Once upon a time, artists were reliant upon reinvention as their careers progressed; this model was perfected by pioneers like David Bowie and Paul Simon, who somehow managed to traverse myriad musical contexts while maintaining a thread of consistency throughout. It’s a remarkable balancing act, and a necessary one if longevity is part of an artist’s plans.

They may not have medalled, but for Fuck Buttons, the 2012 Olympic Games in London were a career high. Despite their less-than-radio-friendly moniker, the duo from Bristol, England were catapulted onto the international stage via Danny Boyle’s masterful opening ceremony, which revisited the U.K.‘s cultural highs and lows in front of an audience of billions.

It’s been less than a year since veteran synthpop wizards Pet Shop Boys released their mellow and moody eleventh studio album, Elysium. Having left Parlophone Records after 25 years, they’ve quickly returned with a brand new album on a brand new label.

This raspy-throated singer and guitarist has snagged comparisons to fellow Australian Nick Cave, though his dramatic style can bring more of an industrial-smitten Bowie to mind.

Two years from its self-titled debut, this “synth-pop romance” has entered into a drab second phase.

Ultraviolet, the sixth album from Savannah-based heavies Kylesa, took two years to write, and brings with it a democratic shift in band dynamics. Its members now play the roles of multi-instrumentalists, and singer Laura Pleasants—who shares vocal duties with Phillip Cope—positions herself closer to center stage here than in previous outings.

HBO’s The Newsroom is back, and for now it seems writer/showrunner Aaron Sorkin has taken some of the criticism of its first season to heart. It’s still plenty Sorkin-y—full of witty banter between media elites who are ever so brilliant at economics and foreign policy, but can’t manage to maintain a steady relationship—but the long, wordy, politically thick conversations are more seamlessly interwoven between dramatic moments.

Again, the problem that plagued V/H/S is abundant in V/H/S/2—without some seriously inventive filmmaking, horror anthologies are largely disposable because of the audience’s sheer disconnection from what’s transpiring.

Crater XV revisits the “Arctic Pirate” Army Shanks, who is still drowning his sorrows in misery after the events of Kevin Cannon’s 2009 graphic novel Far Arden—a very fine graphic novel in its own right. But Cannon somehow manages to one-up himself in this latest effort. Crater XV represents one of the finest examples of storytelling via cartooning available.