MNDR
Feed Me Diamonds (Ultra)
The percolating electro pop will have you itching to find a dance floor, and it sounds pretty uplifting, until you realize that feeding someone ground-up diamonds is actually a way of killing them. Heavy!

Broken Hands
Pay My Dues (Independent)
Throw the Meatmen, Motörhead, the Stooges, and the underground early-’80s garage-punk band of your choice into a raging cesspool, and then marvel at the grunge-blasted ugliness.

Andrea England
Hothouse Flower (Lemonade Factory Music)
It’s a tossup as to what’s cooler: the fact that Andrea England sounds like the Heartless Bastards doing Tom Waits, or that she has dressed up this bluesy, bourbon-scented beauty in 16 coats of shimmering Hammond.

Mobina Galore
Oh, Brother (Independent) The Vancouver two-piece starts out with a flurry of white-heat guitar violence, and then strikes a dramatic balance between serrated indie rock and discordant sweet-pop.

Cory Woodward
Fallout (Independent)
The robo-thump drums and neon-buzzed synths are good. That Cory Woodward has a voice that makes Nick Cave sound like a helium-inflated chipmunk is icing on a delicious cake.

Chelsea Wolfe
The Way We Used To (Sargent House) Even when she refrains from being overtly spooky, as she does on this gorgeously soulful, spare number (it’s mostly vocals layered over bass and drums), Chelsea Wolfe still creeps us the fuck out.

Pujol
Mission From God (Saddle Creek)
The fact that Pujol is on a mission from God goes a long way toward explaining why this retro-’70s blast of new-wave power pop seems sent right from heaven.

Soul Asylum
Gravity (429 Records)
One minute you’re banging Wanna Rideher and hanging at the Academy Awards, and the next you’re on the comeback trail trying desperately to recapture the ’90s glory years. Props to Soul Asylum for not totally embarrassing itself.

King Dude
You Can Break My Heart (Dais)
"…just please don’t break the rest of me" is how King Dude finishes the thought started in the title of this song, which sounds like a ’50s country ballad that Nick Cave might sing after listening to too much Leonard Cohen.

Deadmau5
Failbait (Ultra)
Gee, you know what? This new-fangled EDM music actually isn’t bad. Makes us wonder, though, how this dead mouse chap pulls this shit off live.

Andrew Bird
Give It Away (Bella Union)
No, it’s not a Red Hot Chili Peppers number, but a delightfully jazzy folk-pop tune. But the birthday-party-themed video is messed. Right. Up. Two words: human piñata.