These L.A. guitar hypnotists tap into a tradition of desert-rock mysticism as old as the Doors. But they're introspective, female art rockers, not peyote-pumped shaman dudes. Gingerly funked-up bass lines and treble-trance guitars recall the xx and Yeah Yeah Yeahs at their most reticent. The real action on Warpaint's full-length debut happens in the tension between the music's ethereal boil and singer-guitarist Emily Kokal's lyrical evocations of all-too-human anxiousness — like the way the band builds a space jam out of a Cat Power-esque piano rumination called "Lissie's Heart Murmur." It takes a little work, but once you find your way in, this stuff casts a shadow hard to shake.

Keep up with rock's hottest photos in Random Notes.

“Time to Pretend”

Listening to MGMT’s breakthrough song, one might interpret it as being about the excesses of rock stardom, but it’s actually about the duo’s pet praying mantis. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone they got the idea from the insect's jerky movements. The mantis died, but the two bandmates kept the egg sack and allowed the hundreds of eggs to hatch. “We tried to name them all, but they died after a day,” said Goldwasser, with VanWyngarden chiming in, “But the praying mantis dance inspired us.”