September’s shaping up to be pretty good for new releases - there are more great albums coming out than there is room in the paper to review them. Here are my four favorites coming out this month:

Baroness – Red Album (Relapse, Sept. 4th)

Easily one of the best metal albums to be released all year, Baroness have really stepped up their game on their first proper full length. It’s pretty easy to hear the similarities between Baroness and their fellow Georgia contemporaries Mastodon, but its never like they’re purposefully trying to rip Mastodon’s style. They take heavy riffs peppered with harmonized licks and throw in a touch of Southern familiarity, then match the tough stuff with Isis-esque droning and climaxes. Anyone who’s a fan of either of the aforementioned bands is definitely going to be into this.

Jose Gonzalez – In Our Nature (Mute, Sept. 25th)

This man’s voice is smooth like buttermilk. If you’re not already familiar, Gonzalez is an Argentinean-born Swede who plays slow, somber folk tunes that channel Nick Drake. His debut album, Veneer, was amazing, with a cover of the Knife’s “Heartbeats” that was better than the original. In Our Nature has Gonzalez moving away from the sentimentality of his first release and more into politically minded folk. His songs haven’t lost any of their beauty, but there is something emotional missing from the album that Veneer captured perfectly.

Iron and Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog (Sup Pop, Sept. 25th)

I really didn’t care much for Sam Beam’s split with Calexico – I’ll take his straightforward folk to his alt-cunch any day. The Shepherd’s Dog doesn’t bring Iron and Wine’s sound back to his first two releases – there’s still too much…flavor – but I like this incarnation better than In the Reins. The song structures feel trademark Beam; if you stripped away all the other instruments and percussion the songs could be acoustic gems. The tribal toms and hand drums, twangy strings and sparse keys he’s added give the songs a new nervous energy, which although not as transcendent as the breezy, summer afternoon anthems of The Creek Drank the Cradle and Our Endless Numbered Days, is still impressively ambitious.

Devendra Banhart – Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon (XL, Sept. 25th)

Holy shit, what a great album. I can’t stop listening to this. After being thoroughly impressed by his performance at Bumbershoot I couldn’t wait to hear the album. At first I was like, “What the fuck is he doing?” but after a few listens I was hooked. Normally I don’t care for albums where the artist jumps around from genre to genre (read: Ween), but the way Banhart goes from acoustic Spanish ballad, to 70’s jam, to 50’s doo-wop and soul, however bizarre, is fantastic. The doo-wop song in particular, “Shabop Shalom,” is a hilarious rendering of the classic malt shop sound with lyrics about trying to snag a Jewess. “It was at this precise moment that he saw her, her walk was soft and delicate with a thaumaturgical touch that only a Rabbi’s daughter could have. Before their eyes had even met, her luminous lips had already lured him in. Salvation winked with the promise of a bris held at pinnacle, in a congregation of Sages bunny-hopping and chicken dancing to Yiddish minto.” I don’t know if that last word is right. It took me five minutes just to figure out what the word “thaumaturgical” was (thau·ma·tur·gy n. The working of miracles or magic feats). The album is hardly cohesive, but once the initial shock wears off, Banhart’s brilliance seeps through track by track, revealing a scatter-brained but remarkable songwriter.