Featuring five of the most inspired tracks to come out of Diplo's Major Lazer project, Apocalypse Soon is futuristic island hopping at its finest, incorporating a whirlwind of slick subgenres from locations both tropical (dancehall, soca, and dub) and trap (booming hip-hop and trap music itself). This compact party starter is a hook-filled monster as well, kicking off with the Pharrell feature "Aerosol Can," a track which combines graffiti culture and Ying Yang Twins-styled silliness for the EP's most poptacular moment. After that cool shoulder bopper, the kinetic "Come on to Me" with Sean Paul seems like a firework show gone haywire as trap music devours dancehall, or maybe vice-versa. Featuring Machel Montano, "Sound Bang" is the wild clash of EDM and soca with rum-fueled chants and Harlem-skanking all about; then things wind down with the weird sound of dancehall hit "Dutty Wine"-meeting-'80s legends Duran Duran ("Lose Yourself" featuring RDK and Moska) plus the sonic equivalent of Three 6 Mafia pimping across the set of any given Hostel movie ("Dale Asi," where the great Mr. Fox rhymes "Candy Crush" and "Chris Bosch"). Looking at Major Lazer's previous releases, the whole Rasta zombie-hunter concept is applied the least to this one, but it's not missed, either. Apocalypse Soon is too fast and mean to be bogged down by any comic book extras, and besides, the music is weird enough and wild enough on its own.© David Jeffries /TiVo

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 2, the final installment in the decade-long wizard saga, found Alexander Desplat navigating some treacherous waters. After being handed the arduous task of helming the penultimate entry in the series, the fourth and final composer of Potterdom (John Williams laid the foundation, while Patrick Doyle and Nicholas Hooper fleshed out the midsection) had to come up with something that matched the film's the massive endgame. Many fans, including director David Yates, had hoped that Williams would return to the fold and close the lid on the tale, but conflicting schedules kept the venerable maestro from committing. Those fans will be disappointed by the lack of a prominent iteration of his iconic “Hedwig’s Theme” (though it does swoop in occasionally to remind us of what a long journey it’s been), but Desplat offers up some solace with a stoic and stirring new theme in “Statues” and “Courtyard Apocalypse” that will likely become a favorite of muggles everywhere. Creating a successful musical arc over the span of eight films is daunting, and the four composers involved should all be applauded for their work, as each has brought something special to the franchise while maintaining the “feel” of author J.K. Rowling's unique world. Bombastic, sinister, and triumphant, the appropriately dark and apocalyptic Deathly Hallows, Pt. 2 may sit near the bottom of the Potter soundtrack pile, but it can hardly be called a failure.© James Christopher Monger /TiVo

A movie as big and ridiculous as Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro's epic reimagining of Japanese kaiju films, needs a soundtrack that's just as overblown as the action that's on-screen. Fortunately, the film can look to the talents of composer Ramin Djawadi, whose guitar-driven score mixes just the right amount of classic orchestral scoring, electronic music, and guitar-driven rock to create the perfect backdrop for the near future film about the epic battle between giant monsters from another world and the massive robots humanity constructs to combat them. While the score might feel a bit overdone on its own, it feels right at home with the larger-than-life action taking place on the big screen.© Gregory Heaney /TiVo

If ever a metal band deserved the box set treatment, it's Slayer. Love them or hate them, their accomplishments in the thrash metal subgenre is pretty much unequaled. For over 20 years, Slayer have remained doggedly and stubbornly persistent in their approach to playing the heaviest, loudest, and darkest metal in America. Compare them to the higher profile Metallica and Megadeth, and laugh: Slayer have grown musically without giving an inch to the populace, while the aforementioned bands have become artistically lost in increasingly MOR recordings, and hopelessly entrenched in their popular culture image -- Metallica -- or have imploded altogether -- Megadeth. Many of the Nordic black metal bands owe them their allegiance for influence and sustenance; Slayer broke open the door in America for underground music to be heard outside the small ghetto it began in, without sacrificing its street cred or audience Soundtrack to the Apocalypse's Deluxe Edition is a whopping four CDs and one DVD. Discs one and two feature tracks from Reign in Blood, and all the albums that proceed from it, and includes bonus cuts previously only released in Japan, and cuts from soundtracks -- "In-a-Gadda Da Vida" from Less Than Zero, "Disorder" with Ice-T from the film Judgment Night, "Human Disease" from Bride of Chucky, and more. Disc three is, appropriately, titled Sh*t You Never Heard because that's what it is -- 16 tracks that have been unissued anywhere -- from rehearsals, to in-concert recordings, demos, and one "No Remorse," a collaboration with Atari Teenage Riot, from the Spawn soundtrack. The fourth disc is a DVD of concert recordings, an electronic press kit video for Diabolus in Musica, and an appearance at the Kerrang magazine awards. The first three cuts on the DVD are live in California from 1983, and document Slayer's earliest live appearances. The set comes packaged in standard CD-size format, in a plastic sleeve that folds out into a single rectangle. The enclosed booklet, though smaller in size from the deluxe version's, nonetheless contains dozens of rare photographs, and quotes from the band and media, with fantastic and exhaustive liner notes -- including a full biography and fans' appreciation of the band by Marc Pasche and Eric Braverman. Don't expect either to win a Grammy for liner notes, or for the set to, either. Herein lies a document and a testament to the grand rebel tradition in American underground rock; it will gain no acceptance outside its niche, but that niche is growing, and it is here to stay. This is the very item Slayer fans have been waiting for, and it is worth your hard-earned cash.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

