January 26, 2012 – Spiritualized's Sweet Heart Sweet Light was originally announced with a March 19 release date, but according to band mastermind Jason Pierce, the recent news that the English space-rock veterans' seventh album would be delayed a few weeks — despite advance copies already being sent out — is simply the result of a long-planned bait-and-switch. "I had the rather foolish idea last November that I could deliver the record that's been sent out and keep working on the real version," says Pierce, speaking on the phone from his Manhattan hotel room. "I'd meet the delivery date they need for reviews and things like that and nobody would be any the wiser that I'd be carrying on with the mixing." So, erm, the version of the (very good) album that we've been listening to is not the version that fans will eventually hear? "I think it's quite different," explains Pierce.

January 25, 2012 – Don't watch this one alone. The deeply atmospheric video for This Will Destroy You's creeping, explosive "Black Dunes," from the instrumental post-rock quartet's Tunnel Blanket, available now, is disturbing as all get out. The clip shows a young woman wandering through a forlorn empty house, ghostly apparitions, and eerie visual abstractions that seriously give us the creeps."This video was conceived while driving through mist in rural Sweden," explains Malcolm Elijah, who directed the disturbing eight-and-a-half-minute spot. "It centers around the fracturing of a young woman's mind and her descent into self-induced, self-absorbed delirium." Well, as you'll see, they pretty much nailed that vibe.The band kicks off a 17-date tour January 28 in Denton, Texas.

January 24, 2012 – Last weekend at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, Neil Young, there to promote his Journeys concert movie, said he was recording a new album with his old pals in Crazy Horse. The band's drummer, Ralph Molina, replied "Yes" on his Facebook wall in response to queries about whether or not the news was true. The album would be Neil's first with his longtime, and arguably best, collaborators since 2003's Greendale. But I have some advice for you, oh devoted fans of Neil. It might be a while before we hear the fruits of this particular labor. Not to be a Debbie Downer, but Neil Young fan-sites have entire pages devoted to their hero's shelved releases. If anyone out there has a copy of Homegrown, which was supposed to come out back in 1975, lemme know. Same goes for Toast, a Crazy Horse joint that's been rumored since 2008.

January 24, 2012 – Last week Sleigh Bells dropped their new single, the fizzy and ferocious Reign of Terror single "Comeback Kid." Today, they add to their already stellar collection of ominous videos with the clip for the song, which starts in nicely Freudian fashion with singer Alexis Krauss jumping around on a bed in a red bathrobe while clutching a large gun, ends with guitarist Derek Miller doing a Breakfast Club style fist-pump freeze-frame, and gets even more compellingly kooky in between. Also: Nice Nirvana T-shirt! As the band told us in our exclusive in the studio interview, Reign of Terror is all about the guitars. "With Treats, it was less clear to me whether Sleigh Bells was going to be a guitar band or if we were going to do more sample-heavy stuff," guitarist-producer Derek Miller said. "With this record I had to pick sides.

January 20, 2012 – In advance of his new Old Ideas, out January 31, Leonard Cohen sat down with Jarvis Cocker to chat about the album for a BBC radio interview. The erstwhile Pulp frontman talked about the conversation in a five-minute promo snatch online now. The full interview will air on the January 29 edition of Cocker's Sunday Service radio show. Highlights: Cohen claiming he was always "scraping the bottom of the barrel" to get a song together (he says the words "buffet table" amazingly); the lovely sound of Cohen's deep, sonorous speaking voice; and Cocker not knowing what time his own show is on! For a taste of the album to come, give a listen to first single Show Me the Place.

January 19, 2012 – Synth-pop trio Miike Snow's self-titled debut was one of SPIN's favorite albums of 2009, so expectations are high for the follow-up, Happy to You. First single "Paddling Out" is an auspicious preview, as Andrew Wyatt's vaguely androgynous, compellingly moody vocal cuts melodically through Swedish pop-genii Bloodshy & Avant's gleaming and ecstatic house-influenced production. The album is out March 27 on Downtown Records/Universal Republic.

January 19, 2012 – The new single from South African rave-rap oddballs Die Antwoord might be called "I Fink You Freeky" but, with the possible exception of their beloved Celine Dion, they'll never find anyone else as freaky as they are. In talking about the group's upcoming new album TEN$ION, MC Ninja explained that, "We tried to work with other people over and over but they couldn't deal with our hardcore style." Indeed, Die Antwoord struggled with their old label, Interscope, about the direction of the new album. (TEN$ION is being released on DA's own ZEF imprint.) The main problem? "[Interscope] kept pushing us to be more generic," says his co-MC Yo-Landi Vi$$ER. And, really, who wants a generic Die Antwoord? The group's desire to maintain the freaky-freshness of their 2010 debut, $O$ fueled the making of TEN$ION.

January 18, 2012 – Indie-rock wunderkind Brad Oberhofer won notice over the last 18 months or so for a series of spiky, lo-fi guitar-led singles. Ah, the young change so quickly. "HEART," from Oberhofer's March 27 debut LP Time Capsules II is a radical — and lovely — step forward. Produced by Steve Lillywhite (U2, Peter Gabriel), the track is a kaleidoscopic piece of chamber-pop, featuring pianos, harp, strings, and whirring keyboards, with Brad's heartfelt vocal floating over the circus below.

January 17, 2012 – Even if you couldn't understand a word John McCauley sings on "Gimme a Beer," the song's boozy bonhomie would give you a clue as to its title. The horn-abetted rocker is the ragged-but-right first official single from Diamond Rugs, an indie-rock supergroup consisting of Deer Tick frontman McCauley, his DT keyboardist-saxophonist bandmate Robbie Crowell, Black Lips guitarist Ian Saint Pé, Los Lobos sax-man Steve Berlin, singer-guitarist Hardy Morris of Dead Confederate, and drummer Bryan Dufresne of Rhode Island synth-punks Six Finger Satellite. "Gimme a Beer" is probably closer to Deer Tick's exuberant country-rock than the rest of Diamond Rugs' constituent parts, though fans of each should find something to like on the band's rowdy self-titled debut, due April 24 on Partisan records.

January 17, 2012 – Feel the Sound is Imperial Teen's first new album in five years, but you wouldn't know it from the sterling collection of beautifully arranged, melody-rich pop songs on display. The San Francisco-based band led by former Faith No More keyboardist Roddy Bottum shows no signs of rust on its fifth studio album, which we've got streaming for you in its entirety. Tracks like "Runaway" and "All the Same" are pocket epics — reminiscent of the New Pornographers or the music ELO was making in its mid-to-late-'70s heyday — brimming over with lush vocal harmonies, lovely instrumental counterpoint, vintage-sounding keyboards, and perfectly-deployed crunchy guitar. Feel the Sound is out January 31 on Merge, just in time to help overcome a case of the February blahs.