Take a time machine back 10 years. Tokyo Police Club‘s Forcefield would have fit right in. Pop music fiends would stick the lead single, “Hot Tonight,” on their mix CDs, right between Plain White T’s’ “Hey There Delilah” and The Strokes’ “12:51.” It’s like we’ve traveled to 2004, we’re still using MP3 CD players and some of the cool kids even have iPods.

A decade of being together, by the time of their fifth album, Education, Education, Education & War, Kaiser Chiefs are on autopilot. What used to be a middle-finger-in-the-air, invigorating post-punk/New Wave ragefest you could pogo to now sounds like Kaisers-by-numbers.

Hating Dan Croll isn’t easy. The English troubadour’s music is as inoffensive as it gets—like Grizzly Bear, without the grizzle or the bear. For some, such safety will instantly prove a turn-off. But safe is exactly what Dan Croll is, and you suspect he’s not likely to change any time soon.

Since Russian punk collective Pussy Riot came to prominence for their arrest a couple of years ago, and with the fourth wave of feminism currently crashing against the patriarchal harbor wall (who doesn’t love an overwrought metaphor?), there seems to have been welcome renewal of interest in riot grrrl, or whatever label you want to attach to it.

MØ (born Karen Marie Ørsted) made her first entrance into the music scene as a shock rapper. But the 25-year-old Danish singer’s debut full-length is a completely different beast.

Roman Remains is The Duke Spirit’s Liela Moss’ and Toby Butler’s side project. The duo’s debut, Zeal, explores the latter’s electronic curiosities and the former’s introspective observations.

NPR once referred to The Hold Steady as “America’s bar band.” Insofar as bar bands owe a debt to Thin Lizzy, the description was apt, but beyond that, it did a disservice to Craig Finn’s word-drunk lyrics and the band’s Springsteen-by-way-of-ZZ-Top thump. It’s easy to see why The Hold Steady might have chafed under the label.

God bless Liars. While virtually everyone in the avant rock class of the Aughts (that loosely started with Yeah Yeah Yeahs and ended with HEALTH) either cleaned up their acts and graduated or just dropped out, Liars are streaking the graduation ceremony with booze on their breaths and middle fingers in the air. And yet the kind of envelope-pushing on Mess is nothing if not mature, simultaneously punk as fuck and utterly refined.

Singles is the kind of step forward a psychedelic indie band could take to bring itself into a bigger spotlight. Future Islands deserves that kind of attention, and though it’s understandable that Samuel Herring’s dramatic growl might not be for everyone, the first line of this album might just change minds.