Kane once again [after the Last Shadow Puppets] delves into the psychedelic era with a connoisseur's ear for detail and comes away with another similarly ambitious collection of bluesy psych- and folk-inflected rock.

Working Girl's Guitar shows that Rosie Flores is still earning her keep as a musician the old-fashioned way, and she sounds like she's loving every minute of it--and when the music's this good, there no reason she shouldn't.

Unapologetically sullen and raw, Girls Like Us is a strong debut from a band with a lot to offer.

Starcrawler seem less like they want to lead you astray and more like they're acting out in hopes of getting their parents' attention, which isn't always good for these songs. But the music on Devour You is just raw and sweaty enough to conjure up some forgotten after-school special about falling in with the wrong crowd, and if that isn't hitting a bull's-eye for them, it's at least somewhere on the target.

It's a moody puzzle box of an album, one that pays dividends with close listening but one that's also fine as evocative background music.

The energy and inspiration are there, but as the band attempt to write more accessible material, some of the uniqueness of their past work is compromised. Still, you can't say that the album is predictable, and even if not every song hits, the band's exuberance is undeniable.

Beach House's dark moods have more shades, and even a little bit of light, making them all the more compelling.

It's a rare occurrence to have something so academic and clearly considered come off as playful and laid-back as these songs do, but the layers of instruments never outshine the glowing optimism and simple joy of Lynch's songwriting.

I Hear You varies in quality, with some songs clearly more successful than others, but overall, it's a fun, adventurous record confirming Peggy Gou's status as one of the more distinctive figures in club music.

Equally appropriate for heartbroken solitude, low-key hangouts, or peaceful Sunday afternoons, even at its most conflicted Small Talk feels like a warm embrace.

Honor is the first album where Rancid sound obvious, like on the heavy ska "Everybody's Sufferin'," where the lyrics about how everybody's suffering are delivered in cornball Jamaican accents. It's the first time they sound empty, too, like they're going through the motions with little or no passion driving them.

Her most purposeful album since The Teaches of Peaches, No Lube So Rude is a sexy, witty, and urgent statement that reaffirms she's still a trailblazer.

What the cathartic Fading Trails might lack in foot-tapping motivation, it makes up for in passion and honesty and is highly recommended for those who like to dig a little deeper for albums that get better each time they are played.

Off to Business doesn't break much new ground for Pollard, but what is different is that he's clearly put a great deal more thought and care into this disc than anything he's put out since From a Compound Eye, and the result is an album that sounds like an album rather than the latest bunch of tunes Pollard banged together, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Ultima II Massage is a uniquely Black Moth and Tobacco experience to be sure, and anyone who's been exposed to their odd and wonderful world in the past will find this album to be among the best things to come out of it.

It makes you wish the two talented guys behind the record would chuck their day jobs and just keep making records this good together instead.

This sampler offers plenty of quality listening and anyone who hasn't given Sultan's music a listen will find this CD to be an excellent starting place, delivering music that's wild, ambitious, and soul-satisfying all at once.

It all adds up to an exhilarating and at times revelatory mash-up of wildly varied flavors, like a really excellent fruit salad.

The notions of conflict, turmoil, and regret are certainly well-worn staples of the genre, but with Sturm und Drang Lamb of God have accrued a significant amount of experience in all three, and have distilled those concepts into pure unfiltered adrenaline.

Mulvey did well to heed the advice of none other than Brian Eno, who in pre-recording meetings encouraged him to share some of the load with others. The outcome sounds like a skilled musician hitting his stride.

Lovato's frankness is disarming, forcing a listener to reckon with the depths of the singer's distinction, yet the album works best when it veers toward lighter territory, letting the slick R&B rhythms and sugared hooks carry Lovato's emoting.

More of an immersive mood piece than a history lesson, Bright Magic is a bold new chapter for the group.

On his third studio album American Dream, rap superstar 21 Savage delivers a set of the kind of stone-faced trap he's known for glossed over with another layer of big-budget production to keep him in the charts.

Whether they love it or hate it. It is a departure from previous releases and it does focus on melody and guitars and strings, but it is also lush and well-crafted and smart and addictive.

It's one of the most mystical indie-pop surprises to arrive in 2006.

There are still some fun snippets of doom psych in this chapter and on the whole, the album is a nice diversion for King Gizzard, though it's not very adventurous or experimental; it's mostly fun, but a little predictable.

With the possible exception of that improvisation [the final track, "April"], by combining his appreciation of both free jazz and Appalachian folk music, Amidon seems to be creating a traditional folk for the future.

This is a relaxed, generous affair, an album where the featured star and his guests defer not just to each other but to the songs they are singing.

It's not bad, it's just not as profound as Shineywater and Hughes would like everyone to believe it is.

While it isn't quite as consistent as Keepsake, its finest moments are some of Hatchie's most exciting work.

Despite its experimental elements and trippy sensibility, Beach Music is relentlessly intimate, moving, and hard to shake--a notable trait for a young if experienced recording artist.

Futures will most likely not be the sensation that Bleed American was -- it is too dark and inwardly focused for that -- but it shows a progression of sound and emotion that fans of the band should embrace.

