Cartoon Darkness is a sweaty, visceral thrill, apt for aggressive revelry, driving too fast, and scrapping for the fun of it. It's not a very friendly listen, but that's not the point: confrontational and cathartic, it's existential bloodletting with a warrior's fury and a shredded throat.

Often riveting and never boring, and with credit to the band's charismatic leader, the album makes for an exciting and noteworthy debut.

Chaney's robust voice commands the room, deftly weaving between the intersecting lanes of vulnerability and raw power with remarkable poise, especially on standout cuts like "Dragonfly," "Roman Holiday," and "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," the latter of which uses the "cockles and mussels alive, alive oh" refrain from the traditional Irish ballad "Molly Malone" to devastating effect.

Azel is essential, not just for Bombino's growing legion of fans or even those of music from the Sahara region. It is a remarkable example of 21st century popular music.

Though there are no great surprises on You in Reverse, it is one of Built to Spill's strongest efforts, and anyone who has followed their career knows that this is high praise indeed.

Recitation is one of those records that cannot be rushed, but instead must be experienced on its own terms, and anyone who's able to relinquish control and let Envy steer for a while will be rewarded.

When he indulges in a wash of Vox organ and a rush of 12-string guitars, or when he updates Curtis Mayfield on "Phoenix," they play like transmissions from the past on an album that is focused on the now, and the willful, harmonious collisions of history and the future give Saturn's Pattern its kick, while the warm thrum of the grooves gives it its soul.

Check the excellent singles "Kno One," "Really Really," and "La Familia" for some easy persuasion, and then know that the album is devoid of superstar appearances because the captivating Gates doesn't need them.

World Eater's focused chaos is some of his finest work yet.

Orville Peck's image as the glamorous and subversive masked man of country music still feels a bit gimmicky, but in the grand show biz tradition, it's a character that puts the spotlight firmly on a genuine talent, and Bronco is a glorious achievement that fulfills Peck's promise and then some.

On Pain is overall both an exciting artistic achievement and a record that should fit the bill for anyone looking for a very cold and sad synth pop update.

Rampen contrasts Neubauten's hard and soft sides, recalling the spontaneity and inventive instrumentation of their beginnings, but framing them in a more mature and hopeful perspective.

The Apple Tree Under the Sea takes more listens to fully appreciate than the effortlessly charming "girlfriend," springs' breakout viral hit, but it's undoubtedly a magical and inspired work.

If the day is as sun-drenched and relaxed as the songs on Shadows implies, then may it and Teenage Fanclub go on and on.

Land of No Junction is a beautifully arranged set with a strange sonic allure, but more than anything, it's Frances' excellent songwriting that holds up this very strong debut.

Like so many 21st century psych-inspired bands, Bananagun lean awfully heavily into their love of a very specific era, but they've nonetheless made an exceedingly fun record with plenty of craft behind it.

An album of many strengths -- poetic yet folksy lyrics, charming melodies, an A-plus band, and disarming sincerity -- Haunted Mountain is another delight in a solo career that deserves to be more than a sideline of his Billboard 200-charting main gig.

It's a clearer-than-usual sonic landscape from the band, one that invites the listeners to get lost in the details, where they can see how truly separate this chapter is from the rest.

From a few listens, it's clear most of these weren't bumped because they were low-quality; "Doo Rags," "No Idea's Original," and "Black Zombie" stand up to anything Nas has recorded since the original Illmatic.

Like David Byrne's underrated orchestral epic The Forest or Philip Glass' Koyaanisqatsi, Systems/Layers is cerebral and human, transporting you without insulting your intelligence.

A few too many songs share tempos, melodies, and moods to make this a great Kristin Hersh album, but it's still a very good one that her longtime fans will appreciate.

Ladytron's most interesting aspect is their mix of retro songwriting with distinctly modern themes.

This is one dense and tight set, barely over half-an-hour in length, and it's definitely in contention for Muldrow's most focused, funkiest, and (somewhat ironically) personal release to date.

Big Head Todd & the Monsters will never be a gutbucket, down-and-dirty blues-rock outfit, but Black Beehive proves that's fine: they have found their own friendly spin on the blues and have become a better band for it.

