They are from LA, feature former members of Mika Miko and sound not too dissimilar to Best Coast or perhaps Dum Dum Girls. Oh and they also made my favorite album of 2013. If you find a catchier or more addictive song than “Dead in Your Head” or a better homage to Fleetwood Mac‘s “I Don’t Want to Know” than “Searching Through the Past,” please let me know. That doesn’t even cover The Ramones-ish “Next Stop” or the marimba flourishes (a tribute to Brian Jones-era Rolling Stones) utilized on several tracks.

I seem to be in the minority amongst other Joy Formidable fans, but I think this sophomore Lp is stronger than their also great debut The Big Roar, which was hampered by the fact that half of its song were already on their debut EP A Balloon Called Moaning. Everything is all new here and they roar out of the gate with “This Ladder is Ours,” but they also know how to turn it down a touch, as proven by “Silent Treatment” and the title track, which is hidden away at the end of the album.

I liked this band’s previous two albums and singles as Reading Rainbow, but I love their newfound identity and harder, edgier and yes more accessible sound that much more. Whereas before they could be obtuse, they are now loud and in your face and more importantly, produce stunning dream-pop tunes like the singles “Waking Dream” and “Drift Away,” both of which are included here along with nine other noisy blasts. The best of those might be the closer “Get Lost.”

After a five year absence, Billy Bragg follows the excellent and relatively stripped-down Mr. Love and Justice with this even more stripped-down, Americana-leaning, Joe Henry-produced follow-up. No one has mixed the personal with the political better in the last 30 years and this album is more proof of that.

A logical progression from 2011’s excellent Screws Get Loose, this Roger Moutenot-produced album moves Nashville’s finest even further away from their alt-country roots. Those longing for a return to those roots may dislike this (though the album’s best song, “Western Sky,” may satiate those impulses), but others will love this album’s blend of more personal, at times heart-wrenching lyrics and ultra-catchy songwriting, this time with notably more contributions by Nikki Darlin.

If the wonderful Slumberland label has a flagship band for its last few years, it would have to be Veronica Falls, especially since the also terrific The Pains of Being Pure at Heart haven’t released a new Lp since early 2011. In any case, yes this is a bit more polished (though just a bit, thankfully) than their also great debut, but the songs are just as good, if not even better. “Teenage” is simply one of the catchiest pop songs I’ve heard in years, as is pre-album single “My Heart Beats.” They can also stretch out, as evidenced by opener “Tell Me” and closer “Last Conversation”. Ultimately, though, it’s the catchiness of the aforementioned singles and album cuts like “Broken Toy” that keeps me coming back to this one.

Of all the bands that have revived the post-punk template in recent years, few if any have done it better than this Oakland-based band have on their sophomore Lp. When you ultra-catchy melodies, Hether Fortune‘s Siouxsie Sioux-ish vocals, unusual chord progressions and uncompromisingly bleak and harsh (yet occasionally touching) lyrics, you get songs like “Sound of a Void” and “When It Happens” that will stick in your head for days. Yes, “The Scent of Love” blatantly takes the riff from The Chameleons‘ “Less Than Human,” but with Mark Burgess working on and appearing on this album, that is understandable.

This is basically Swiz (and it sure sounds like it) with Joe Gorelick replacing Alex Daniels on drums and the result is not only the best music these folks have done since Swiz, but the best new release on Dischord in decades.

2010’s Majesty Shredding was the best album of Superchunk’s career, so as such it is a tough act to follow. They didn’t try to repeat it, but instead make a darker, tougher, denser follow-up (sort of like how Foolish followed On the Mouth) that reveals itself with multiple listens. The catchiness they are known for is still there in spades, though, especially on “Me and You and Jackie Mittoo.” Elsewhere, “Low F” finds them sounding like fellow Chapel Hill contemporaries Archers of Loaf while “Staying Home” is a blast of ’80s hardcore and“Void” is reprised from their Record Store Day 7”.

Last year’s Interstellar was a hard act to follow and while this one breaks very little new ground (there’s a bit more guitar here than its synth-dominated predecessor), I would honestly take about a dozen Lps that sound as gorgeous as this. And it even has a cover of The Damned‘s “Street of Dreams” that is better than the original!