If you know Talib Kweli—the socially minded Brooklyn emcee recognized more for his vocal abilities than his CD sales—then Prisoner of Conscious is a gimme. If you don’t know the enormously gifted Kweli, his first solo record in three years is a tougher sell. There’s a laundry list of cameos and prodigious lyricism, but the songs rarely move. Big tracks like single “Upper Echelon” are flat. Instead, the standout beats have some old-school crackle and POC is most interesting when Kweli can relax and just, you know, be brilliant.

Though not quite the 40-song suitcase hinted at after Rilo Kiley “broke up” a few years ago, RKives is a solid 16-track collection of unreleased and B-sides material. While the pop sound doesn’t feel as dated as the years since Rilo Kiley’s 2007 final album would indicate, it nestles comfortably within the band’s body of work. Perhaps of greatest interest to fans disappointed when the group fell apart, RKives manages to showcase the hooks and emphatic vocals that helped the band find a wider audience at one time; a somewhat random but enjoyable and welcome compilation.

The sophomore album from LA electronic musician Will Wiesenfeld, known to us as Baths, is decidedly glum. And it’s no wonder. Following the success of his acclaimed debut album, Cerulean, Baths spent the better part of a year touring and then in 2011 was stricken with a nasty bout of E. coli, which left him bedridden for months. His sickness, justifiably, comes through on Obsidian, like the downtempo opening track “Worsening” or the ultra dark and gritty electro dirge “Earth Death.” But with or without the ailment, Obsidian’s tone is intentional, according to Baths himself: “I hope people understand that I’m not the depressed, suicidal and death-obsessed person the record may paint me as...

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Fronted by a black-clad fire-breather who goes by the deceptively unthreatening moniker Jehnny Beth, Savages traject a world hurtling towards oblivion. High-speed, tension-plagued stormers like “Shut Up” and “Husbands” sound like they may shatter into obliteration at any moment. Not content to simply cop post-punk aesthetics, these East London dread merchants are steeped in the sort dystopianism and apocalyptic anxiety that drove the likes of Killing Joke and The Banshees to such dizzying heights of foreboding. Guitars squeal and howl as if they were burning machinery, drums gallop and thunder, making each track its own pummeling, metallic symphony. The bedlam only recedes on “Dead...

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Still just a horsehair away from being an absolute solo project, singer Victoria Hesketh moves from making dance music that sounds like Kylie Minogue to the hard stuff of nighttime fantasies. On her first Little Boots record, 2009’s Hands, writing and production credits came by way of Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard and Lady Gaga’s RedOne. This time, though, it’s DFA co-founder Tim Goldsworthy, Simian Mobile Disco’s James Ford and Hercules and Love Affair’s Andy Butler who align with Hesketh for stuttering tributes to ’90s house and good old-fashioned four-on-the-floor disco cuts like “Crescendo” and “Beat Beat.” There are still big dollops of pop on Little Boots’ second electro-enhanced work, and...

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