As you might guess of a gal who titled her 2005 solo album Blank Unstaring Heirs of Doom, Lower Dens frontwoman Jana Hunter has some goth in her. "Mutate, deface... The whole shithouse goes up in flames," she sings over gorgeous synth drones on "Nova Anthem," an interstellar dirge that detours from her folksy solo work and her band's guitar-centric debut Twin Hand Movement. It's not all zero-gravity bummers here: "Brains" drives a lively motorik beat through a vocal sandstorm; "Alphabet Song" recalls the trippy pop of The Doors' Strange Days. But weirder is better with this crew; witness the 12-minute apocalyptic dub incantation "In The End Is The Beginning," which locates sublime power in its spacey pessimism.

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• Photos: Random Notes

“1999”

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.