Don't be fooled: this is not the sound of the apocalypse, unless your idea of the apocalypse is metal-tinged progressive rock from the late '70s. OK, so maybe it is the sound of the apocalypse. Black Bonzo is a Swedish band that deals in a particularly unapologetically backward-looking prog rock sound, complete with melodramatic high-tenor lead vocals, fancy twin-guitar leads, and piles and piles of analog synthesizers. (Trivia note: this album was mixed on the very console that was used for Pink Floyd's Animals.) It really is a great sound, and at their best Black Bonzo wields it in a way that is neither silly nor embarrassing. Its best includes the rhythmically twisted "Giant Games," the wild guitars and twittery synthesizers of "The Well," and the full-70s freak-out of "Ageless Door." The band's weakness, as you may have guessed from the song titles, is a command of English that isn't quite comprehensive enough to prevent them from coming up with lines like "My valet is thin he said, the head man" and "The hammer is falling down so hard/It won't catch your very eye." If they didn't sound so serious, that kind of silliness would be forgivable, but when you combine lyrics like that with the roaring self-importance that prog bands seem to feel is expected of them, the result is pretty embarrassing. Musically, this is a very impressive album, but lyrically, Black Bonzo needs some work.© Rick Anderson /TiVo

If ever a metal band deserved the box set treatment, it's Slayer. Love them or hate them, their accomplishments in the thrash metal subgenre is pretty much unequaled. For over 20 years, Slayer have remained doggedly and stubbornly persistent in their approach to playing the heaviest, loudest, and darkest metal in America. Compare them to the higher profile Metallica and Megadeth, and laugh: Slayer have grown musically without giving an inch to the populace, while the aforementioned bands have become artistically lost in increasingly MOR recordings, and hopelessly entrenched in their popular culture image -- Metallica -- or have imploded altogether -- Megadeth. Many of the Nordic black metal bands owe them their allegiance for influence and sustenance; Slayer broke open the door in America for underground music to be heard outside the small ghetto it began in, without sacrificing its street cred or audience Soundtrack to the Apocalypse's Deluxe Edition is a whopping four CDs and one DVD. Discs one and two feature tracks from Reign in Blood, and all the albums that proceed from it, and includes bonus cuts previously only released in Japan, and cuts from soundtracks -- "In-a-Gadda Da Vida" from Less Than Zero, "Disorder" with Ice-T from the film Judgment Night, "Human Disease" from Bride of Chucky, and more. Disc three is, appropriately, titled Sh*t You Never Heard because that's what it is -- 16 tracks that have been unissued anywhere -- from rehearsals, to in-concert recordings, demos, and one "No Remorse," a collaboration with Atari Teenage Riot, from the Spawn soundtrack. The fourth disc is a DVD of concert recordings, an electronic press kit video for Diabolus in Musica, and an appearance at the Kerrang magazine awards. The first three cuts on the DVD are live in California from 1983, and document Slayer's earliest live appearances. The set comes packaged in standard CD-size format, in a plastic sleeve that folds out into a single rectangle. The enclosed booklet, though smaller in size from the deluxe version's, nonetheless contains dozens of rare photographs, and quotes from the band and media, with fantastic and exhaustive liner notes -- including a full biography and fans' appreciation of the band by Marc Pasche and Eric Braverman. Don't expect either to win a Grammy for liner notes, or for the set to, either. Herein lies a document and a testament to the grand rebel tradition in American underground rock; it will gain no acceptance outside its niche, but that niche is growing, and it is here to stay. This is the very item Slayer fans have been waiting for, and it is worth your hard-earned cash.© Thom Jurek /TiVo