The Apples in Stereo, "IV. From Outside, in Floats a Music Box"
Were it not for the presence of "floats", this would be the kind of title you might find on a really pretentious prog album. I guess "twee" and "pretentious" are just two sides of the same coin.
The Men, "Ridin' On"
After a couple albums of mellowing out some, The Men kicked it back into aggressive garage rock mode with Devil Music. It's my favorite mode from them, so I was very happy to hear them bring it back. The more mature sounding stuff was fine, but I generally am happier with mayhem in my rock.
Boards of Canada, "Turquoise Hexagon Sun"
I went to try and write something here, but honestly, I find Board of Canada so hypnotic (in a good way) that I kind of drifted off for a few minutes. It's good!
Cinerama, "Dance, Girl, Dance"
I don't know about the orchestration here. I think that kind of thing should be sparing, and it kind of comes across more as clutter here than a nice thing. It's kind of the trap that the Beautiful South fell into, making every song try and sound like a capital-P Production.
Lady, "Get Ready"
A thought I just had is connecting the neo-soul revival in the 2010s to the ska revival of the 90s. In particular, thinking about how many acts were one-and-done in both scenes. And how many of those single records were actually quite good. We're still going in the soul revival, but I wonder if I'll look back and think about it in the same way. Obviously the music is different, but both were about bringing back a musical style from the 60s, both often had much bigger bands than typical rock bands, both have faced accusations of inauthenticity, and both had a relatively small number of labels driving things. So there are some parallels, for sure.