I am a total mark for “S P E Y S I D E,” and I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one. Justin Vernon’s adventures in refracted beauty have yielded some of my favorite music of all time — I’ve played 22, A Million somewhere between 22 and a million times — but something special happens when Vernon pares it all down to his peerless voice, an acoustic guitar, and some tasteful window dressing. So many artists tried to imitate what Bon Iver achieved on For Emma, Forever Ago that Vernon ran as far away from that sound as possible, but there’s enough distance from the indie-folk crossover moment now that he can safely return to the cabin. (At this point, the wonky formatting of the song title is a lot closer to self-parody than a back-to-basics acoustic pivot.)

It turns out whatever celestial forces were at work back then have not stopped haunting Vernon’s every strum and whisper. Or maybe it’s just that he’s at his best when he’s driven to his breaking point. “S P E Y S I D E” is an apology for some unnamed mistreatment of his family, and you can feel his guilt and anguish in every note. The appeal runs deeper than nostalgia; though the raw, heartfelt sentiment paired with Vernon’s otherworldly falsetto is a blast from the past, it still feels vital all these years later. —Chris

They’re Just Like Us is the scrappy, exuberant debut from Celebrity Sighting, a new band hailing from Madison. Like a less raucous Snōōper, Celebrity Sighting’s songs are fuzzy outbursts that sound like they’re echoing from a rowdy house show down the block. “Hourglass” is particularly resonant as the crew grapples with the struggle to keep up with life: “All this time is slipping right out of my hands.” The world may be moving too quickly, but Celebrity Sighting are capturing its absurdity in a fun way that makes it pleasurable. —Danielle

Tyler, The Creator is fully in his Neptunes bag here, building a beat out of little more than a heaving, clattering stomp-clap skitter and some well-placed synth notes. Between that “Womp Womp”-worthy production and a title like “Cracc Era,” I guess that makes Tyler and Maxo Kream stand-ins for the Clipse. Except Maxo’s Texas drawl and Tyler’s charismatic growl are guaranteed to put their own stamp on a song. Tyler’s BMX bars are cool, but they’re really just table-settling for Maxo, who rides the rhythm with a casually stunning flurry of syllables. Pop-culture-addled lyrics like “My Hoover Chrysler ruger clips, like Ludacris, I throw a bow/ I finish him like Liu Kang, I want the brain like Al Snow” fit snugly into the crevices between the clatter; he makes it look easy to lay waste to a beat this off-kilter. —Chris

The music video for Chat Pile’s “Funny Man” is one of the most unnerving in recent memory. Across three minutes and 33 seconds, we see a kitchen with a spread of half-eaten breakfast and a running sink. In the living room are used tissues strewn across the floor in front of a TV playing nothing but static. Strands of hair line the bathtub drain. There are countless signs of life, but not a single living person in sight. You almost can’t help but assume the worst.

Chat Pile vocalist Raygun Busch says “Funny Man” is about “being a servant, indentured or otherwise” and the role of war in America. How do you cope when the leaders who are meant to represent you perpetuate inhumane policies? “Spilled the blood, gave ’em as much as they wanted/ Still had to dance for my supper, still had to give them my body,” Busch shouts over frenetic, metallic guitar riffs. Chat Pile may not know how to get out of this mess, but they do know how to make a tune perfect for commiseration when those signs of life feel particularly ominous. —Abby

It shouldn’t be this good. How could it possibly be this good? The last Cure record came out 16 years ago, and that wasn’t exactly one for the record books. And yet here we are, with a vast and sweeping seven-minute monster that emits pure Disintegration vibes — a song that no other band would even dare attempt, let alone nail. “Alone” swells and ripples and pounds for more than three minutes before we even hear the voice of Robert Smith, and his voice is as elegantly, dramatically downcast as ever.

Robert Smith has never been the least bit afraid of self-parody. Maybe that’s why he can moan about the birds falling out of the sky and the words falling out of our minds with such majesty. All around that voice, drum-crashes echo, keyboards drone into infinity, and guitars tingle like windchimes. It’s a full-throated vintage-Cure epic, a spectacular opener for an album that now suddenly appears to be the most exciting thing on the horizon. Even if the rest of Songs Of A Lost World turns out to be overproduced and self-indulgent garbage, it’s still got at least one all-time track. But every time “Alone” plays, that possibility becomes more and more distant. —Tom