In a daring experiment for a band that’s known for their raucous live shows and string of alternative hits, the recently released Unpeeled, by Grammy winners Cage the Elephant, features 21 stripped down versions of some of their best songs.

For almost the last 15 years Arcade Fire have been the torchbearers for indie rock, a rollicking collective of multi-instrumentalists who created a love affair with the early blogs of the new millennium.

Briana Marela, who released her first record with Jagjaguar in 2015 (the haunting and beautiful All Around Us), imbues her second studio album under the same label, Call It Love, with the recognizable ambient, echoing style that made All Around Us so memorable.

Brad Couture is a composer and multi-instrumentalist whose original, and mostly instrumental, compositions are a blend of ambient, film music, and New Age that are as suitable for background music as they are for movie soundtracks.

Just as you can’t judge a book by its cover, you can’t judge a band by its name. The name here may conjure some form of raucous garage rock performed by beer swilling hillbillies, but all it takes is hearing one track of Trailer Trash Tracys’ sophomore album, Althaea, to realize it is anything but.

There’s something rather pleasing about an album called Earl Grey from a band named Girl Ray. The debut from the North London trio of Poppy Hankin, Iris McConnell, and Sophie Moss is also pleasing, though not quite memorable enough to stay the course.

Since Lizzy Grant emerged as Lana Del Rey back in 2012, she’s been donning the trope of the Hollywood starlet with a darkness surrounding her. On Lust For Life, to some degree that gloom has lifted: it’s perhaps for the first time we’re really seeing the Lizzy behind the Lana.

Joywave are a band building to success in stages. A collaboration with Big Data gave them a hit song and subsequent singles and a full-length added to the reputation. Now, two albums in, it feels like the potential exhibited in short bursts is finally reaching boiling point.

Paranormal, Cooper’s first studio album since 2011’s Welcome 2 My Nightmare, is a welcome surprise.