Music

"I Miss Your Bones," from Hospitality's album Trouble, is easily one of the catchiest songs of the year. In its video, director Lara Gallagher looks at what missing someone means in this digital age.

This week's World Cafe: Next artist is the Brooklyn band Heaven's Jail. Frontman Francesco Ferorelli grew up listening to metal and hip-hop, later discovered country, and now plays indie-rock music. Producer Matthew Houck (of Phosphorescent fame) says of Ferorelli, "[He] is my favorite kind of songwriter — sensitive but not sappy, smart but not precious."

Ace Called Zero, the debut album by Heaven's Jail, is due out August 26. Download two songs as part of the World Cafe: Next podcast.

The dark Americana band Hurray for the Riff Raff is led by Alynda Lee Segarra, a young, Bronx-raised Puerto Rican who developed her musical voice by riding the rails as a teenage punk before settling down in New Orleans. (The Crescent City serves as inspiration for the band's sixth and most recent album, Small Town Heroes.)

KSUT Public Radio and Music in the Mountains are proud to present the Party in the Park, Friday, July 18, 2014.  Sponsored by Coldwell Banker/Heritage House Realtors and Pine River Valley Bank, the Party in the Park features Los Angeles based band Todo Mundo for an evening of fun, food, drink and dancing.  Blending the musical flavors of rumba, reggae, samba, gypsy and other South American and Caribbean rhythms into an irresistible groove, Todo Mundo's unique mix of world rhythms and danceable songs will undoubtedly have Buckley Park bouncing.  Gates open at 5:30 with live music from local

"The madness runs in cycles," Tom Clarke sings forebodingly in "The Glow," one of the highlights of the U.K. duo Cloud Boat's second album. The music rushes along, propelled by the high-efficiency tick of a drum loop, but there's no trace of madness or even anxiety in his voice. Instead, Clarke radiates priestly calm as he gives listeners a set of vague, odd instructions: "Take some of these candles," he intones darkly, as if calling from some Middle Ages theater. "The glow will guide you."

"New wave" is a much more precise descriptor than it gets credit for. Originally a space-filler genre title when "punk" was deemed bad for sales — when bands like Television and Talking Heads were nodding to but branching away from nose-bloodying Sex Pistols mayhem — "new wave" has left its interstitial 1970s origins and been refined to a point.

Let's get one thing out of the way: Braid in 2014 is not Braid in 1999. As an album title, No Coast is either a clever turn on geographic identification or a challenge to reunited '90s bands not to rest on their laurels. As Braid returns with its first full-length album in 16 years, it's probably a little bit of both.

Joe Henry sounds like a pretty good name for a no-nonsense jack-of-all-trades, a guy devoted to family who knows about a day's pay for a day's work, and about commitment.

If you've heard the gospel-tinged "Take Me to Church" from Irish singer-songwriter Hozier, it's unlikely that you've forgotten it. The soulful, emotive singing could sustain the song on its own, but when you combine it with a powerful video, it's easy to understand why Hozier's rise to popularity has been so swift. That video alone has more than four million views and climbing.

We get a lot of mail at NPR Music, and alongside a $23.95 book of cat cartoons by The Jesus Lizard's David Yow is a slew of smart questions about how music fits into our lives — and, this week, thoughts on when and whether once-successful musicians should give up.