Infected's sound still suggests dance-pop, especially on the title track. But don't get the impression that it's made for dancing. Instead of the light fare displayed on Soul Mining, Infected's songs seethe instead of preen, and Matt Johnson's lyrics are laced with tension. Thematically, he plunges a lance into the exposed midsection of Great Britain, analyzing the state of modern urban life in the country. "This is the land where nothing changes," Johnson sings on the World Party-ish "Heartland." "A land of red buses and blue bloody babies/This is the place where the hearts are being cut from the welfare state." "Angels of Deception" matches rain-slicked verses to a powerful chorus flavored with gospel backup singers and enormous reverb percussion. With production tricks like this, Infected aligns itself with the dance-pop sound of its predecessor (and the prevailing sound of British pop music at the time). But there's no denying the record's acerbic lyricism or dark-toned instrumentation.

The Drones World Tour] was a worldwide concert tour by the English rock band Muse. Staged in support of the band's 2015 album Drones, the tour visited arenas and festivals throughout 2015 and is the tenth concert tour the band has carried out. It began on 23 May 2015 in Norwich, England at the BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend. The tour has grossed $23M from 34 shows in 2015, plus $65.5M from 64 shows in 2016…

Over the years, trying to determine what is true "prog rock" and what is not has become an increasingly tricky proposition. In the early '70s, it was easy – any band that performed "suites" that extended across entire album sides and dressed in capes and/or cloaks was a dead giveaway…

Of all of Frank Zappa's discography, Thing-Fish must be his most controversial, misunderstood, overlooked album. Obviously, it is not a masterpiece, but reducing it to a compilation album with a racist plot distorts the reality…

Blending the literate and expressive lyrical style of a classic singer/songwriter with music rooted in indie rock, Joseph Arthur is a well-respected songwriter and performer whose work has impressed critics as well as artists such as Peter Gabriel and Michael Stipe. Arthur's original goal was to become a hotshot bass player, but exposure to Bob Dylan and Kurt Cobain prompted him to take up songwriting, and in 1996, he self-released an EP that made its way to Peter Gabriel, who signed Arthur to his Real World label. 1997's challenging Big City Secrets and 2000's rootsy Come to Where I'm From impressed critics and discriminating listeners, and 2004's Our Shadows Will Remain found him digging even deeper into his confessional tales. With 2007's Let's Just Be, Arthur launched his own record label, Lonely Astronaut, giving him greater control over his music as he recorded idiosyncratic projects such as 2013's The Ballad of Boogie Christ and 2014's Lou (the latter a collection of Lou Reed covers).

Murder Ballads brought Nick Cave's morbidity to near-parodic levels, which makes the disarmingly frank and introspective songs of The Boatman's Call all the more startling. A song cycle equally inspired by Cave's failed romantic affairs and religious doubts, The Boatman's Call captures him at his most honest and despairing - while he retains a fascination for gothic, Biblical imagery, it has little of the grand theatricality and self-conscious poetics that made his albums emotionally distant in the past. This time, there's no posturing, either from Cave or the Bad Seeds. The music is direct, yet it has many textures, from blues to jazz, which offer a revealing and sympathetic bed for Cave's best, most affecting songs. The Boatman's Call is one of his finest albums and arguably the masterpiece he has been promising throughout his career.

Losing Wolf, aside from the final reprise of "Lucy," but otherwise making no changes in the line-up, the Seeds followed up Tender Prey with the equally brilliant but generally calmer Good Son. At the time of its release there were more than a few comments that Cave had somehow softened or sold out, given how he was more intent on exploring his dark, cabaret pop stylings than his thrashy, explosive side. This not only ignored the constant examples of such quieter material all the way back to From Her to Eternity, but Cave's own constant threads of lyrical darkness, whether in terms of romance or something all the more distressing…

