Jay Steele

MGMT plots a strange course for their listeners with Congratulations, but the material here often exceeds that of the band’s initial full-length.

With their third full-length effort, Beach House forces the listener to re-examine pop music status quo while taking another giant stride as a band.

A Brief History of Love bears its strong spirit atop this clamoring foundation. The immense musical landscapes that Cordell and Furze construct on songs such as “Golden Pendulum” and “At War with the Sun” are often as emotionally raw as the pained vocals that convey their stories of adolescent anguish and love.

Microcastle, the second full-length from Atlanta’s Deerhunter, sees Bradford Cox and company reining in-but not abandoning-the pervading experimental impulses on their sometimes arduous 2007 release, Cryptograms. The results are phenomenal.

The dark reggaeton/trance cocktail of “One Pure Thought,” Blade Runner funk of “Hold On” and robot rock of “Out at the Pictures” stage a sweaty dance-off for your ear.