Best known throughout Northern Europe for his fluid guitar skills and a knack for penning peppy little pop tunes, Milow hopes to break into the highly-coveted North American marketplace with his self-titled release.

Milow’s musical comfort-zone tends to incorporate an equalization of pop and folk through the use of acoustic guitars, light-hearted lyrics, and memorable melodies. His voice has a sweet and clean tone, and it is as carefully phrased as his picking is precise. He also has an inclination to harmonize selectively, wisely avoiding clutter in his compositions. Cello and piano are sparsely added to his tidy melodic lines to provide them the necessary amount of haunted mystery. Sometimes he dabbles in an alt-country style, but he prevents over-saturating an already long album (eighteen tracks) by consistently bringing back simplistic arrangements.

The majority of his songs are optimistic, despite the soft and contemplative voice nature of his lilting lullaby voice. In an interesting contrast, his eulogy to a murdered woman “Stephanie” is a bright and danceable piano tune, easily the most upbeat of any on the album. As if a tailor-made bribe to possible Canadian fans, he includes the Barenaked-esque “Canada” which features an alt-country guitar-and-violin-hook, and easily boasts the album’s most complex instrumentals.

On the whole, Milow does not need to rely on production tricks to impress himself upon the listener. In fact, his sincere, confessional delivery is both lingering and endearing. All told, Milow’s official North American debut is a winning combination of simplicity and sincerity.

Stop your sobbing. Over 30 years later and the Pretenders, and Chrissie Hynde, show no signs of slowing down. Riding the wave of having their first Top 40 album 22 years, Hynde, along with Martin Chambers, James Walbourne, Nick Wilkinson, and Eric Heywood demonstrate why they’ve earned their place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Filmed at Shepherds Bush Empire, Pretenders: Live in London harnesses the forces behind their 2009 "Break Up The Concrete" world tour. Their biggest hits, including “Kid”, “Back On The Chain Gang”, “Brass In Pocket”, and “Don’t Get Me Wrong” stand alongside new tracks - “Boots of Chinese Plastic”, “Don’t Cut Your Hair”, and “Love’s a Mystery” seem so familiar that you will forget that they aren’t already classics. Hynde, known for her dark fringe, dark eyeliner, and dark jeans may have launched a thousand girl-groups, but the Pretenders are the real deal. Even when their music became smoother and more pop-oriented, Hynde's semi-autobiographical songwriting, sexuality, and singular determination meant that the group never became just another rock band. There are no overdubs on this release, and no fake crowd noises were either needed or added. It allows us to get closer to Hynde when she sings “I’m special/so special. I gotta have some of your attention”. And after all these years, I think she’s still got it.

Sole launched his unconventional hip hop career as a freestyle battle rapper, where he honed his own caustic brand of non-rhyming lyrical schemes. Continuing to buck the traditional hip hop approach, Sole & The Skyrider Band's latest release Plastique uses live band instrumentation to provide a tangible polyrhythmic backdrop to Sole's scathing subject matter. On first listen, Plastique is assaulting, confusing, and entertaining. Warped instrumentals and a steady, assailing beat push along this strange experiment of cross-genre composition. An overwhelming aura of repression and suffocation permeates this album. It is less about politics as it is about sociology. In an era permeated by a constant push of technology and categorization, Sole & The Skyriders challenge the conventional parameters of humanity and musicality. Judging by the lyrical content, feelings of alienation and otherness are exactly what the album is striving for: “Ridden with conspiracy/ You can’t blame us/ Raised in front of a TV/ We just want to be famous.” This is not an easy album to like, but there is something about it that digs its slender, needle-like hooks into your soul. This album gently tugs at your conscience, and holds you until you agree to listen, very carefully.

These New Puritans are undoubtedly aware of the immense potential in the calculated removal of the theatrical cheese from popular Bollywood Filmi Melodies. Their new full-length album, Hidden, is brimming with brilliant examples of how this amplified and simplified effect can be done right. Throughout Hidden, the anticipated follow-up to their 2008 debut, These New Puritans craft an exploration of martial themes, complete with thundering tom pounding, reoccurring snare drum reports, foreboding horns, and yes, even the odd sample of a menacingly drawn sword. Tracks like “We Want War”, “Hologram”, and “Fire-Power” find Hidden establishing a combative identity, while at the same time introducing its listeners to some of the album’s more unifying tracks. “Drum Courts - Where Corals Lie” locks down this concept down, as lead singer Jack Barnett whispers through an ominously percussive introduction, only to have the full force of his band mates burst forth in aural thrill-ride which sounds a bit like a Sufjan Stevens/Liars mash-up that never was. The major problem with Hidden has much to do with the overall execution of its oddball concept. Really, what do you do with music like this? Do you throw it on your headphones as you rocket through the subway? Do you close your eyes and imagine it as the soundtrack to some kick-ass cinematic fight-scene? In truth, it’s hard to imagine sitting down and listening to this album once the novelty has worn itself thin. Mid-album tracks such as “Attack Music” and the aforementioned “Hologram” provide Hidden strong enough legs to make it worth a few listens, but ultimately, These New Puritans’ latest effort stays in the mind as more of an interesting art project than a truly enjoyable album.