Marley acquits himself well, turning in a strong modern reggae album that's informed by R&B and rap, but is very much its own thing.

Unpeeled is a great live album that not only encapsulates Cage the Elephant's ability to honor, reference, and tribute the sonic feel of Zeitgeists past, but ultimately reminds you that all it takes is a simple song with minimal instrumentation about introspection, yearning, or internal struggles to still achieve a huge, soaring sound that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

Considering the sheer volume of material, it's inevitable that not every track on Take Flight resonates, but it does contain a generous number of highlights. At least initially, it seems best to approach the album as background listening and let the tracks reveal themselves over time, rather than attempt to concentrate on them all on the first go-round.

Fantastic Plastic isn't going to replace Shake Some Action in anyone's heart or record collection (or Teenage Head, for that matter), but for a first effort after a layoff of more than two decades, it's a truly pleasant surprise and a genuine good time.

It's all somehow pulled off without coming across as aesthetically erratic.

The soft rock/cosmic country angle of In an Open Field is another chapter that further cements his mastery as a singer, composer, and producer.

Love Jail isn't magnificent by any means, but it is stronger than its predecessor. Dommengang's much improved songwriting, relentless pursuit of more spacious atmospheres, and richly textured backdrops inside the hard rock cave provide ample evidence.

The result builds nicely upon the group's heretofore psychedelia-dipped brand of indie rock, and retains much of their longstanding devotion to the late singer/songwriter Elliott Smith. This atmospheric, bedroom orchestral aesthetic also brings to mind more vintage touchstones like Nick Garrie's 1969 cult-classic The Nightmare of J.B. Stanislas, and even some of Donovan's more esoteric recordings.

With Violence, the Editors have crafted a big pop album on their own terms, rife with grand, operatic gestures and heat-seeking hooks that cut deep, just as they put salve on your wounds.

E's gifts as a songwriter and vocalist are still sharp, and if you've ever been partial to Mark Everett's slightly skewed but engagingly literate outlook on the world, then The Deconstruction should meet with your approval.

Erase Me can be considered yet another radical shift in the band's lifetime of variation, a risk that pays off with an open mind and open ears.

The result is a splendid little record that simultaneously feels brand new and like a lost gem.

Anxiety-stricken yet somehow finding ways to enjoy life, BMSR sound creatively re-energized on the excellent Panic Blooms.

No Sounds ends up seeming a bit scattered, even by the Orb's standards, but it's still plenty enjoyable, and enough to distract you from the nightmarish absurdity of current events.

Deeper cuts like "Voices at the Window," "Floating on Water," and the ethereal closer "You Ought to Know" deal in more abstract vistas, delivering different hues culled from the same retro spectrum, resulting in something that has more in common with the spacy, neo-psych-rock emissions of the Flaming Lips than it does crusty ethno-doom metal.

Scaling back from the expansive horizons of 2015's T-Bone Burnett-produced The Phosphorescent Blues, Punch Brothers may sound intimate on 2018's All Ashore, but they haven't lost their ambition.

If anything, ATW feels like a product of pure instinct, and while it may take some patience to absorb, there isn't a single note that feels coerced.

The first side is GospelbeacH at their best and the flip is, while admittedly not vital, still a lot of fun. Certainly anyone who liked the first two albums, and especially Another Summer of Love, needs to seriously consider adding this set to their collection.

Each of the songs are immediately reprised by dub versions, and these indulge in all of the spacy echo and delay effects one would expect, often improving on the originals. Overall, though, the music just doesn't seem quite as pushed to the outer limits as Back on the Controls. The Black Album isn't a major disappointment, but it isn't exceptional, either.

Much more forceful and revolutionary than Doomsquad's previous efforts, Let Yourself Be Seen is easily the band's most engaging and focused work.

If you got to know METZ from 2015's II or 2017's Strange Peace, Automat will amaze you as you ponder how long they've been this good, and if you haven't been introduced to their work, starting at the beginning isn't a bad idea at all. Either way, you need this music.

Wilderness shows Jade Jackson taking on a more demanding musical and emotional range than on her first LP, and the finished product finds her carrying the added weight with flying colors.

Another State of Grace isn't as immediately satisfying as its predecessor, but like all things built with care, it attains a golden patina over time.

III moves at a deliberate, nearly dreary pace that forces a listener to pay attention, and while it can take some effort to meet the Lumineers on their own terms, it's nevertheless easy to admire the ambition behind the project.

