January 22, 2013 – Tireless art-poppers They Might be Giants have stuck around as long as SPIN has — we said they were "so far off the beaten path that they're still trying to fold the road map" back in issue eight. So we're obviously always rooting for another round of their nouncentric pop for quirky adults and, occasionally, their quirky children. Their 16th album, Nanobots, drops on March 5 and first taste "Lost My Mind" echoes Squeeze or their beloved XTC, exploits some pretty dramatic dynamic shifts, and takes a quite literal interpretation of the common idiom. And did we mention the wild, Max-Ernst-gone-Saw artwork of Paul Sahre?Check your head listen below! 

January 22, 2013 – Alt-metal super-duper-group Tomahawk have reformed for their first heatstroke hallucination in six years, the rocking, rollicking desert tantrum Oddfellows. Back from almost a decade without touring, the band remains a dream team of ill-angled aggro-rock — Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle), Duane Denison (Jesus Lizard), John Stanier (Battles, Helmet), and new bass player Trevor Dunn (Fantômas, John Zorn, and the recent record-breaking Melvins tour). The team passed around Denison's home-brewed demos, flew in to Nashville (from homes in California, New York and Berlin), collided in Black Key Dan Auerbach's Easy Eye studio, and slammed out their most stripped-down album since their much-loved 2001 debut.

January 11, 2013 – A year since Finnish krautrock masterminds Siinai landed a SPIN Essential, their scene pals in K-X-P have returned to even the score. Their fantastic new II (due February 11 via Manimal/Melodic/FKLG) is full of monster-truck motorik, gleaming synths, breezy hooks, and enough late-'70s/early '80s textures to send M83 hurtling back to their DeLoreans. New track "Flags and Crosses" is like the Drive soundtrack crashing into the autobahn, full of warm, wet synths and the type of heavy-sticked groove that makes trio leaders in a sea of retromania pretenders. Grab a handful of lingonberries and hear it right now!

January 10, 2013 – Fresh off making one of SPIN's 50 Best Albums of 2012, Swedish Afrobeat-metal enigmas Goat are finally bringing their krauty, trancey, ritualistic World Music to American shores. If the TSA will let them on a plane in those masks, they'll be hitting all the usual spots, peaking with an appearance at the sixth annual Austin Psych Fest (also featuring Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Black Angels, Black Mountain, Black Bananas, the Black Ryder, and some bands with other words in their name).

January 4, 2013 – Factory Floor, London's industrial-strength Gristle-disco mutants, have finally unleashed the first taste of their long-awaited DFA debut. The eight-minute "Fall Back" (R.I.P. Big L) is a perfect slurry of thudding '90s EBM grave-rave and the frantic clang and clatter of turn-of-the-'80s post-punk (see our October reissue of the month, Fac. Dance 02 for two discs tracks of the O.G. stuff), basically what they do best. The single, out January 14, putt-putts and chugs into the void. We couldn't be happier to be so miserable.

November 30, 2012 – REISSUE OF THE MONTH1. Various Artists Man Chest Hair Finders-Keepers Do you know what happened in Manchester in that decade between Herman's Hermits and Joy Division? We sure don't! But if this collection of "hard rock, hairy funk, heavy prog from the toughest unknown rock groups of Greater Manchester, England" is your roadmap, then the Mancunian streets were simply overflowing with barrel-chested frontmen, blazing sax solos, and fat, wet, funky, horn-soaked grooves that make Aerosmith sound like Kraftwerk.

November 23, 2012 – Christmas comes early, drone-metal fans! Today, the fine folks at Robotic Empire are releasing CD and vinyl versions of Jesu's Christmas EP (both in a one-time-only pressings of 500 warm cups of hot art-sludge chocolate). Jesu originally digitally released the frosty, sun-glinted, dreamy, nine-minute snowglobe dirge "Christmas" as a holiday treat in December 2010. The original EP included remixes by Jesu frontmam J.K. Broadrick's electronic Pale Sketcher alias and dronecentric Final alias; and the new physical version appends a brand new exclusive fourth version from his doom-dub alias JK Flesh. Dude has more side projects than Santa's got reindeer, real talk.Hear the Christmas EP here and pre-order that stocking-stuffer here

November 20, 2012 – This is the first piece in SPIN's series of Year-End stories, which we'll be publishing now through the end of the year.So, to get to the question everyone's thinking about: Whose penis is that on the cover of your album?After 90 minutes of spiraling conversation with Death Grips, the query completely sucks the energy out of the room. Tonight, that room is the posh, twin-bunk-bedded "band room" at Brooklyn's yupster-chic Wythe Hotel, which overlooks the East River and the twinkling Manhattan skyline — not especially bad digs for two guys who blew through their major-label advance and are currently homeless. An awkward laugh is exchanged and an even more awkward silence follows. While an overturned coffee lid in front of the duo overflows with spent American Spirits, the question hangs dead in the air.

November 12, 2012 – Japan's shoegazyiest heavy metal band and America's most heavily stylish shoegaze band have joined forces for two sides of vinyl to be unleashed on Record Store Day's Black Friday. Yes, Boris and Asobi Seksu are going the Mudhoney/Sonic Youth route and covering each others' songs, and their respective labels (Sargent House and Polyvinyl) are footing the bill.On the A-side, Asobi Seksu leans into a twinkling, shimmering version of "Farewell," from Boris' 2005 coming-out-party for thier shoegazer tendacies, Pink. Then on the flip, the mighty Boris cranks up the fuzz on Asobi's breezy, blurry, "I Melt With You"-summoning "New Years" (as "Neu Years," lol).

November 9, 2012 – Hell, the year that underground rap re-exploded wouldn't be complete without the return of the mighty Latyrx!On their 1997 debut, The Album, the Bay Area duo of Lyrics Born and Lateef the Truthspeaker were prog-rap pioneers: rapping on top of each other like Gang of Four, spitting word streams in obtuse angles, and imagineering labyrinthine cadences that'd funk yer whole head up — often over beats by an emerging pal named DJ Shadow. In the years since, Lyrics Born has released a handful of excellent solo albums, Lateef has popped up in some crews (Maroons, the Mighty Underdogs), and their Quannum Projects crew has launched more than a few careers (Blackalicious, Lifesavas, Curumin).The six-song Disconnection EP, due November 13, is the triumphant warm-up before their long-awaited second album, The Second Album, drops in April 2013.