Sigur Rós
Lúppulagið (XL)
A slowly unfolding beauty that has no lyrics, not even nonsense ones—but even Sigur Rós’s instrumentals can make you long to visit Iceland and watch the sun set over the icefields. (If you go, pick us up some of those awesome sweaters.)

The Strange Boys
Saddest (Rough Trade)
Not the saddest thing you’ve heard at all, but rather country-fried slacker boogie featuring the most brilliantly world-weary vocals this side of a Band boxed set.

Lou Reed and Metallica
The View (Warner Bros.)
We only recommend "The View" as an endurance test. If you can make it through five minutes and 18 seconds of tuneless gibberish backed by generic sludge metal, you earn a prize. The prize is that it stops.

HTRK
Synthetik (Ghostly International)
It’s not quite what you’d expect from a band whose name is pronounced "hate rock", but the bleak postpunk drone of "Synthetik" is tailor-made for those who choose to wallow in the throes of seasonal affective disorder.

Five Finger Death Punch
Generation Dead (Prospect Park)
Over downtuned metallic–KO guitars, FFDP solemnly intones, "I look around and all I see is evil/The walking dead disguised as real people". Hmm, have these guys been hanging out on Howe Street?

Chamberlin
Go Outside (Roll Call)
This rustic-sounding cover of the Cults song omits the Jim Jones quote, so we can finally enjoy the lovely tune without having to endure visions of mass suicide. Thanks, Chamberlin!

Real Estate
Green Aisles (Domino)
Well, now that R.E.M. has called it a day, someone’s got to fill the jangle-pop void, and Real Estate does so in fine circa-Reckoning fashion, thoroughly impenetrable lyrics and all.

Crooked Fingers
Typhoon (Merge)
Spare and eerie but with an undeniable forward momentum, Eric Bachmann’s musical warning of shitty weather ahead feels just about perfect for Vancouver in the fall.

Threat Signal
Buried Alive (Sonic Unyon Metal)
Not quite as ferocious as the Otep number of the same name, but making up for that is throat-shedding hardcore vocals and guitars that sound like they’ve been strung with industrial-strength elastic bands.

Porcelain Raft
Put Me to Sleep (Secretly Canadian)
Well, there’s a cheery song title! The lyrics aren’t much more uplifting ("The party’s over and I really need to go"), but the dreamily twee electro-pop sound is actually strangely consoling.

Joker
Back in the Days (4AD)
Hmm, maybe there is hope yet for crappy old England, this notion bolstered by Joker teaming up with Buggsy, Shadz, and Scarz for the best U.K. hip-hop jam since "The Battle".