With each album, Glass Animals' bright, ear-catching music has gotten more revealing and approachable. On 2014's ZABA, their bubbly mix of indie, electronic, R&B, and hip-hop influences sounded like pop from another planet, with abstract lyrics to match (who can forget "Gooey"'s "peanut butter vibes"?). They got a little more down-to-earth with the character studies of 2016's Mercury Prize-nominated How to Be a Human Being; now, on Dreamland, singer/songwriter Dave Bayley lets his listeners get even closer by studying his own character. It's a change that was years in the making: Bayley began writing more autobiographical songs with How to Be a Human Being's closing track, "Agnes," a tribute to a dear friend whose suicide affected him deeply. When Glass Animals' drummer Joe Seaward was seriously injured in a 2018 cycling accident, the band paused as he spent months learning how to talk, walk, and play music again. During this time, Bayley sharpened his songwriting and production skills by collaborating with Flume and 6LACK, and his growing experience -- as well as the emotions stirred by Seaward's healing process -- convinced him to dig into his own life and feelings for inspiration. His transformation into a more specific songwriter only makes Dreamland's music richer, grounding his band's genre-defying approach with his own chameleonic past. Before moving to England, Bayley spent his early adolescence in Texas and immersed himself in '90s American pop culture that pops up in unexpected ways on these songs. On "Space Ghost Coast to Coast," he juxtaposes cartoon imagery, the sound of 2000s hip-hop, and memories of a childhood friend who later attempted a school shooting. Once again, Bayley's fluency at melding R&B and hip-hop elements into Glass Animals' music makes it clear how deep his love for those genres is. The martial beat of "Your Love (Déjà Vu)" was inspired by Timbaland and the Neptunes as well as Beyoncé's Coachella performance, while "Tokyo Drifting," a low-slung collaboration with Denzel Curry, introduces Bayley's own Sasha Fierce, a character called Wavey Davey. Elsewhere, Dreamland is just as musically layered and engaging as ever, with plenty of wiggly synths and bouncy beats on tracks such as "Tangerine" and "Melon and the Coconut" and slinky sensuality on "Hot Sugar." Glass Animals' most cohesive and satisfying album to date, Dreamland is a well-deserved triumph that's as rewarding for fans to hear as it was for the band to make.© Heather Phares /TiVo

While it can be easy to dislike and dismiss some cookie-cutter electronic music, the challenge lies in finding reasons to listen to it again. Such is the case with Revolutions by Jean Michel Jarre. One reviewer wrote, simply, "(This) is not revolutionary." That is true; Jarre breaks no new ground with the release of this album. He does, however, continue to create original music in his own style. He is often imitated and that is the sincerest form of flattery. This album features ten short pieces (five minutes and 22 seconds is the longest) of pop influenced e-music. This disc neither challenges nor offends the listener. It has its moments but it neither soars nor plunges. Of course, die-hard Jarre fans will love this disc. Fans of Synergy, Char-El, Klaus Schulze, and Ashra will like it.© Jim Brenholts /TiVo

Is this album a soundtrack of a future imaginary film?  For their fifth studio album, Cage the Elephant decided to take a very cinematic approach. Social Cues was conceived at a time where the band’s leader, Matt Shultz was going through an emotional break-up. These songs therefore have a cathartic motivation, and the band chose the aesthetics of John Carpenter’s horror films to translate this dwindling love. Recorded in Nashville and Los Angeles, the American six-piece’s album describes a dull interior landscape, which is reflected in a little gem like Goodbye, in which a classical orchestra (in particular a piano and strings) mixes with pop rock instruments.The other surprise of the album was the duet with Beck on Night Running, in which dub is mixed with rock guitars. Outside of Carpenter, Shultz would also have been influenced by Fassbinder while writing Social Cues. The emotional power of these two directors’ films can be felt in songs requiring a thick skin (Ready to Let Go, House of Glass, Tokyo Smoke, and especially Broken Boy with its aggressive rhythm…), while Skin and Bones and Love’s the Only Way offer up some hope in this half-horrific half-depressive work. Another influence - of a different kind – is a tribute to David Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes in the chorus of the album’s titular song. For a young man burnt by love, it was probably the perfect reference. © Nicolas Magenham/Qobuz

Reuniting with producer Ed Buller, who helmed their first and third albums, White Lies recapture the urgency and anthemic hooks of their early sound and add a sophistication that feels right for a band a decade into their career on 2019's Five. In many ways the album isn't that different from the London trio's previous work. Still showcased is lead singer and instrumentalist Harry McVeigh's brooding baritone, along with bassist Charles Cave and drummer Jack Lawrence-Brown. Together, they offer up a moody, often propulsive set that draws upon various touchstones, from driving Joy Division-style post-punk ("Never Alone") and synthy new wave romanticism ("Time to Give") to Boy-era U2 kineticism ("Jo?")." That said, there's more guitar here, including gargantuan slabs of bass and deft laser jab riffage. They even dabble in some echoey Pink Floyd-style space twang on "Kick Me." Equally compelling is the glammy "Denial," which matches a memorable chorus hook with lyrics that evoke the ennui of having reached your thirties and settled into a kind of domestic mundanity. McVeigh sings "Four kids and a cat, might as well be called five." Elsewhere, the band achieve even more dichotomous emotional uplift, tackling themes of loneliness and urban disconnection on "Tokyo," which taps into a dusky Giorgio Moroder-esque club groove before smashing through the glass of your emotions with a big pop chorus. Similarly, "Believe It," with its pounding bass and glassy synth accents, finds the band wrestling with "the fear" and notions of therapeutic release. While there's not any major conceptual through-line here, one of the most impressive aspects of Five is the album's balanced flow, which evokes the A- and B-side aesthetic of the vinyl age. © Matt Collar /TiVo