Rock and roll is generally about magnifying power; instead, Mike Hadreas amps up vulnerability. That can be powerful, too: witness the mighty shiver of a croon throughout his second LP (not to mention that homoerotic ad for it that YouTube cowardly refused). Violence and creepy sex haunt these sparse songs; "string it up on a fence/cover it with semen," Hadreas intones on the suicide-conjuring "17." While potent, his voice is a limited instrument, and the best songs here push past his debut's piano-student minimalism into full-on girl-group drama. In "Hood" and "Take Me Home," fears of bruises and sexual failure shrink beneath the scariest power of all: real love.

Listen to "Hood":

Related
• Photos: Random Notes

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.