Logically, Blossoms doesn't have the sort of strangely human touch of Emptyset's 2017 releases, but it's still a compelling, somewhat frightening hybrid of organic and synthetic processes.

MacKay and Kleijn have performed and recorded with a large number of musicians in their careers, but STIR reveals they push one another to especially imaginative and expressive work, and this collaboration hardly appears to have made use of all their inspiration just yet.

A sleepier song like "Blue Spring," which features pedal steel and sparse, strummed guitar, only provides contrast within a very narrow range of expression here, like when eyes adjust to dim nocturnal lighting, then notice the shadow of a stray moth.

If you're looking for music that will suit a quiet night with intelligence and style, you should certainly give HARMONY a listen.

Despite some stylistic diversity, Little Common Twist still feels largely consistent. The songs here offer a deeper view into both Rumback and Walker's individual talents as players and their profound chemistry as a unit.

The LP's tone feels deliberately grandiose and it doesn't always land, but there are plenty of highlights to be found like the excellent "Change" and "Friend at First," which reveal what a sharp songwriter Gonzalez is.

Energy peaks early. The loping and gleaming "Lavender," a meeting with brash Channel Tres, and the atmospheric garage scuttler "Who Knew?," featuring Mick Jenkins in wholehearted singer mode, have enough homing power to illuminate Club Lonely.

With this collection of poems, Lana Del Rey offers an alternate view of the sun-dazzled California dreaming that fuels her songs. Her spoken word pieces reveal a more immediate lyrical sophistication, but they maintain the strange and powerful magic Del Rey has been cultivating her entire career.

The unrelenting Dealing with Demons bears all of the hallmarks of its predecessors, including cover art that belongs on the side of the world's most sinister boogie van, but it aims for catharsis instead of apoplexy.

It's a long album but stays on full power for its entirety, with the endlessly catchy songs of alien worlds standing as some of the brightest and strangest material the Rentals have ever delivered.

Hitting the same highs as her triumphant 2000s stretch -- namely Light Years, Fever, X, and Aphrodite -- this glittery, feel-good set is nothing short of euphoric, a dozen near-perfect gems that pay respect to the album's namesake era while updating the production with thrilling results

His cadence and phrasing often recall those of Petty, so initially it's not hard to imagine these tunes as a collection of writing demos for his departed friends, but spend more time with Wreckless Abandon, and it becomes clear how Campbell's taste and aesthetic meshed with Petty so thoroughly, he can write a pretty good Heartbreakers record on his own.

The melodies go exactly where you want them to, as do the emotional beats, resulting in a lovely travelogue that avoids steering down any seasonal roads, and in doing so quickly fades from memory.

Shirushi is as promising and satisfying a debut as any North American group has presented in quite a while.

Minus the two guest appearances, this is a one-woman show, from composition and instrumentation to mixing and mastering. The low end on this sucker is immense.

Considering how quickly the album came together, it feels like a spontaneous rush to translate the emotions of being away from dance clubs for a year into music, with hope and anticipation winning in the end.

It's a colorful, wide-ranging romp of an album -- and an airy liberation for its titular figure.

How Beautiful Life Can Be is not a particularly great or even good album, but there is something in its bright tone and positive messaging that feels undeniably nurturing, especially in the climate of late 2021.

The result of these tweaks to both production and attitude is something more mature and approachable yet still impassioned, and it's Slothrust's most cohesive record to date.

The few '70s selections -- from Sumiko Yamagata, Hiroshi Sato, and Makoto Iwabuchi -- all take easy, pleasant strolls down the middle of the road. Among other more fascinating curiosities are Mizuki Koyama's vivacious pop-R&B hybrid "Oh! Daddy" (with all-English lyrics), Kumi Nakamura's capering "Kimagure" (somewhere between Michael Franks and Seawind), and Haruo Chikada & Vibra-Tones' Kid Creole-indebted "Sofa Bed Blues," the only one that whoops it up (if politely so).

Vertigo of Flaws is Trees Speak's most colossal work yet, demonstrating that the group's ambitions are even greater than their previous work indicated.

A thrilling and thoughtful pop experience.

The easy melodic hooks that drew fans to the Lumineers in the first place remain, but the combination of stronger material and looser performances make for a strong fourth outing.

