Goldfrapp’s sixth full-length can be boiled down to a simple equation: guitar, strings, and frontwoman Alison Goldfrapp’s ethereal soprano. It can also be reduced to a catchy band pairing: Vashti Bunyan recast by David Lynch. Or heck, how about a tagline: This fall, Goldfrapp explores…the Tales of Us. (Say it in your best announcer’s voice.)

When he committed suicide, retired talent agent Saul Holiff left behind no note to explain his reasons to his adult sons. Filmmaker Jonathan Holiff embarked on a journey to try and understand his estranged father, piecing together this portrait from a sealed storage locker full of letters, journals, memorabilia, and recordings of phone calls between his father and Johnny Cash.

Prior to this record, the recorded output of Volcano Choir—the collaboration between Collections of Colonies of Bees and fellow Wisconsinite and Bon Iver mastermind Justin Vernon—has consisted of just one record: 2009’s Unmap. But it doesn’t take long for Repave to render that record something of a blueprint.

Greek mythology album references aside, there’s something about Chelsea Wolfe’s work that brings Pandora’s box to mind. For all the crazy bullshit that pours out, there’s always a kernel of something hopeful to clutch onto.

Frontman Will Sheff has always sung with the conviction and passion of someone plumbing deep wounds, his voice cracking with the effort. Okkervil River’s seventh full-length effort, The Silver Gymnasium, finds the band a little more controlled, the emotions a bit more corralled, more focused.

Space rock’s been having a bit of an unexpected renaissance recently, what with Hookworms’ critically acclaimed Pearl Mystic and now Surf City’s sophomore record We Knew It Was Not Going To Be Like This.

During the opening track of this, Editors’ fourth album, frontman Tom Smith tells us in his still-assuming baritone that he is concerned that his constant references to death mean he’s getting boring.

Two themes rear their heads in Neko Case‘s songwriting: a deft touch when it comes to showing us the icky, corporeal aspects of life and a fondness for externalizing internal turmoil, whether expressing baser desires through another’s thoughts or projecting them onto the natural world.

An unraveling housewife (Kathryn Hahn) visits a strip club with her husband in hopes of kickstarting their bedroom activities, where he buys her a private lap dance. As the days go by, she stalks down the troubled young stripper, becomes obsessed with saving her from her sordid lifestyle, and finally brings her into the family’s home as a live-in-nanny.