It’s been three years since Little Dragon blessed the scene with an album, 2014’s Nabuma Rubberband, and honestly, it has felt like much longer. The brilliant Swedish indietronica group’s presence in the world of sexy night out, fashionista club grooves has always provided a sophistication to its extravagance that has been sorely missed.

We are familiar with the nostalgic bulbousness of Timber Timbre, the weeping willows’ long tentacles waving high above our heads creating a stage for front porch cracklers crafted from the wafts of simpler times.

August By Cake is Robert Pollard’s 100th album, and a double album to boot. Not only that but a great double album. It’s amazing how Pollard still manages to mine new ground in the classic rock and pop vein, here big on the ‘70s, without simply rehashing old material.

It’s normal for precocious young talent to first emulate those who have inspired them to follow in their footsteps.

Diet Cig‘s candidness is enthralling. Like their 2015 EP Over Easy, the New York duo’s debut full-length album Swear I’m Good At This is loud, blunt, and totally fun.

Buzz has long been building around London four-piece The Big Moon, and their debut demonstrates it wasn’t misplaced enthusiasm. The album starts already revved up, the all-female band led by Juliette Jackson flying straight into 2015 single “Sucker,” the first of a dozen sculpted tracks.

No one in recent memory has crushed a late-night TV performance the way Future Islands did with “Seasons (Waiting on You)” on The Late Show with David Letterman in 2014, in support that year’s album, Singles.

The New Pornographers’ first release on their own Collected Works label and without longtime mainstay Dan Bejar (also of Destroyer), but also with new drummer Joe Seiders as a permanent member, Whiteout Conditions continues very much in the same vein as 2010’s Together and 2014’s Brill Bruisers.

After a number of solo albums as J. Tillman and a stint as Fleet Foxes’ drummer, Josh Tillman created Father John Misty to find his real voice. It seems to be paying off as he moves to the third album under his eccentric moniker, a musically quieter and lyrically more expansive follow-up to 2015’s I Love You, Honeybear.