You will inevitably read comparisons to Arcade Fire as every band who has more than 3-5 pieces will get; put those aside. There are indeed similar elements, but Broken Records is more impassioned, more spiritual, more ethereal, and from the first alluring 1:40 of "Nearly Home" to the last crashing minute of "Slow Parade", the listener will be nearly paralyzed in a sonic dream-state.

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The Rest is a seven-piece group from Hamilton, Ontario that makes dreamy, expansive rock. Their second album, the tremendously varied Everyone All At Once, earns them a definitive spot on the list of this era's great Canadian bands; Toronto's Wolves, Hawks, and Kites said "albums like this are what make music blogging worthwhile."

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Is the mark of a great album one that moves you from song to song, or one that freezes you in place, making you want the same thing over and over? This was my first thought as I put on Sun Gangs, the new LP from The Veils. This is because the lead track completely sucked me into an album that I never expected from Finn Andrews. And I was compelled to replay the song at least three times before forcing myself to move on to the rest of the album. I have always liked The Veils, but from afar. Their music has always seemed somewhat inaccessible to me. That is, until now.

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These aren't pop singles, this is an orchestrated masterpiece to be listened to as a single movement, each song documenting a moment in time. Peter Silberman does it better than Ian Curtis, better than Will Sheff, better than Pete Townshend. What he has accomplished with Hospice is not just music, it's something that holds the hand of every one of your senses.

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Rick Lucy lives in the same vein as MGMT, Animal Collective, Blue States and a growing list of others: dwelling in an area blurred by alternative pop and electronica/trip-hop. Music you groove to, but that doesn't immediately beckon you to the nearest rave. It's a line that was once hard to live on, but has broadened as of late. It's more than experimental effort, it's about the artist exposing his soft underbelly for all to see, all the while showing that artists don't have to be confined to a genre to be smart about what they do.

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