In the time span of just a short 22 years, this bloke from the great island of Great Britain has produced a lineup of whimsical songs that have the depth and insight of many more years of life. Ben Howard describes his hometown as "nestled between the moors and the sea," and paints his affection for the autumn months and the outdoors in few words but with powerful sentiment.

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Blank Expressions, the latest album from Swedish new-wavers Kamera, slowly pulls into the parking lot, but comes out of the car full of energy and ready to jam. At least that's the picture album opener "Asleep" draws, introducing the record with a slow, far-away sounding hum that kicks into overdrive just as soon as the lyrics set in.

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As if he hadn't proved just how far his creativity can reach in his many Belle & Sebastian records, frontman Stuart Murdoch is getting even more colorful. The recently released God Help The Girl is a series of songs that will ultimately make up Murdoch's forthcoming musical movie of the same name. And it's no surprise -- just about every one of these tracks has the same trendy appeal as Belle & Sebastian's very unordinary style, but with a theatrical flair, reminding me of my many favorite musicals from both film and the stage.

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Many college grads with pre-med biology degrees go on to save the world by putting their knowledge of cells and membranes to use dissecting disease, battling the common cold and stopping an earth-eating infection from ever touching human skin. Others save the world in a different way: putting their knowledge of that lovely organ we know as the ear, and the many ways to please it, to use writing beautiful melodies and constantly weaving their hands over the black and white keys of a baby grand piano, with all of the concentration and delicacy of a surgeon in the spotlight.

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All twelve of the tracks on this debut album have soothing choruses and beautiful keyboarded highlights that heighten the colors you see as the sun sets down in your back yard, the crickets chirp and Good Old War plays on.

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Like a toned-down version of The Get Up Kids meet Alkaline Trio, Serene also manages to inlay the epic-feeling swarms of Coldplay's songs. Their indie pop style may even be a little more laid-back than all of these bands, and to be quite honest, quite serene.

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The Silence of Love ends up being a revolving door of folk rock tunes; whether or not you knew the original artists, who strummed up these lyrics over the combined course of 40 years, you'll love the way Alela Diane delivers them so much, you'll want more, and find yourself bouncing back and forth between this great compilation and the original records.

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Scary Fragile, the most recent release from this Down Under singer, is only her second record, but shows just how far Butterfly Boucher has come from her debut in the early 2000s. Bearing all the grit and gusto of notorious femmes fatale like Pink and the cheeky chic that only girl-rockers like Gwen Stefani can emit, this is a delicately computed but hard-driving record.

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The Baltimore foursome that makes up The Seldon Plan balances on the cusp of a collegian's slowly developing taste in the indie-rock world and the sophisticated post-grad's easy listening preference. The very timely Lost and Found and Lost emerges at a time when both groups -- those hanging on to their youthful love of post-rock pop and those attempting to devote their ear to more meaningful, inspired lyrics -- are looking to the airwaves to find some meaning in today's world.

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Operation Aloha. Their name could imply two things at first take: either they're a group of artists dedicated to political cause and motion, or they're a group dedicated to laid-back island life, following only the motion of the ocean and the direction of the sun.

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