While the first two I Break Horses albums were heartfelt and promising, at times it felt like Lindén was looking for her true musical voice. On Warnings she finds it and has made a modern synth pop-meets-dream pop classic that is sure to melt the frozen heart of anyone lucky enough to discover it.

The powerful, sometimes writhing, and often transcendent sonic landscape the band creates here is their most inspired work to date, brimming with purpose and assertiveness that goes beyond mere entertainment and reaches for enlightenment.

With Nothing Lasts Forever, Teenage Fanclub have made a poignant, delicately rendered rumination on the passing of time and the enduring promise of love, all of which underscores the timeless lyricism of their work.

Someone to Drive You Home is one of those albums that's honest to goodness fun, and pulling it off with as much pastiche as the Long Blondes makes it one of the year's nicest arrivals.

Wyoming is a bright and promising collection of secretly wrecked songs, and leaves us curious to see how Water Liars will continue to grow as they walk their thorny path.

It can take a while to deconstruct the narrative, but when ignoring the weighty plot, the songs' key themes of mortality, love, and loss still manage to make an impact.

The darkness seems more dire and the fun moments feel more exciting and reckless, making All Her Fault a new chapter in a history of successes.

Though "exciting" isn't exactly the word, there is a sense of both purpose and drive in all of Bitchin Bajas' blurry, diversely composed drone-scapes, and this album as a whole is easily their best and most carefully crafted work up until this point.

Berkeley to Bakersfield is one of Cracker's most ambitious and satisfying sets in quite some time, as good as anything they've given us since Kerosene Hat in 1993.

This is a mature, introspective work from a man looking for answers to the questions of life and love, and it's a brave and genuinely impressive return to the spotlight from a major talent.

The end result is a seamless whole that reflects Nichols' penchant for great melodies, vast melodic imagination, and signature vocal style.

Coldcut and Sherwood remain visionary artists, and Outside the Echo Chamber is (for the most part) a worthwhile hour of futuristic reggae.

Out of the Blues may be an excellent final chapter in this roots trilogy, but stands on its own as one of Scaggs' most sure-footed releases.

B.E.D, is a delight. The performers work to fit their individual skills into a cohesive unit.

Opening piece "Disappearance / Reappearance" recalls the second part of 1994's Treetop Drive, with stark blasts of electronic noise repeatedly shooting out and dissipating into empty space, providing a consistent series of electrifying jolts that are as brutal as they are mesmerizing. Most of the remaining pieces are a series of numerically titled "Occultations," and while they usually aren't nearly as harsh, they're just as striking.

Taken as a whole, Private Lives is the richest rock & roll Low Cut Connie have made to date and it's married to Weiner's most emotionally resonant set of songs, a combination that's both potent and moving.

Cloth's previous releases may have been almost too subtle for their own good, but Secret Measure is an impressive, moving leap forward that fully reveals their music's power and potential.

Deeply bruised, cinematic and graceful Western music is no match for their skills and Sea of Mirrors is another triumph for the band.

Hostile Environment is a triumphant comeback effort, and it continues On-U Sound's run of late-career highlights from veterans like African Head Charge and Horace Andy.

Legacy: The Creedence Clearwater Revival Years (John's Version) is a potent reminder of how many great songs Fogerty wrote in his salad days with CCR, and shows he still has the energy and spark to give them life, but he might have done a better job of demonstrating the latter if he'd come up with a good batch of new tunes.

This set reveals their mature, fully developed musical language expanded by sonic and harmonic invention.

Their lushest and most spontaneous-feeling album yet, it takes a firmer step toward the dreamy rock side.

A record that's far removed in feel from the stark, haunting Nebraska, but on a song-for-song level, it's nearly as strong, since its stories linger in the imagination as long as the ones from that 1982 masterpiece.

More than a few productions provide the type of slick, West Coast grind that allows Aceyalone to play the Lothario but still sound like he's satirizing the lover-man archetype.

while he doesn't exactly adopt an in-your-face approach to the leading-man role, preferring to become part of the powerful collective he's assembled, Rawlings proves himself fully capable of taking the reins and leading this horse wherever he wants it to go.

A masterwork of composition, control, investigation, and ultimately, realization with aplomb.

