rock/psych

Rhyton's self-titled release (Thrill Jockey) starts just as you fall facedown in interstellar sand, alone and without hope of rescue. Dave Shuford (No Neck Blues Band), Jimy SeiTang (Psychic Ills) and Spencer Herbst (Messages) leave you farther behind as things get progressively more abrasive and experimental. It's instrumental, yet speaks in tongues when the seething "Dale Odalíski" segues into "Shank Raids." There are moments of sunny warmth, but days are relatively short on whatever world this one was laid down on. —Brian Wilensky

pop

Forget the haters. Lana Del Rey is a goddamn American original. Naturally, she's a magpie, paraphrasing the great poets of the 20th century (Nabokov, Springsteen, Betty Boop) in a languorous, honey-thick alto over luxuriant strings and syrupy trip-hop beats — smart, funny, sexy as apple pie. Born To Die (Interscope) doesn't diversify her vocabulary much (though she does rap — no joke), but it maps in detail a highly stylized vision of Americana — triangulated somewhere between Hollywood, the 'hood and archetypal Anytown, U.S.A. (imaginary spaces, all). —K. Ross Hoffman

rock/pop

It's as spare as you dare on Clay Class (DFA), the sophomore effort from U.K. duo Tobin Prinz and Suzi Horn. On 11 nervy, anxious tracks built from staccato bass and guitar, punch-drunk drums and oddball slogan-vocals tiptoeing around each other, Prinzhorn Dance School craft a worldview as disorienting as it is enthralling, where love is loathing and rhyme schemes don't quite resolve. "I want you ..." they sing almost sweetly on a song of the same name, "... to stab your sweet smile/ drown your laughter/ in a clever ... river." Like that. —Brian Howard

rock/pop

Though you could count Imperial Teen among the current spate of late-'90s indie recidivism, the Roddy Bottum-led quartet's return transcends mere nostalgia. Feel the Sound (Merge), the band's first album since '07, refines Bottum's yen for complex arrangements integrated with killer hooks. Yes, there's that classic, clean-channel guitar chugging beneath the rushing "Runaway" and the contemplative "Don't Know How You Do It," but the former's gigantic keyboard swells and four-part harmonies and the latter's gentle orchestral flourishes combine for a sound and feel that's timeless and timely. —Brian Howard