A friend turned me on to this band recently, and their most recent CD, Fear of a Blank Planet, is one of the best albums I've listened to in a long time. Pick it up if you get a chance.

Have you ever noticed that music doesn't seem to be as aurally interesting these days? Turns out it's probably due to engineering tricks designed to artificially pump up the loudness. So if you're one of those people who thinks that new music sounds terrible, this article means that you are probably right:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity