CAMERA OBSCURA Desire Lines [4AD] Perhaps unfairly, Camera Obscura have always been lumped in with the other jangly indie-pop bands from their hometown of Glasgow. On their fifth album, the group seizes an opportunity to carve out their own identity, moving away from the kinds of vibrant string arrangements so prominent on their previous releases. While “I Missed Your Party” has shades of the orchestral charm and brass-band camp that—like hand-wringing... 

THE NATIONAL Trouble Will Find Me [4AD] Though the National is often described as “world-weary,” “world-wary” may be more accurate. On five previous albums, the Brooklyn-based band crafted increasingly sophisticated songs populated by characters that live in their own heads, reluctant to engage as they parse the secret angst and uncertainty of evolving adulthood. The group’s latest is a stunning refinement of the form—a search for self... 

SCOTT  WALKER Bish Bosch [4AD] Scott Walker’s output has been sporadic over the last 30 years, but he always makes the music of nightmares. On his first album since 2006, he interrupts stretches of silence with disjointed moments of off-kilter musicality. Bish Bosch is full of mechanical sounds—from the industrial hammering intro of the opening track to guitars that sound like television static and the repeated motif of sharpening knives. Hitchcockian... 

THE BIG PINK Future This [4AD] Hyping this follow-up to their stunner of a debut, A Brief History of Love, U.K. duo Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell have talked a lot about the influence of pop and hip-hop. Indeed, synths and samples here fill space once reserved for fuzz guitar and live drums, but the Big Pink was never a traditional rock band. Like its predecessor, Future This points back to 1991, when groups like EMF, Jesus Jones and most notably...