Maybe it was only a matter of time before these former Radiohead tourmates took a shot at their own Kid A. The unpredictable noise rockers come pretty close on their sixth album, although WIXIW packs too many weird twists to feel derivative. Liars build a haunted palace of smeared synths and dysfunctional drum machines around Angus Andrew's echo-cloaked incantations. "This spiral down, no coming back/ A dead end, again and again and again," Andrew moans on "No. 1 Against the Rush," one of several tracks that sound like they would kill at a dance club populated by moody goths from Mars. It's an album that creeps you out even as it sucks you in.

Listen to 'WIXIW':

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• Photos: Random Notes

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."