This past week two new albums hit the shelves that, though they couldn't be more different stylistically, make a fairly interesting commentary on modern music. The first is How I Got Over from hip hop luminaries The Roots while the second is the flawed but undeniably impressive debut by the teen indie outfit Avi Buffalo. The former group has been making music since 1987, while no single member of the latter was even alive in 1987. But the age difference of the artists isn't the only thing that makes these two albums noteworthy.

I want to preface my thoughts on Avi Buffalo's self-titled debut by saying that I'm very interested in what the band is going to do in the future. This is important because I can't quite get into the majority of the material they've released so far. Most of the album is indie-by-numbers, a sound that should be overly familiar to anyone who has ever listened to The Shins or any of the countless bands of twee, hyper-literate purveyors of quirk. This, in itself, is not a bad thing. Nobody badmouths jazz musicians just because they played sounds pioneered by the likes of Miles Davis, so I don't think it's critically worthwhile to dismiss a modern band for competently echoing the original creations of older artists. My beef with Avi Buffalo is that I genuinely believe the band, especially its chief guitarist and songwriter Avi Zahner-Isenberg, can do something a lot more interesting than calculated soundtrack fare for movies about disaffected youths. Zahner-Isenberg's lyrics are often leagues ahead of his contemporaries in indie music and the kid knows how to construct a hook on par with the best artists in pop. The alt-country and Frankensteined folk trappings that surround those lyrics and hooks just sound so limited and distracting.

I'll also admit that a big part of my aversion to Avi Buffalo's first foray comes from the necessarily shrill vocals. The hard fact is that everyone in front of the microphone in that band graduated high school just prior to the album's release (bassist Arin Fazio is the eldest in the lineup at 21), so the high-register singing is merely a consequence of undeveloped vocal cords applied to an already falsetto-focused indie aesthetic. Avi Buffalo sounds like children trying to sing Devotchka because that's pretty much what's happening. How impressive everyone in the band is for their age doesn't save the album, but it does suggest some really stunning work in the future when Avi and company start to explore some new, more developed territory.

On the other end of the spectrum, both in age and depth, is How I Got Over by The Roots. It's the legendary hip hop group's ninth studio album and their strongest offering in years. How I Got Over has been in the works since 2008, its oldest tracks taking shape over a year ago. The result of this slow-stewed record are 13 simultaneously inviting and contemplative tracks that find rapper Black Thought firing off some very well-constructed rhymes about living through a difficult period and coming out the other side a wiser man. The soul-inspired melodies that have served The Roots for years are still present on How I Got Over and they lend a cohesive feel to the album, making each track flow into the next without any hard shift in the overall atmosphere until the very end in the percussive "Web 20/20". How I Got Over is the sound of a group of artists who found their talent early and used it to pursue the unique creative space that has served them for over two decades.