While Half Waif's cinematic, keyboard-based atmospheres have generally expanded with each album to this point, they reach another level of vibrancy and drama on their fifth album, Mythopoetics. Partly written by project leader Nandi Rose during the COVID-19 outbreak -- its predecessor, The Caretaker, was released in March 2020 as much of the U.S. was locking down -- it adopts a less familial, more philosophical outlook while remaining distinctly personal.

Throughout the album, BadBadNotGood and their guest collaborators flesh out the sonic canvas without taking away from the raw energy of the performances.

Less obsessive fans might not see the necessity in seeking out more than one live recording from a window of time when a lot of Young's shows were fairly similar. Young completists will of course need to hear the clarity of this recording, and will appreciate the subtle nuances in every joke, slight variation in delivery, and minor shift in presentation that separate this show from any other.

Tableau is definitely the work of a young band growing and exploring, looking for new territory to explore, new feelings to delve into, and exciting sounds to dig into.

The slow crawl through the nightmarish "Murder of Sunrise" doesn't need to be 17 minutes long, but otherwise, That Delicious Vice finds Kid Congo Powers going from strength to strength as a frontman, and holds a special place in his stellar resumé.

Throughout Eight Pointed Star's various stylistic touchpoints, artistic allusions, and consistently lyrical melodies, Allen effectively merges the cerebral and the sentimental on an album that's ultimately about different kinds of love.

Stung! is yet another hard-to-categorize but easy-to-enjoy chapter in Pond's ever-changing story. It's full of melodies made for both sunny summer days and solitary, reflective walks, and often changes gears with little notice.

As Guided by Voices approach their fourth decade as a band, Strut of Kings reminds us that they're not only at the top of their game, but they're still growing and trying new things, and succeeding admirably.

While the thick, churning grind may feel familiar, it never seems staid, not when QOTSA rely on clouds of vocal harmonies to push them onto a psychedelic astral plane, a shift that can amount to the subtle colorings of "Time & Place" or be as startling as the chorus of "Emotion Sickness."

While she succeeds rather handsomely on those modest terms, it's more than a little odd to hear Madonna scaling back her ambition and settling for less rather than hungering for more.

Blitzen Trapper's first release for Sub Pop doesn't just improve upon the promise of WMN, it expands its sonic horizons as well, narrowing the mixtape glee that fueled its predecessor with just enough maturity to lend it considerable weight.

Works for Tomorrow stands alongside their best albums.

Despite his growing confidence and excellent production and arrangements, the singing and lyric writing still need work. This is a snapshot of where he is at the moment. It's a solid effort even with its flaws.

His songs are resonant with the weight of experience, and his musical settings, even in their relative sparsity, are powerful and at times nearly elegant.

Big Baby D.R.A.M. is, at times, odd and imperfect, which is part of the charm.

Daniel still sounds like he's developing his sound with this album, but it's a noble effort, and certainly recommended for fans of Detroit dance music or the rougher, more off-beat side of house.

ABOMINATION isn't only textbook Osees, it's a bracing reminder to wake up and rock out, channel anger into riffs and drumrolls, and be as punk as punk can be.

While he retains his literate tongue and expressive voice, there is far less humor on Animal Years than on his previous two outings.

Twoism features the same exquisitely spooky, textured emotronica that fans will want to hear, all at as high a level as the brilliant Music Has the Right to Children to boot.

Like an ambitious version of the Scud Mountain Boys, they manage to appear out of nowhere in your living room, play an intimate set, and invoke every ghost from a 20-mile radius through your front door before leaving as quickly as they came.

The Long Winters get happy on this one, and Roderick's vibrant, newfound confidence as a showman and songwriter allows the Long Winters' sound to finally gel.

To the band's credit, the weaker songs aren't necessarily eating space for no reason -- their B-material here is more affecting than the average indie band's A-material. The problem is that, during those lesser moments, the band shows signs of attempting to cannibalize Turn on the Bright Lights' magnetic sulking, and their hearts don't seem to be as in it.

Wolf’s touch here is easy and assured, so it feels familiar upon the first spin but better upon repeats, when the songs truly take hold and the conversational nature of the performances settle in, revealing the warmth and skill beneath the surface.

As is the case with nearly every other Frog Eyes release, Paul’s Tomb may be riddled with claw marks, broken needles, vomiting angels, and eternal suffering, but it’s well worth the visit.

Even when Young Widows' scorn escalates and the mood becomes more frenetic, In and Out of Youth and Lightness always feels detached. Maybe that's what makes it so unnerving, and so good.

Along with having one of the best titles of recent memory, Bobby Fuller Died for Your Sins confirms that more than 25 years after making his solo debut, Chuck Prophet remains one of America's strongest songwriters and recording artists, and he's in great form here.

He may evoke old sounds but all his songs are about the present, and that means Manic Revelations isn't a stylistic exercise: it's compelling commentary.

Marika Hackman's latest evolution is a triumph that finds equilibrium amid both wit and heart.

Highly stylized but memorable for both its unusual palette and what are ultimately consistently good songs (for outright earworms, don't miss "Blue Cigar" and "Daddy Long Legs"), Saturn Over Sunset is recommended for anyone intrigued by the idea of retrofuturist anti-pop.

It's a wonderful debut, and even if Clarke and Cut Worms veer away from this sound in the future, at least he will have left the world this one slice of genius retro-pop.

Cheap Thrills was the album that made Janis Joplin one of the biggest stars of her era (and rightly so), but Sex, Dope & Cheap Thrills reminds us she didn't go it alone, and it's the work of a strong and memorable band as well as a world-class singer.

If you're looking for a soundtrack to the end of the world, which isn't necessarily out of the question in 2020, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs are here for you, and Viscerals allows you to stare angrily into the abyss in grand style.

Wicked City explores the extreme limits of how far a pretty song can be mangled until it crumbles completely. When the experiments are at their most successful, they can be truly transcendent.

Me and Ennui Are Friends Baby isn't an easy listen, but it's a captivatingly beautiful bummer that ranks with the darkest, drunkest, most flailing moments of Leonard Cohen, Cat Power, and other perpetually sad-hearted songwriters.

The synthy, downbeat direction they chose may not be the most thrilling option, but the band make it work thanks to their musical vision, the wonderful voices of Merve Dasdemir and Erdinç Ecevit, and the fact that nobody else around is making music quite like this.

While some of the record's lyrics are lost in ambiance, Ballentine's ethereal vocals are a key component of an artful sound design that, like a movie, is optimized in its full-length context.

The songs are wearier than ever and full of life at the same time, with each element seeming to fall into place by sheer luck.

It gets better with each listen, and stands so far outside the realm of anything her better-known peers are doing today that it's almost scary.

There are points throughout these works where Tesfaye is distinctively gripping, supplying deadly hooks and somehow singing for his life despite the cold blood flowing through his veins.

Still in the salad days, these songs are the sound of the band hitting the ground running. They hold up to any of Fugazi's more realized recordings, sounding fresh and--more importantly--urgent even 26 years later.

A full, concentrated album of ballads may seem startling even for die-hard fans, not just because the new full-on singer/songwriter mode is such a departure, but also because of how beautifully weary and evocative his songs tend to be when he allows a glimpse at his unplugged intimate side.

Jones covers a lot of musical ground on this album, and it's all of high quality, confirming his place as one of the top-tier American Primitive guitarists.

Musically it’s the performances by Bridges that are the most arresting here.

The Bats have managed to maintain a ridiculously high level of quality throughout their career, and Free All the Monsters is as good a record as they've ever made.

The love and fire on display here confirm what his best work has always shown -- he's not just a fine songwriter, he's a top-shelf musician who lives for this stuff, and it's a pleasure to hear him dig into this material.

This is a promising prelude to Solange's third proper album.

Madlib has formed a tighter frame around his productions than ever before.

In a sense, this is Built to Spill's pop album: every song is direct and clean, without the long, cerebral jamming that characterized their earlier albums.

Showing more than a trace of the bombast of Arm's Way, a couple of songs like 'Drums' and 'Shining' collapse under their own weight and are the only things that keep Vapours from being Islands' best work. Still, this is a welcome return to form for the band.

Adhering to the old-school MC/producer approach, Well-Done is a promising and cohesive affair which proves Bronson has the raw talent to match his much talked about appetite.

As with any patten release, it takes a few listens to wrap your head around what they're doing, but taking the effort to decode their work proves to be incredibly rewarding.

Easily Forma's most ambitious work to date, Physicalist is a winning expedition.

With Paradise Gardens, Dorval finds the strength to acknowledge darkness instead of feeling trapped by it, resulting in some of her most healing, self-empowering music.

A self-titled EP in 2011 yielded three lengthy songs of the duo's wild combination of airy atmospheres and menacing fuzz, but debut full-length Psychic moves into more compositional territory, though it remains drifty and narcotic in ways similar to its predecessor.