As with the self-titled album, this is all glacial, entrancing ambient-neoclassical--with O'Halloran's sensitive and melodic piano a central element--that soothes, suitable for both foreground and background listening.

On Kannon, Sunn O))) illustrates through heavy sonic immersion that noise and silence are equals--aspects of circular, self-perpetuating emptiness. Like the persona of the deity, they generously receive and contain all the sounds of the world in all their dimensions of darkness and light.

The majority of Ego Death is tighter. Bennett has refined her songwriting without reducing the candid approach that colors her past compositions. Additionally, the tangents are fewer and more substantive.

Overall, Chemistry Lessons is more in line with Carter's late-'90s solo albums or his expansive soundscapes as part of CTI than the aggressive experimentation of Throbbing Gristle or darkwave synth pop of Chris & Cosey, but it maintains a distinct character and immediacy which set it apart.

Dark Matter is streamlined and purposeful, never overstaying its welcome on either the ballads or rockers. While that can be a slight detriment with on the album's loudest number--combined, the sleek sound and concise compositions give the faintest suggestion of restraint--the efficiency is ultimately to the band's benefit, highlighting their empathetic interplay by pushing melodies and hooks to the forefront.

In the 21st century, this is what singer/songwriter albums are supposed to sound like. The Boxing Mirror is brilliant, and it is his masterpiece.

Loaded with 17 tracks, it's an entertaining and fitting addition to the Warp catalog that makes for some highly hypnotic video arcade/coffee parlor mood music.

Over half of the album's songs are filled with Robinson's bittersweet longing, brilliantly paired with some of Martin's most detailed, creative, and accessible production work.

Polished yet heartfelt, Paradise finds Slow Club shoring up their strengths and exploring new territory with equal

The Money Store is an important record that's also compelling, loaded with kinetic blows against the empire and fully stuffed with that attractive maverick spirit.

The Punch Brothers sound as comfortable nimbly skipping through classical pieces as they do creating oddly shaped bluegrass-prog--and as they do creating sparkling pop miniatures like "Magnet" and "Between 1st and A." By both capturing and fusing these two sides, The Phosphorescent Blues stands as a defining record for an admittedly restless band.

The freewheeling, uplifted spirit likewise continues. Martin and company combine and alternate between groove-oriented contemporary jazz, soul, funk, and hip-hop.

A powerful tool for repairing a broken heart and indicative of an even brighter future, Lost & Found is satisfying and promising at once.

Visceral, engaging, and potent enough to warrant the Nine Inch Nails name, Tron: Ares is one of the standout soundtracks in the Reznor/Ross catalog, one that mirrors its subject by taking something digital and transforming it into something very human and emotional.

Truth be told, it's still a bit of a mess, but it's a glorious and galvanizing one: a convoluted construction crammed with so many immediately gratifying moments that it takes multiple listens to extricate them all--in other words, enough instant pleasures to easily outweigh its occasional grating, overreaching, and faltering.

For fans, this is more than a curiosity, it's an indispensable addition to the catalog.

Stars rely instead on melody, charisma, and lyrics as sharp as any modern essayist, and it's all they need to sell the quiet grandness of Set Yourself On Fire.

Allas Sak proves that they are still as good as ever, if not better, and can still teach those who have followed in their wake a thing or two about crafting a satisfying album.

There's a confidence in her vocal performances that reflects the album's spirit: She's comfortable following her obsessions and idiosyncrasies to their logical end, resulting in a record that comforts and challenges in equal measure.

This ranks with the best work of one of America's most original musical visionaries.

Sonic rabble-rousing doesn't get much better than this.

In some respects, Old Flowers could be called a shade too successful, since it casts a specific understated spell, but listened to in the right mood or hour of the day, it's a bewitching affair.

Although the songs here are solid enough and likely to sate fans, the overall effect is a soundscape that's somewhere in the in-between, suiting the limbo of Evergreen's ruminations but not warranting superlatives within Soccer Mommy's growing catalog.

For the most part, The Lion's Roar is a mesmerizing listen that--alongside recent releases from the likes of the Tallest Man on Earth and Anna Ternheim--suggests the Swedish folk scene is currently hitting something of a purple patch.

