After the hearth-warm country-folk of 2022’s *Lavender Days*, Caamp sounds like a band reborn on their fifth album, *Copper Changes Color*. From the ragged edges of Taylor Meier’s swaggering vocals on opening track “Millions,” you can hear that this is a looser affair than what you might expect from this Ohio-hailing band—strongly recalling *Youth and Young Manhood*-era Kings of Leon, with less guitar squall and more easygoing jangle. The sonic shift was partially influenced by Meier spending more of his time in NYC’s Lower East Side neighborhood, a locale that bears sonic fruit on songs like the strummy, last-call rocker “Mistakes.” But despite the metropolitan trappings, Caamp is still as reflective and intimate as ever on zoomed-in ballads like “Fairview Feeling,” accompanied by luscious co-production from indie-folk production wizards Beatriz Artola (Fleet Foxes) and Tucker Martine (The Decemberists, My Morning Jacket). Far from completely changing their stripes, Caamp has evolved into a new version of themselves that’s shaggier and more confident, without forgetting what led to their incredible rise in the first place.
As one of rock’s most forward-thinking bands, it’s entirely fitting that Garbage—totemic vocalist Shirley Manson, multi-instrumentalists Duke Erikson and Steve Marker, and drummer Butch Vig—haven’t looked back since they reunited in 2011. Arriving over two and a half decades since their era-defining self-titled debut, 2021’s thrilling *No Gods No Masters* was the sound of a band in the midst of a late-career purple patch. They keep the momentum rolling on this eighth album. Where *No Gods No Masters* surveyed the wreckage of a world mired in chaos, *Let All That We Imagine Be the Light* is an album determined to muster hope and optimism. That’s not to say it still doesn’t go hard at certain points. Opener “There’s No Future in Optimism” sounds like New Order-gone-glam, “Chinese Fire Horse” is an amped-up, barbed-wire reworking of Cameo-style future-funk and there’s a curled-lip swagger to cascading electro-rock anthem “R U Happy Now.” These are songs that erupt with some of Garbage’s brightest hooks yet, an airy pop euphoria elevating the synth grooves of “Sisyphus” and “Radical”’s dreamy soundscapes. Coming together as Manson recovered from a second hip operation, with her three bandmates writing music and sending her demos, it’s a record that finds the singer in defiantly uplifting form and a reminder of what a strange and brilliant band Garbage is. They’re a group who can put together a record by working separately but still evoke the communal jubilance of a band in a room, who can craft seething anthems but summon rallying encouragement. Garbage always sound like they’re already leaning into their next move. *Let All That We Imagine Be The Light* is the vital sound of the four-piece putting their best foot forward.
Who exactly is Sally Shapiro? The world may never know: Since emerging in the mid-2000s with perfectly melancholic Italo-disco throwbacks like “I’ll Be by Your Side,” the reclusive Swedish diva (technically half of the duo of the same name, alongside producer Johan Agebjörn) has preferred not to reveal her real name, pose for photos, or perform live. Nevertheless, the duo’s shy but pathos-ridden synth-pop garnered a decade of critical acclaim before they announced their retirement with the 2016 single “If You Ever Wanna Change Your Mind.” The title turned out to be apt: Sally Shapiro un-retired two years later, then released 2022’s *Sad Cities*, their first album since 2013. The duo don’t mess with the formula on *Ready to Live a Lie*, the second Shapiro album released through Johnny Jewel’s like-minded label, Italians Do It Better. But they’re as intriguing as ever on their lonely, nocturnal Italo anthems, murmuring sweet nothings over pulsing synths on “The Other Days” and unpacking trust issues on the twinkling “Guarding Shell”: “Lover, can you understand?/My shell is guarding me here where I stand.”
On Buscabulla’s sophomore album, *Se Amaba Así*, the Puerto Rican duo of Raquel Berrios and Luis Del Valle cook up fresh and inventive ways to look at the uncertainty of romance in a uniquely unromantic age. On opener “El Camino,” Berrios sings over lush synth lines and catchy acoustic guitar chords that give the song its sticky-sweet melodies. Thumping drums and a funky bassline move the song closer to the dance floor, while swells of strings give it an air of the cinematic. It’s a swirling concoction of a number of styles, all of which coalesce effortlessly from their pop-centric lens. “Incredula” has a flair for the dramatic, with Berrios reaching a higher register as electronically affected vocals give the feel of a ghostly choir.
