Two years after the release of their debut album, Dromes, the British quartet Younghusband returns with a new collection produced by Loop’s Robert Hampson. As with Dromes, there seems to be no pressure toward a strictly defined sound, with any caprice potentially unveiling their next direction.

This ain’t your Granddaddy’s dystopia. The overt dread and gloominess of the apocalypse have become all too frequent, but the hallmarks of the popular sci-fi genre are all but absent on Welsh songstress Gwenno‘s debut LP Y Dydd Olaf.

As the sole constant member of The Chills, Martin Phillipps spent the 1980s dreaming up some of indie pop’s earliest (and greatest) songs. Irrepressible single “Heavenly Pop Hit” spurred a brief commercial peak in the early ‘90s, which was followed by a couple decades’ worth of all too real travails (addiction, illness, endless lineup changes) that contrasted sharply with the whimsical fantasies The Chills created on record.

Richard Hawley has always felt of another time. His first few records traded on this timelessness, using deceptively simple melodies and little adornment to put the true star, his astonishing voice, center stage. As his solo career progressed, Hawley slowly shifted more into the now, expanding and refining his sound.

People tend to think of an artist’s side-project as having less credibility than his main output vehicle, but that should not be the case for EL VY. A partnership made up of Matt Berninger of The National and Brent Knopf of Menomena and Ramona Falls, EL VY makes highly polished studio indie pop.

Real Estate frontman Martin Courtney‘s solo debut, Many Moons, immediately announces itself as the finest side-project from a member of the band’s camp. However, that’s the only thing this record does do instantaneously. You could listen to the album-opener “Awake” about a dozen times before Courtney’s languid soloing suddenly strikes you as an essential part of the composition.

Depeche Mode‘s Dave Gahan tapped into another side of himself when he joined fellow Brits, production duo Soulsavers, for their 2012 album, The Light the Dead See. A noted shift away from the dance-pop electronics of his primary group, Soulsavers’ dusty, organic sounds allowed Gahan to bare his soul and forced the listener to bare theirs.

Listening to traditional folk music, particularly from regions like the Appalachians or Catskills in times before and just after the Civil War, is like the best time machine you could envision. Moments of frightening specificity (“I dug your grave last night” from “Pretty Polly”) combine with a general sense of lost love and melancholy (“Pretty Saro”) to form a wholly realized snapshot of a setting that seems beyond time and place.

With its last album, 2011’s Degeneration Street, The Dears returned to its roots, at least lineup-wise. Past members Patrick Krief (guitars/vocals), Robert Benvie (guitars/keyboards/vocals), and Robert Arquilla (bass/vocals) returned to the fold after a period away from the band, and a new member, drummer Jeff Luciani, rounded out the group that had since its formation been anchored by married couple Murray A. Lightburn and Natalia Yanchak.