Los Angeles outfit Touché Amoré have been responsible for some of post-hardcore's best melodies and storytelling this past decade. But their new record, Lament, is another level up from an already astonishing height. Produced by the notoriously confrontational Ross Robinson (Korn, Slipknot, Sepultura), the band were pushed into places they hadn't been before. As sweet and comical as it is typically saturnine, Jeremy Bolm's lyrics are surprisingly conversational and direct, the guitars are textured to sound like a shoegaze-y maelstrom, and the world of the album is just that — a world. In fact, Lament feels like its own planet. Emma Madden
