Many of you may know Lights from her 2000s emo pop era; now, while we all may be ready to leave the extreme side bangs behind (if you know, you know), Lights’s new album A6 shows that she is ready to enter a new musical chapter.

It’s been seven years since Propagandhi’s last full length and things (gestures to genocidal conflicts, the environment, surveillance technology, billionaires, on and on) have continued on their downward spiral.

Add a splash of guitar, the essence of Circle Jerks, and a whole lot of angst, bring it to a roaring boil, and voila, there you have it: scalding punk anger—or in other words, RHOADS’s first official release, Idiopathic.

There’s a reason local trio V3nom have been gaining attention across city stages, but if you can’t make it out to one of their many shows, then this five-song EP is the perfect introduction.

Combining themes of modern human experience and social commentary, The Lumineers’ fifth studio album Automatic is unpredictably layered and emotionally dynamic.

ZZ Ward’s latest release, the blues-infused Liberation, draws breath from childhood sound bites that inspired her earliest musical musings.

Hurry Up Tomorrow, which The Weeknd has said will be his final album, grapples with themes listeners have come to expect—self-destruction, isolation, addiction, lust, and heartache—but this time with a raw vulnerability that, in a lot of ways, feels like our first real peek behind his performing persona.