Editors' Choice for May 2012
RCA
On his second album, Trespassing, Adam Lambert dives into glammy disco-pop with often exhilarating results.
Alligator Records
Black Eye Galaxy is alternately roaring and tender; it howls with pain and shimmers with tenderness. It's Anders Osborne's masterpiece.
Harmonia Mundi
Andreas Staier samples a few of the less familiar published variations on Diabelli's waltz before presenting Beethoven's masterful Diabelli Variations.
Aeon
The virtuoso Arditti Quartet performs the challenging music of Harrison Birtwistle with apparent ease on this 2012 Aeon release.
Sub Pop
Beach House sound more aloof and heartbroken than ever on their icily gorgeous fourth album Bloom.
Rinse
Brackles strikes the balance between underground and commercial success with an album of classic future garage.
Upper Class
With plenty of diverse genres and thoughtful rhymes, this is another easy to recommend effort from the underground Canadian rapper.
Hollywood
Cherri Bomb's full-length debut proves that the members of this all-girl band can rock just as hard as guys twice their age.
Fat Possum Records / Turnstile
After putting his beloved Def Jux label "on hiatus", the producer/rapper returns with proof positive that he's been focusing on his craft.
Invada
Portishead's Geoff Barrow and composer Ben Salisbury deliver an authentically geeky "imaginary soundtrack" to cult comic Judge Dredd, channeling John Carpenter's scores in the process.
Warp
Gravenhurst's fourth album is a seamless fusion of folk, shoegaze, and electronics, and possibly Nick Talbot's most intimate set of songs yet.
Williams Street
Vital and exciting, R.A.P. Music finds the Atlanta rapper working exclusively with adventurous hip-hop producer El-P.
Female Energy
Kindness' debut is a downer dance party that synthesizes various forms of dance music past and present into a satisfying new sound.
Light in the Attic Records
The first in Light in the Attic Records' reissue series of rare Lee Hazlewood sides, this one covers 1968 to 1971.
Songs of the South Records
On the spare solo instrumental Hambone's Meditations, guitarist and composer Luther Dickinson showcases his skills in a haunting, eerie whole.
Deutsche Grammophon
Mezzo-soprano Kozená's radiant recording of three very different song cycles showcases her warm, dark amber voice and her sensitive stylistic versatility.
Harmonia Mundi
Tenor Mark Padmore (joined by horn player Stephen Bell in the Serenade) delivers thrilling, nuanced performances of song cycles by Britten and Finzi.
Real Gone Music
The first-ever comprehensive collection of one of the most underrated country singers of the '70s and '80s.
![Moonrise Kingdom [Original Soundtrack]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0003612057/front/220/qh4qPeccKP_H8IH7BdQUulWnbEN5fCjifro6xhIBuB4=.jpg)
Original Soundtrack
ABKCO Records
While Moonrise Kingdom features more classical music than most Wes Anderson soundtracks, it's just as vivid and poignant as his other films' music.
Parlophone
Richard Hawley uses guitars, bass, drums, "rocket sounds," and psychedelia brilliantly on the urgent Standing at the Sky's Edge.
What's Yr Rupture?
Royal Headache's debut is a short, energetic blast of classic '60s soul filtered through classic '70s punk and given a modern lo-fi anti-sheen.
Decca
Produced by Mark Ronson, Out of the Game is a '70s singer/songwriter-style album with a soft rock and disco vibe.
Heavenly
As usual, Saint Etienne's eighth album is both drenched in nostalgia and ready for the dancefloor. This time, though, the nostalgia is personal.
Atlantic
Four years and a dozen producers later, Santigold returns with an album that expands on the best parts of the debut.
Nonesuch
With Sun Midnight Sun, Watkins adds quirky indie pop, West Coast folk-rock, and harmony-drenched Americana to her repertoire.
Casablanca
Scissor Sisters follow Night Work's dancefloor triumphs with a set of songs that seem more comfortable when they don't feel like dancing.
Ingrid
Smile is Joakim of Teddybears and Björn of Peter Bjorn and John, and their first record is a nice combination of the two groups' styles.
LandFall
Elemental Journey is Sonny Landreth's 11th solo album, and it's his first all-instrumental outing, and folks, this isn't a blues album.
V2
The U.K. production duo team with Depeche Mode singer Dave Gahan on this cinematic, rainy day soundtrack.
Stephen Drury / Callithumpian Consort / John Heiss / New England Conservatory Contemporary Music Ensemble
Mode Records
The performances by the Callithumpian Consort, under the direction of Stephen Drury, are exquisite: delicate, unpredictable, evocative, and just plain lovely.
Ernest Jenning
Still Flyin's second album is an '80s-influenced melancholy pop affair that is achingly serious but still fun to listen to.
Wichita
Raw but accomplished, tuneful yet noisy, the Cribs are more comfortable with their contradictions than ever on In the Belly of the Brazen Bull.
Daptone
After a decade, Daptone's Sugarman 3 are back with their soulful funk and groove on What the World Needs Now.
Fat Possum Records
The Walkmen close their first decade of being a band with this surprisingly contented-sounding set of songs.
