[ disc-o-scope ]

pop/rock/twee

There's a simple test for judging a twee-pop record: Would every song sound good if you were listening to it alone in your bedroom or dancing in a new friend's living room? By that standard, the self-titled debut (Fortuna POP!) by London quartet Allo Darlin' is a success. Elizabeth Morris' sweet Aussie accent makes downbeat girl-group fare like "If Loneliness Was Art" as inviting as the mixtape-ready "Kiss Your Lips." Pretty and fun in equal doses. (Allo Darlin' plays Kung Fu Necktie Fri., June 17, r5productions.com.) —M.J. Fine

country/blues/rock

Is it hubris to call your album Queen of the Minor Key? Perhaps. But Eilen Jewell 's sixth full-length is another moody gem from the Boise-born, Cambridge, Mass.-based singer-songwriter. Woozy organs and slide guitars set the scene for country-blues weepies like "Reckless" and torch songs like "Only One," and the fast-paced title track and saucy "Bang Bang Bang" show that Jewell's nimble enough to rule whatever realm she chooses. (She plays the Tin Angel Sat., June 18, tinangel.com.) —M.J. Fine

pop/synth/electronic

Saints Go Machine's new album, Konkylie, is Danish for "conch shell," but it sounds like the fantastical portmanteau of an obscure '80s NYC art-funk group and a world-famous electro-pop princess. Which is probably as good a reference point as any for the breathtaking, unclassifiable second album by this uncannily well-named Copenhagen outfit, which drifts from ethereal choral fantasias to roiling falsetto tech-soul to world-flecked New Age pop. And then there's "Kelly," a breezy synth-disco paean to young love which could make your entire summer. —K. Ross Hoffman

art-rock/pop

You don't need me to tell you Matthew Landis (interviewed in Icepack) also plays in World/Inferno Friendship Society. The music of The Minor Arcana 's debut, Emotional Alchemy, drops plenty of clues: snarkypants lyrics, theatrical arrangements, circusy bridges. Landis' voice is the right mix of lounge, whiskey and Morrissey to sweetly sneer about "hipster archaeologists" drinking PBR and doing "cocaine that's fine as fucking drywall." The song is "A Modest Proposal" and you need to hear it. (The Minor Arcana play Kung Fu Necktie Sat., June 18, kungfunecktie.com.) —Patrick Rapa