A funny thing about the waterfall pictured on the album cover of Joe Henry’s latest album, The Gospel According to Water. At the time of the album’s release that waterfall will no longer be there. It’s not that it is some old historic photograph of a place long gone, but the waterfalls of Yosemite are the result of snow melt so they disappear in the chill of winter.

The rise of IDLES over the last 18 months has been heartening to watch. After years of half-focused gestation, the Bristol band had one of the best debut albums of 2017 with Brutalism, but with little U.S. exposure their first North American tour in March of 2018 was a modest four dates at small venues in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and Toronto.

This is a seemingly unlikely re-recording of the Wedding Present album that served as a stop-gap compilation of early singles between the releases of their iconic 1987 album George Best and 1989’s definitiveSeamonsters.

Twenty years is a long time in music, especially when half of that time has been spent on hiatus. So when Longwave announced their return last year along with a new bass player (Christian Bongers, formerly of Loudspeaker and Botanica) it was met with gasps of excitement from various corners of the globe, and rightly so.

Earlier this year, Charly Bliss’ sophomore record Young Enough delivered a polished, near-perfect makeover of the sweet and rowdy power pop Eva Hendricks and co. debuted just two years ago.

There was a time when any attempt by an indie band to “pivot to pop” would be viewed with deep suspicion and no small amount of cynicism. But since the advent of streaming services and social media music has become a far less tribal affair with people much more open and willing to embrace a wide variety of genres.

In Space, from later day Big Star, might be a mixed bag of an album, but it’s one we were lucky to get.

In 1997, that dog. released their last LP, Retreat From the Sun. It was brash and delicate, full of distorted guitars and whip-smart hooks and it should have dominated FM radio. But, it didn’t, and that dog. quietly slipped off the radar as the new millennium began.

There’s a moment on “The Nub,” the 12-plus minute eighth track on leaving meaning, the 15th official studio album by Swans and the first with this line-up.