Simone Felice wears his heart on his sleeve on All The Bright Coins, and while that's an easy way for an artist to sound foolish, in this case he's created something brave and exciting in its embrace of the human spirit, and it's often strikingly beautiful.

For listeners who miss the simpler early days, All the Truth That I Can Tell is a treasure trove of comfort and familiarity, an utterly relatable collection of growth and hope tempered by the starkness of reality.

The album does a masterful job of presenting Wand's powers as a live act, with the songs sounding every bit as strong as their studio counterparts, and often much more exciting.

True Entertainment often feels like a culmination of Dutch Uncles' music. At its best, it finds them growing into the kind of cult-favorite act that would have inspired them at the beginning of their journey -- and that makes it a true testament to their creativity.

While it's admirable that they're not content to simply rehash older material, the riskier new material sometimes hits its mark and sometimes flops. The edgier tracks on Different Game will appeal to die-hard fans and those following the Zombies' entire journey, but might register as confusing for casual listeners. As ever, all the surrounding details are reduced to afterthoughts whenever Blunstone sings.

The brilliant Dreamer encompasses every style Iqbal has previously explored in her music while containing her most introspective, poignant songwriting.

By expressing humanity's unstoppable need to create and connect on What Will You Grow Now?, Modern Cosmology exemplify how beautiful and inspiring the results of that can be.

The strongest submissions make it worth the listen, however, as it's wonderful to hear yet another generation of artists doing interesting things inspired by Drake's evergreen presence.

Cottonwood 2's glimmers of unpredictability are its best parts, and make the more by-the-numbers tracks all the more interesting by offering a contrast.

Moving way beyond their debut, Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete. is the sound of artistic maturation and sonic expansion, a logical culmination of what they were trying to do in the first place.

Les Jardins Mystiques, Vol.1 is certainly a monolithic package, but it's more than that: it's a statement that reveals the vastness of Atwood-Ferguson's inspiration, creative breadth, and musical vision without compromise. Unique? Sure. But also profound.

Alternately affectionate, suspenseful, weird, and poignant, TPTGATKOMDM is a journey, but it's brought to you by straight-up good songs.

Infinite Health offers enough variation on his style so that it doesn't seem like he's covering old ground, even though it's actually some of his most nostalgic work.

Yet another late-era treasure trove that highlights all the facets of Snow Patrol's pure emotional catharsis and introspection.

The album levels up with its final four tracks, which fully commit to the rapid tempo of drum'n'bass.

In their own oblique way, Rhetoric & Terror's ambling experiments feel confrontational; when so many artists are unwilling to flout the most basic musical conventions, Hemphill and company are still very much on their own path.

As on every new Telescopes album, the differences can be subtle, but as Halo Moon winds down, the overall feeling is decidedly softer, more contented, and less tortured than previous efforts.

While Why Is the Colour of the Sky? doesn't offer any particularly memorable tunes or sentiments, it's definitely a vibe, and at 35 minutes in length doesn't overstay its welcome despite becoming quite immersive.

The Velveteers are getting better at what they do, and A Million Knives captures that well, but they still sound best when they let their swaggering rock attitude do the talking.

Selected Recordings from Grapefruit is heady and highly conceptual, but the Great Learning Orchestra does a good job of understanding the spirit of Ono's texts and honoring all of the loving kindness, curiosity, sprightliness, and righteous resistance of the book.

It's a major work composed of gritty beauty, intention, realization, and hope; it belongs on the shelf next to albums by Virginia Astley, Marianne Faithfull, and Patti Smith.

The ten-song set bristles with potency and urgency, especially on the high-octane singles "By a Monster's Hand" and "In the Barn of the Goat Giving Birth to Satan's Spawn in a Dying World of Doom."

More diluted than truly disappointing, Paradises boasts enough standout tracks to please fans -- but with more shaping and a sharper mix, it could've been one of Ladytron's great albums.

Engines of Demolition is an aptly named collection of old-school sonic malevolence that's unapologetic in its commitment to its core sonic temperaments.

Rkives rounds up existing rarities--several B-sides and demos--and six unheard songs, plus a remix featuring Too $hort. That is the most radical shift in sound on Rkives but there are hints of the glitzy bombast of Blacklight scattered throughout the collection.

This is not a remarkable album by any stretch, although its packaging is--it contains a punch-out mobile as a booklet--but it is a further step in the development of a singular and ever elusive artist who possesses a truckload of talent, but is still unsure of which direction to head to realize it all.