There are too many good moments, and Golightly is too talented a singer to dismiss this, but at the same time, this album just doesn't live up to her high standards, and she's done too much work far better than this for any fans to not feel a bit letdown by this release.

Mazes is all about songwriting growth, lyric melody, more elaborate textures, and accessible riffs. They underscore Moon Duo's heavy stuff and offer something refreshingly different in the process.

These are candied sonic fantasias, passionate re-creations of the past with no reverence for history, and that divine, stubborn nostalgia fuels English Graffiti, turning it into the Vaccines' best record.

The result is an album of angular yet immediately memorable hooks bathed in a fizzy mix of rock guitars, candy-coated synths, and gigantic drumbeats.

With Sensorimotor, Lusine takes another evolutionary step forward, seeming strangely natural in his skin of manipulation.

Still tuned in to an aesthetic of translating disparate ideas into fine-tuned songs, the Folk Implosion sound at home on Walk Thru Me, taking their music to new, strange places, as always, regardless of the years that have passed since the last time we heard from them.

Under a Billion Suns is one of the hardest and tightest albums this band has ever made.

In some ways, The Catastrophist feels like a microcosm of the band's body of work; even though they don't repeat themselves, it all comes together in some of their most immediate music to date.

While Post Traumatic takes an emotional toll, it ultimately instills feelings of hope and the idea that things can get better. For Shinoda, Linkin Park, and their devoted followers, it's an effective group therapy session.

There's a modesty in Tift Merritt's music that makes it more compelling than a lot of artists who make a grand show of their joy and/or grief, and See You on the Moon finds Merritt weaving her spell as effectively as ever; it's marvelous music well worth your time and attention.

More a headphones-type album than a radio-friendly one, what emerges are still songs before compositions or productions, though they may appeal to the more explorative indie rockers.

The Triad is an expansion of Pantha du Prince's otherworldly sound into a more human realm, but it still maintains its ethereal, magical qualities.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs cram more ideas and attitude into five songs than most bands express in an entire album.

Though her voice is hardly the most impressive instrument in country music, Cash knows how to compensate by using an understated approach to more quietly highlight the essence of a song.

It is her unbridled honesty that drives this album right into your gut.

His most interesting work since Teenager of the Year, Dog in the Sand sounds like a slightly slower, rootsier version of that album.

Considering that it's an album of leftovers--one B-side from "Yes, Virginia...," four unreleased recordings, one old demo, a cover, and five new recordings, to be exact--the songs on No, Virginia... are unexpectedly strong.

The Björk-based art piece works better when consumed as album number two.

Tune in, come down, and drift about because Bob Moses remain the masters of restrained bliss house.

On No Hard Feelings, the South Side native adeptly mixes grit and gloss.

It makes for a fine second album from a band that could have easily been nothing more than a one-trick pony.

By pulling back on the "wow" factor and demanding less from the listener, Coldcut have delivered their first album that will be listened to twice as much as it's talked about.

It is his most ambitious and focused work, and combines not only instruments and musical traditions, but cultural sonances and histories as well.

Ultimately, whether it's Tubb's honky tonk twang, or the twang of Mayer's own heart, the sound of Paradise Valley rings true.

More versatile and more deliberate, this new set of tunes sees Rhyton finding their collective voice more than ever before.

More nuanced than previous releases but recognizably brand-related, Marble Skies is another win for Django Django.

A fluid continuation of 2018's appropriately titled No Sounds Are Out of Bounds.

Romanticize the Dive is yet another great Metric album, another stunning showcase of Haines' second-to-none vocals, and an example of how if a band plays with emotional and sonic imagination, indie rock doesn't have to sound overcooked and insipid when it is blown up to twice its size.

This is an album for Sunday afternoons, for fans of Frank Sinatra and Aaron Copeland, for sophisticates who want music to soothe their minds rather than demand their full attentions.

With its more considered, balanced approach, Surrender to the Fantasy feels more like a complete album than Balf Quarry's collection of moments did. It may take a few more listens to surrender to its fever dreams, but it's well worth the effort.

Lacking the intensity of her main catalog, Great Thunder plays out more like an addendum that an essential Waxahatchee recording, but the songs are still worth discovery.

For Interpol, embracing their veteran status doesn't mean a slide into complacency; if anything, it's the opposite. Marauder doesn't need to be qualified in terms of the band's former successes--on its own terms, it's one of the richest albums of Interpol's career.

As part of the Bees, Fletcher and Parkin helped make a lot of really good songs and albums. On their own, they went right ahead and topped their old band's catalog on their very first try.

On Madness as a whole, Poliça were evolving even when the world seemed to come to a standstill.

This is not an indispensable part of the Wu legacy, but it's a consistent, duly rugged, and satisfying one nonetheless.

Happy to You is an album that aims for commercial appeal, so there is a noticeable push and pull between prescribed pop and the eclectic electro that the team is known for, but the songs that land in the dead center have a nice even balance.

Neither particularly sad nor happy, Oh Man, Cover the Ground has a sort of ramshackle, neo-folk nonchalance that might not make much of an impact unless you're willing to slow down with it and enjoy it for the contemplative mood piece it is.

