SOUND BITES

For anyone who's paid attention to Bloc Party since they burst onto the scene a little more decade ago, an album likes Hymns isn't a wholly surprising development. Since that album's breakthrough of angular post-punk menace, the group has slowly but surely distanced themselves from it. By the time they got to Four in 2012, the rocking tunes were the surprising ones and the majority of the band's output had leaned further and further toward blissed out, electronically enhanced lite rock. Hymns , their fifth album, perhaps suffers from some nasty preconceptions borne out of the weird and warped pop-gospel of lead single The Love Within . That's not totally unfair, as the point of a lead single is to build hype for the album as a whole; that said, it's not all that representative of the album, more of a palette cleanser to dissuade any thoughts of this new incarnation of the group throwing back to 2005 (Bloc Party's bassist and drummer both left the ban

Silence Yourself was going to be a tough act to follow. Released to universal acclaim in 2013, Savages' debut record solidified the foursome's status as Next Big Things, their pummeling and raw post-punk striking an unmistakable chord with critics and fans alike. So, like countless Next Big Things before them, Savages come into their second album with the added weight of expectation and the ever-present drone of anticipation. Not that we're owed anything, but those expecting Adore Life to be simply more of the stuff that everyone loved a few years ago have set themselves up for at least a partial disappointment. The frenetic rawness of the debut gives way to a more assured, calculated performance. The songs here won't shake you by the shoulders the same way Silence Yourself did, but it's due more to an increase in confidence and musicianship than a decrease in intensity. To be sure, this is a quieter affair, but it's also more varied emotionally.

EXPLORING A FEW OF ROCK'S GREATEST CONSPIRACY THEORIES. In honour of the return of The X-Files (one of my all-time favourite shows, and source of the rock-referencing pic above), I figured this would be a good time to talk about a side of music that doesn't get a lot of attention but has provided plenty of intrigue among dedicated fans.  What follows is a list of some of my favourite "rock n' roll X-Files"; intentional or coincidental, these musical mysteries all lend themselves to a fair amount of credibility, but have proven impossible to outright confirm. Whether you want to believe or prefer to only deal with facts, there's no denying that these wild theories are at least a little plausible.