Oh, My Girl, the second album by singer/songwriter Jesse Sykes and her band the Sweet Hereafter – led by Phil Wandscher – picks up where her debut, Reckless Burning, left off. Songs are played at cough-syrup tempo, production is sparse, instrumentation equally so, offering just enough of a frame for the melody and lyrics to hang themselves on, and everything, absolutely everything, is underplayed. There is plenty of dynamic tension, but little to no dynamic range. Yes, this is a good thing. Sykes' ghostly voice, which hovers about her words more than inhabits them, has enough old-world folkiness, raw – if intentionally muted – willingness, and lonesome country pain in it to carry off these tunes with authority. Produced, mixed and engineered by multi-instrumentalist Tucker Martine, Oh, My Girl is full of slow, dipping passion, moody expressionism and poetic smarts to make it stand out in a sensual, narcotic way from the rest of the gothic alterna-twang pack. And one more thing: Sykes has more emotion in the grain of her halting, cracking voice than a whole army of Margo Timmins'es – so let the comparisons stop now, please.

It's a safe bet to expect the unexpected in regards to any new Lambchop effort, but the cryptically titled (and beautifully packaged) What Another Man Spills is the band's most consistently surprising and deliriously eclectic outing to date, with new twists around every corner. While it's their loveliest record since How I Quit Smoking, that album's countrypolitan gauze is largely a thing of the past, replaced here by a dreamy, jazz-like patina which proves a remarkably versatile backdrop not only for Kurt Wagner's originals but for a vast range of covers, from Dump's "It's Not Alright" to Curtis Mayfield's "Give Me Your Love (Love Song)." The latter is easily the most jaw-dropping track on What Another Man Spills, with the group easily slipping into the song's soulful groove without a hint of irony, not even in Wagner's amazingly Prince-like falsetto; a later cover of the Frederick Knight smash "I've Been Lonely for So Long," while less surprising, is no less engaging, further solidifying Lambchop's growing debt to the Stax/Volt sound.

Continuing in the growing commercial vein of their previous releases, Porcupine Tree's In Absentia may be the most accessible release to ever spew forth from the group. Rolling electronic percussion blends with simple and solid live drumming to provide an understated backbeat as perennial Tree leader Steven Wilson pastes his complicated pop over the proceedings…

The Dave Matthews Band made their reputation through touring, spending endless nights on the road improvising. Often, their records hinted at the eclecticism and adventure inherent in those improvisation, but Before These Crowded Streets is the first album to fully capture that adventurous spirit. Not coincidentally, it's their least accessible record, even if it's more of a consolidation than it is a step forward. Early Dave Matthews albums were devoted to the worldbeat fusions of Graceland and Sting, but his RCA efforts incorporated these influences into a smoother, pop-oriented style. Here, everything hangs out…

Not quite as definitive of their time as Brit-pop sensations like Elastica and Sleeper and not quite as inventive and enduring as Garbage, Republica made a splash on the charts with "Ready to Go" and then more or less faded away, for stateside audiences at least. The British retrospective Ready to Go: The Best of Republica may be somewhat surprising to casual fans of the group, who may not have been aware that Republica recorded a second album, 1998's Speed Ballads, which didn't receive distribution in the U.S. An even mix of highlights from the group's two albums, Ready to Go features two versions of the group's catchy, dance-meets-Brit-pop title hit, along with the follow-up single "Drop Dead Gorgeous" and notable tracks from the more complex, electronic Speed Ballads such as "From Rush Hour With Love" and "Fading of the Man." Indeed, the collection manages to gather most of both of Republica's albums, making it the only Republica release anyone curious about the band needs to own.

An impressive and delightfully exhausting 50 tracks capture the spirit of the Beatles' music on this double-CD compilation that imitates The White Album in look, just as the immaculate Boston Does the Beatles double LP from 1988 did…

Some older fans looked askance at Lightbulb Sun, feeling it was verging on overt commercialism (and admittedly, the near power ballad solo on "Where We Would Be" is a bit odd!). Then again, given Wilson's own explorations of avant-garde pop with No-Man, who's to say why a slightly more radio-friendly stance can't work? "Shesmovedon" may have been a single, but there's no question who wrote and performed it – the elegant cascade of backing vocals on the chorus shows that much…