After playing together for over 20 years, the three members of the Doves have figured out a method to their music making madness, most recently working on an album for over three years in an English countryside farmhouse.

How do you master the balance between sugary melodies and challenging subjects? Just ask Brooklyn native Kevin Devine who has been building his career on doing just that for over a decade.

In 2007, Maria Isa performed at First Avenue's "Best New Band" showcase and was quickly named a rising star in the Twin Cities hip-hop scene. On her new album "Street Politics," Maria to fuses hip hop with traditional Afro-Boricua rhythms of Bomba and Plena.

Grizzly Bear's modus operandi for "Veckatimest" seems to have been employing composition strategies and technology from all over the musical universe. In this way, they've created an album that is instantly familiar, undeniably catchy without surrendering to obvious, and still challenging — and a sound that belongs solely to them.

The boys of Phoenix have long been a band just on the cusp of breaking. With the release of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, the French foursome seems ready to build on the sparks of their earlier albums and grow to something riotous.