This frantic release gives them a kind of spastic, jagged sound that puts them somewhere between Lightning Bolt and an actual bolt of lightning, and makes Tripper an album that's more likely to wear listeners out physically than mentally.

These are modest pleasures but these days Ryan Adams is all about careful measured craft instead of big statements, a trade-off that makes his albums more predictable but also more satisfying as Cardinology quietly proves.

From the performances, to the songwriting, to the production, Still Living is the group's strongest, most multi-dimensional album.

The biggest drawback, one that can make the listener tire of the album long before it ends, is her terminally flat, undisciplined voice. More often than not, her compelling song structures suffer because of it. Ultimately, Junior feels more like a band record and furthers the sounds explored on Dreaming of Revenge.

Throughout all of King Night, the feeling of a séance being held or a spell being cast is palpable, but Salem's ability to be affecting and menacing at the same time is pure alchemy.

This may not be an expectations-defying album, but it is a satisfying and well-rounded one that shows once again what a well-oiled man-machine Trans Am is.

With this album, Kristin Kontrol makes claim to the top tier, and if she continues to make records this powerfully good, she may find herself alone at the top before too long.

He might have made an album that doesn't follow the Blues Explosion's template so clearly. If you dig Jon Spencer, you'll have a good time with Spencer Sings the Hits. But probably not as great a time as you had with him before.

There isn't much lyrical substance on Colores, and there doesn't need to be. It's a party record whose lyric flows are effortless and laid-back enough -- a Balvin trademark -- to attract listeners inside and outside musica urbano's big tent. The album's brevity adds depth and dimension to its direct, seductive, welcoming mix and garish presentation.

While one can certainly hear touchstones echoed throughout New Fragility, it has the singularity and focus of one artistic voice.

The tracks feel more like musical poems than songs. Poetic lyrics that refer to ogres, unicorns, and ghosts only reinforce this impression. Taken together, the album may challenge even some indie-tuned ears, but at its best, its catchy, composed strangeness is refreshing and compelling.

Dense and sometimes overwhelming, Arrangements is a testament to Preoccupations' willingness to stay in their discomfort zone and document everything that happens. This time, however, the results are admirable but not always easy to connect with.

What My Disco might lack in dynamics, they more than make up with atmospherics, showing again and again on Little Joy that sparse arrangements can feel just as spacious as grander recordings.

Swapping out the sonic and mental clutter for a host of centered, unconfused rock tunes is a curveball move, for sure, but the end product is the most memorable, lasting, and relatable albums in Of Montreal's extensive catalog, and easily one of the best.

Even if More Is Than Isn't doesn't flow as well as his previous efforts, this everything-and-the-kitchen-sink experience is dazzling, always leaving the listener wondering what might come next.

Outperforming what was an impressive debut, Which Way to Happy takes its immersive qualities to another level.

Although the album seems like silly fun on the surface, there is enough complexity to the interlocking synth lines and clattering rhythms to give the music some weight.

Bulat's melodic, folk-leaning tendencies as a songwriter lend themselves well to this kind of makeover, one that adds a touch of elegance to nuanced vocal performances, if rarely improving upon the original recordings.

Songs stretch out longer here than they have on any previous Black Keys LP, but this doesn't feel indulgent due to the precision of the production; things may seem to drift but every bit of fuzz and echo is in its right place.

It's overflowing with excitement, optimism, and overwhelming beauty that distract you just enough to disregard the sounds of rustling footsteps behind you growing closer.

Peñate's enthusiasm for not only his source material, but for the empty canvas of 21st century commercial music itself, feels genuine enough, resulting in an infectious club- and radio-ready collection of cosmopolitan pop that feels both familiar and expansive.

There are no real standouts, no (relatively) big hooks as heard on Scary World Theory's "Lowdown"; instead, there is a steady stream of hushed electronic pop songs that is as easy to enjoy as it is to ignore.

New Misery may be uneven, but it confirms Cullen Omori has a musical future one might not have expected based on the Smith Westerns.

The album's remainder employs assorted hit-angling producers connected by pop success with young women. The Pains of Growing is consequently more fragmented and less consistent than Know-It-All, but Cara makes the best of it, generally writing in a slightly wiser and sharper manner from the same introverted homebody perspective.

On their seventh outing, Resolution, Lamb of God prove once again that the right ratio of barnstorming riffs and relentless intensity is all you need to make a solid album.