Popular music

Modern Vampires of the City, by Vampire Weekend. The chamber-pop quartet’s third LP finds the band in a more introspective state than the Afropop-infused bounce of its earlier albums. If the effect is a sometimes sleepier sound, it also results in the group’s most stylistically varied set of songs. Ezra Koenig’s dense lyrics remain sneakily profound, but here he largely turns his attention away from the group’s usual Salingeresque prep-school characters and toward matters of faith. Album standout “Ya Hey”—likely a variation on “Yahweh”—is one of the many that wrestle with belief and doubt. In it, Koenig addresses God directly, opening with “Oh, sweet thing / Zion doesn't love you / And Babylon don’t love you / But you love everything.”

Meet Me at the Edge of the World, by Over the Rhine. Songwriting duo (and married couple) Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist are prolific: this is Over the Rhine’s 12th studio LP. And though it’s a double album, there’s very little fat to be found among the 19 country-tinged folk songs, which effectively alternate be­tween melancholy and quietly celebratory. Named for the duo’s Ohio farm, the record reflects the concerns and awareness of a couple growing older and more dissatisfied with modern America. (“I have seen the slow corruption of the best ideas of Christ / In the pulpits of our nation, Gospel turned into white lies,” Detweiler sings on “All Over Ohio.”) But it also romantically invokes the partnership of Johnny Cash and June Carter. (“I still get shivers when I hear you singing down the hall,” the song continues.)

Random Access Memories, by Daft Punk. The fourth proper album—and first in eight years—from the French DJ duo of Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter is the most easily digestible of the electronic music stalwarts’ career, showcasing vocalists and focusing more on traditional pop-song structure than in the past. It’s perhaps the most “human” of efforts from the duo, who famously never remove their anonymous, robotic helmets in public. But a more accessible approach doesn’t make for any less of a sprawling, genre-hopping record, reflecting the duo’s wide range of influences and kindred spirits. Memories moves seamlessly from the sounds of disco (including summer’s best pop hit, “Get Lucky”) to early electronic music (“Giorgio by Moroder” features Italian dance music pioneer Giorgio Moroder), and from ballads to modern electronic dance music.