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Boy, midlake's Tim Smith wasn't joking when he said that his band's third album -- and first since breaking bigger with 2006's breathtaking, Fleetwood Mac–inspired Trials of Van Occupanther -- was inspired by the affected antiquities of

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On this third album, Editors expand their sonic vocabulary by supplementing -- at times, even replacing -- straightforward Brit-rock riffing with dark, '80s new-wave keyboards that alternately stab ("Big Exit") and surge ("You Don't Know Love").

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And from a cocoon of hazy psych-folk comes…a masterful mash-up of '80s synth pop and tribal-beat tickles?

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In recent years, slowcore pioneers Low have forcefully shaken their defining somberness and dabbled in what actually might be called rock. So it wasn't a total shock in 2008 when singer-guitarist Alan Sparhawk formed Retribution Gospel Choir -- essentially Low minus angel-voiced wife/drummer Mimi Parker -- to canoodle with more classic sounds.

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It's fun, if slightly jarring, to hear this infectiously hyperactive indie crew stretch out a little. Romance, their third album in 24 months, is more slickly assured -- and far less twee -- than its predecessors. At one end, the cacophonous "Plan A" gets blatantly cranky, and at the other, "Who Fell Asleep In" might be loosely called a ballad.