While he's inexplicably fond of a synthesized choral effect, for the most part this album sounds clear but homebrewed at the same time, with charm making less of a sacrifice on fidelity.

Post-War is not only Ward's best effort yet, it's one of the best records of the year.

For Mehldau's fans, this is another opportunity to hear just how creative and versatile he is, even with familiar material. For the uninitiated, this is a grand opportunity to acquaint yourself with one of the most gifted jazz pianists on the scene.

Shame he's keeping a twice-a-decade pace, but this album should stick to the bones for twice that long, likely longer.

The piece ["Interstellar"] is easily the album's lightest and most optimistic moment, as the rest can feel cold, ominous, and sometimes challenging. Still, the album's more mysterious aspects make it worth hearing.

On Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust you can really hear the human hearts behind the wall of sound, and while the emotional impact is on a smaller scale, somehow it is even more affecting.

If it isn't as strong as 2009's Something's Wrong/Lost Forever, it shows Biram is too tough and too stubborn to quit telling his tales any time soon, and for folks who like their music rough and real, that's a rare bit of good news.

Crush certainly comes across as fragmentary, as if a dozen tracks, at least a couple albums worth of ideas, were truncated, quickly sequenced, and packed onto one LP. That said, it's hard to imagine more forethought and deliberation resulting in a listen more riveting than this one.

SML lay down some heavy grooves, but their music is less about making people dance than it is about exploring space through communal joy.

Finely nuanced shades of gray are all he needs on Lake Fire, a formidable, beautiful return to Loscil's fundamentals.

They are rock songwriters whose lyrics are guitar lines sung, shrieked, and wailed to the accompaniment of a masterful rhythm section. Mono are a rock band -- and a damn fine one -- and they only get better with time.

That the band never lose themselves in the process of these myriad digressions is impressive to say the least, but what's most notable about Found in Far Away Places is how fluid the ride is.

If you've never liked Sparks, Hippopotamus isn't likely to convince you otherwise, but as a band that seems perversely proud of being an acquired taste, this album shows Sparks are still in fine fettle, and this should delight their loyal fan base.

Ultraviolet is a remarkable album that blurs the lines between jazz improvisation, modern composition, and ambient electronic music, forming its own musical language.

Two of the more transfixing songs feature Yorke using his lower register. On the torpid ballad "The White Cliffs," he duets with himself, switching from nightmarish visions recounted in falsetto to stern if soft baritone responses like "This is your punishment" and "Everything is out of our hands." Yorke's lead voice thrums throughout "The Men Who Dance in Stag's Heads," a highlight.

This unrepentantly unsettled, searching feel makes private LIFE a little less immediate than Ecstatic Arrow, but as they lean into the more experimental side of their music, Virginia Wing share a rich inner life that reveals more with each listen.

Although Back to Black does see her deserting jazz and wholly embracing contemporary R&B, all the best parts of her musical character emerge intact, and actually, are all the better for the transformation from jazz vocalist to soul siren.

Their message is most vibrant on the most danceable songs, such as "Dark Night" and "Easy to Get." It all adds up to a potent reminder that when it comes to life and music, you can't have a future without a past; on Why Make Sense?, Hot Chip explore both in confident and exciting ways.

Due to its bright, open production and quirky presentation, Heart Like a Levee is a watermark for Hiss Golden Messenger. Seldom have hard times sounded this uplifting.

Although the work as a whole is not a film score, it has the flavor of one, and it opens up intriguing possibilities for the expansion of that language to other settings. Certainly recommended for anyone who has noticed and liked the music for Arrival.

The juxtaposition of pretty janglers, moodily melancholy ballads, and tough rockers makes the album the richest Cairo Gang record to date. Credit to Segall for helping out, but Untouchable is Kelly's show and while it won't make anyone forget the Byrds or Love, any song from the album would sound pitch-perfect on a playlist next to either band's best work, and that's really saying something.

The music here is not only solid, but attractive and clever to boot.

Your Queen Is a Reptile is easily Sons of Kemet's most compelling outing. It offers inspired stylistic contrasts, canny improvisation, and killer charts. It's tight, furious, joyous, and inspirational.

With In Praise of Shadows, Puma Blue has crafted a deliberate slow burn of a debut album you'll enjoy taking your time with.