Summers and Weikel's talent and craft are all over The Helio Sequence, but this music is more than a bit short on inspiration, and the finished product sounds less like music they had a passion to create than something they were put up to--which is just what they tell us it is.

Daylight works best when Potter is steering the ship. Even with the considerable and seasoned talents of Valentine, Nocturnals alum Benny Yurco, and keyboardists Larry Goldings and Benmont Tench behind her, Potter commands the room.

Their darkest and most complex work yet, In the Pit of the Stomach unleashes We Were Promised Jetpacks' full fury with impressive results.

Just about any of the album's selections would have fit perfectly on a vintage 120 Minutes episode.

Blurry Blue Mountain is an album full of heart, soul, and wit, and this music confirms that no one does quite what Howe Gelb can do with such remarkably innate grace and feel; Gelb's songs find pretty remarkable things in the odd details of simple lives, and there some very real magic to be found in the elegant force of Blurry Blue Mountain.

Good fun for confirmed followers, and not a bad sampler for those needing a taste of Thee Oh Sees' special brew.

On Neuroplasticity, her ear-popping sophomore long-player, she takes the "doom soul" architecture to an exciting new level, pumping it full of nervy post-rock and no wave, resulting in something that sounds akin to Santigold, St. Vincent, TV on the Radio, Laura Mvula, and Macy Gray at their most despondent.

It's clear that Kath and Glass are already looking for more ways to expand on this familiar-sounding, edgy, innocent, menacing, bold, nuanced, and altogether striking debut.

Coldplay manages to grow even bigger with Everyday Life, absorbing flavors from across the globe with their most indulgent and, perhaps, poignant album yet.

The album includes a handful of well-placed and effectual guest contributors, including Bilal, Dwele, Lily Allen, Common's dad, and the one and only Primo. Still, it's a shade less satisfying than "Be."

Best summed up as a deranged Mardi Gras (the cover art is perfect), it's a strange little album, and surprising that something so alienating and overwhelming could also be so utterly listenable.

Paradoxical as it may seem, the more structured version of the band that Do Whatever You Want All the Time presents just may be more exciting, and offer more potential, than what Ponytail were doing before.

2011's Ninth was the leanest and most immediate collection of new material from Peter Murphy to arrive since the late '90s, and Lion, his tenth long-player, while a much different animal (pun intended) sonically, goes for the jugular in a similar fashion.

The strength of the songs and the powerful energy with which the duo deliver them help them escape any charges of ripping off the past.

It's a good thing she dug through her back pages and finished these songs, as she's wound up with one of her strongest albums.

All the performances on Rule 62 are delivered with a casual assurance that gives the record a warm feel that, when combined with sturdy songs from a variety of styles, gives the record the feeling of an old favorite; it feels like a record that you've lived with for years, in the best possible sense.

Accessible and friendly yet highly profound, Vision Songs is a truly uncommon work, and easily one of Laraaji's best.

Flourishes, along with Kelly's sharply honed wit, keep the otherwise moody and slow Dying Star from seeming somnolent, and they're enough to help steer attention away from the album's appealing nocturnal sheen and to the songcraft, which is sturdy and enduring.

In a way, New Me, Same Us comes across as a statement of renewed commitment from the band.

There is plenty of warmth, sadness, kindness, and quiet desperation in Tyler's lovely pieces that drift liminally between musical score and ambient soundscapes, leaving plenty of room to roam among the gaps. As an artistic collaboration with Reichardt and accompaniment to her warm-hearted tale, Music From First Cow is a gem.

The results are mixed if always entertaining.

A bit more low-key than Hecker's other albums, Shards is nevertheless representative of his signature sound, encapsulating the emotional depth and innovative sonic weaving listeners have come to associate with his work.

The moody astral tones of opener "Good Mourning" get the album off to a slow start, but in general there are plenty of standouts scattered throughout Third World Pyramid that could stand up to BJM's best work.

Alternating between fingerpicked acoustic and electric, the remaining tracks are hardly deficient of introverted charm, but with the exception of the semi-propulsive 'Rebecca,' the pace is sluggish at best, resulting in a collection of songs best listened to in threes, or all at once with one's forehead pressed against the window waiting for the rain to pass.

In the end, a necessary acquisition for fans or an easy way for newcomers to judge whether they are wacky enough to join the Major's cyberpunky reggae party.

Scotty's redefinition of himself as a sports bar-hopping bro is plainly shameless but, strangely enough, See You Tonight works, partially due to the Rogers-shepherded collection of cheerful country-pop but also due to the malleability of McCreery's dude-next-door persona.

Musically, Charmer is a more polished and pop-oriented album than most of Tigers Jaw's previous work, but the core of their melodic style has changed little, and the moody urgency of the lyrics is as strong as ever.

Death Magic presents a 2010s version of HEALTH that fits in with the likes of the Soft Moon and Blanck Mass while delivering their most accessible music to date.

Gustaph and Rouge Mary also prove to be ideal foils for Butler, who still makes his songs tight, powerful, and optimally shaped.