Poliça

It's no secret that Poliça's sound is built from contemporary indie tropes, as the Minneapolis group combined yacht rock tempos, Auto-Tuned vocals and R&B rhythms on last year's debut, Give You the Ghost. With their follow-up, Shulamith, the quintet find themselves drifting further back into denser territory, using '90s trip-hop and millennial British chill-out as starting points for their newfound sleek and steely sound. Vocalist Channy Leaneagh (also of Midwestern super-group Gayngs) comes across darker and more adventurous on tracks that range from dynamic ("Vegas") to moody ("Trippin") to downright playful ("Matty"), all the while remaining defiantly melodic and blissful. Although Poliça still sound slightly derivative and of-the-moment, tracks like "Torre" and Justin Vernon duet "Tiff" feature wonderfully hectic textures and gorgeous arrangements that make such complaints trivial. With Shulamith, Poliça have managed to create one of the most confident and assertive albums of the year.