June Playlist: Alt Rock explosion

It's been a while since my last playlist, so I've been catching up on music that I've missed in the past couple months. First up is the title single from Relient K's latest album, "Forget and Not Slow Down" (embedded above). It's a solid song filled with musical and lyrical catches, a great example of Relient K's masterful composition of guitar, piano, and vocal sounds. If you're looking for something a bit more pop-oriented from the same album, "Candlelight" is a great fast-paced piano ballad that really showcases lead singer Matt Thiessen's songwriting talent.

Despite not being quite as solid as Relient K's latest album, Thousand Foot Krutch's 2009 Welcome to the Masquerade album still has a few interesting tracks like "Forward Motion" and "Fire It Up". While "Fire It Up" is a energetic headbanger that may please the punk rock fans, "Forward Motion" is a ballad that takes better advantage of the band's vocal strengths, and is just a more memorable song in general.

While B.o.B. doesn't really fit with the other alt-rockers here, his album The Adventures of Bobby Ray is still a great album that is worth mentioning. There are the hits "Airplane" and "Nothing on You", plus other great songs like "Magic" featuring Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo. A talented musician that can play multiple instruments, B.o.B. isn't your ordinary rap artist, and his collaborations with rockers Rivers Cuomo and Hayley Williams (in "Airplane") show just how broad his creative talent is.