Though their name may seem like a mouthful, the quintet’s efforts equal an album that should be added to your playlist of summer hits immediately.

Zinzi Edmundson and Jesse Kivel’s follow-up, Kids in L.A., really jump-starts the DeLorean ride.

All is quite slick. It’s a touch proggy and bitter, but not without the piquancy of sauerkraut.

Curiosity is satisfyingly eerie without appearing forced, a sign of some songwriting talents on the rise.

They’ve moved beyond that convenient pigeonhole from when that Blue CD-R first made the rounds, but they’re, well, a much more modern affair now.

The Terror is simply the latest (and darkest) report from those reaches, one that generates holographic intensities of the dire straits this band has seen throughout its 30-year career.

Limits of Desire is more romantic, calling on aural cues from nostalgic ’80s movies but with some modern tricks.

Apt at harnessing the power of the pout, songs are left in the shadows, no minor key left unexplored. Theatrical, yes. But not without restraint.

While Cronin’s musical expertise belies his age, the existential struggles about which he sings--fear of the world, distrust of love, lack of self-confidence--do not.

Hands play the instruments that induce you to dance and hear those sounds that make you want to feel it all.

Precious and self-indulgent, this disc is bound for the sale rack at Starbucks.

It’s a sad affair best summed up by the title track.

Head in The Dirt, the SF native’s sophomore offering, shows a delightfully vast range of influences.

There won’t be many more solid albums than this in 2013.

Tillman’s silken, Otis Redding–reminiscent vocals anchor funky, horn-driven R & B beats that match the swagger of Motown.

Textured as it comes, the album drips with heady shoegaze, and meaty bass lines prevail in a melodic, rewarding sonic endeavor.

José González’s smooth, honeyed vocals and nylon-string plucking are more timbres than lead presences, and to great success.

Bruni manages to affectingly convey sweetness, melancholy and a prodigious amount of unselfconscious joy in both music and voice.

{Awayland} tends to feel without reason or necessity, as if thrown together more in effort to get something down than to say something that needed saying.

The album is their most complete work to date.

It’s less catchy than Wolfgang but also more creative and more satisfying.

This fourth album, the devastatingly visceral Mosquito, does indeed find them trawling the more lugubrious recesses of their psyches and sonic proclivities.

Relentlessly dark, Houses still somehow manage to find breathtaking wonder in the wreckage.

Welcome back heavy bass and the practically patented echoing falsettos because John Dwyer’s mellow Putrifiers II mood is gone.

Sam Beam’s wily flirtations with girl-group chants and country-politan pageantry entices in fits and starts. Unfortunately, Ghost on Ghost’s midsection suffers from some genre weariness and similitude.

The multiple guest stars on each and every one of these 14 tracks have been upgraded from the regional heroes found on 2009 Lazer debut Guns Don’t Kill People Lazers Do to bona fide industry studs on Free the Universe. Some might view this third-world talent invasion as a form of dancehall imperialism, but there is depth here, respect, knowledge and oodles of heart... and enough freaky fun to dagger 52 weekends away.

It’s the pounding of the skins that makes the album really pop.

We The Common, the fifth LP offering from San Francisco’s Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, offers us a killer collection of infectious beats, bouncy melodies and smart lyrics that you can’t help but move to.