal delivery steeps in intensity, as does his echo-heavy guitar licks, there’s a vicious halt in the rhythm section for a split second before his band of garage-dwelling oddballs launch into a scorching psychedelic hotbed of distortion, feedback and utter, utter otherworldliness.

In 1986, R.E.M. were riding high. Coming off three successive albums that made them a progressively bigger and bigger draw on the college circuit, they were looking to expand their sound and their audience.

As band-formation stories go, nonkeen have one of the most quaint. While many bands formed in their school days, few can say they have been an item since elementary school.

As Wild Beasts get older, they get wiser—continuing to move inexorably towards a carnal lust that proves more dark and twisted than the teenage fumbles of their earlier incarnations. While 2014’s Present Tense prowled around the fringes of such lust, taking stock of its emotional fragility, Boy King tears its way to the center in a smouldering, multi-flavoured gumbo of layered electronica.

To say that fans were surprised when the original lineup of Dinosaur Jr. reunited in 2005 to support Merge’s reissues of their classic work would be a massive understatement given the past resentments between guitarist J Mascis and bassist Lou Barlow that led to their initial breakup after their third album, 1988’s Bug.