Based on the nuanced opacity of these lyrics and the artful moodiness of the music, the answer will likely remain an elusive puzzle for listeners to ponder. Thankfully, Manchester Orchestra have made an album well worth pondering over.

Technical precision and introspective lyrics mark this album as their most rap-centric project thus far, inspiring both concentrated head-nodding and the thrill of the rush as each emcee's verse impeccably weaves from one to another.

The music is clever and catchy enough to give it merit for repeated listens. Buy the DVD first to get the full story and then pick this up for road trip sing-alongs.

What the Dethroned half of this nearly 70-minute set reveals is that Jesu is still breaking new ground. Contrasted with Heart Ache, this new double EP is an excellent introductory portrait of the project, past and present.

Rain on the City lacks the consistency of Johnston's masterpiece, "Can You Fly," or its follow-up, "This Perfect World," but unlike the albums that followed, this collection is a beautiful example of Johnston playing to his strengths and reminding us why he's one of the best and most singular American songwriters at work today.

Despite the recycling, it's one of his most inventive and potent albums to date, full of aggression, euphoria, and hope--alongside the rage, indignation and bitterness--and powered by idealism, pride, honor, and some of his strongest jams yet.

Adjusting things just enough between tracks that they stay engaging without ever jarring the listener out of their cocoon of atmosphere, while deftly splitting the difference between the passiveness of purely ambient music and the active intellectualization required to fully absorb the skittering glitches of IDM.

This is a beautiful and loving tribute to one of jazz music's great tragic genuises.

Their music is always exciting, soulful, and expertly played; they never fall prey to world fusion clichés.

This is an album that can easily be enjoyed for the songs alone, so while you don't necessarily need to sit down with the liner notes (which include an accompanying story written Corey Taylor) to enjoy the album, it does add an extra layer of narrative action that reveals House of Gold & Bones to be an album of surprising depth.

Best Friends have arrived fully formed on their debut, ready to take their place among the best practitioners of noisy garagey pop around.

Those who still believe that rock & roll can and should make you move ought to put Under the Savage Sky on their playlists pronto; it's the raw real thing.

"The Ghetto" with Nas and will.i.am does not disappoint, leaving the album's numbering system the only thing to complain about, as 2015 is the Game's second-best year ever, and there's nothing ".5" about it.

City Lake is a more physical offering [than Tomorrow Was the Golden Age], but no less beautiful.

While it's not all good, there are some sublime moments within the album's ramshackle bulk, and its blast of free-range creativity is in itself something to celebrate.

If you've ever dug the cool but fiery retro sound of Los Straitjackets, What's So Funny... will once again remind you of their brilliant chops and sense of fun, while Nick Lowe fans will definitely want to give a listen to this homage to one of rock's best living songwriters.

Longtime fans will find plenty of grist for the mill, but for the uninitiated, Haines will likely remain a singular but elusive character, which is probably exactly the way he likes it.

Even if Piteous Gate was more abrasive overall, Hesaitix ends up being more challenging, never giving away any easy answers and causing the listener to listen deeper.

From This Place integrates and illuminates most of Metheny's musical personas. His compositions allow this stellar collective to roam through them with their many strengths. They ultimately provide fans an abundance of listening pleasure. Even in a catalog filled with so many gems, From This Place shines brightly.

Despite its overtly metaphysical esthetic, Holy Smokes Future Jokes goes down fairly easy, as the band conjure up melodies that swaddle Earley's heady yet homespun lyrics in the golden hues of breezy west coast pop and country-folk.

The enthusiasm of the execution helps keep The Power and the Glory from sounding like an exercise in nostalgia, as do Mantione's earnest, unguarded songs: this is music that exists entirely in its own moment, not as part of the past.

Fans of Wilson's earlier records might struggle a bit with Eat the Worm's many directions, but before long, the album, despite its sense of adventure, slots easily into his restless, immersive, utterly imaginative catalog.

All That Was East Is West of Me Now confirms that as an artist, he's not wasting the days he has left on the trivial, and the craft and the emotional power of this music is strong enough that we can all hope he might have another 10 or 20 years of music this good left in him.

Bob and weave as he might, Harcourt never fails to land an emotional punch on El Magnifico.

A standout amid his own catalog, Te Whare Tīwekaweka is a unique and emotional piece of work that is quite affecting even without knowing the language.

Gina Birch has always been a brave and clear-minded voice as a writer, musician, and artist, and Trouble leaves no doubt that she's rabble-rousing for the right reasons, and making compelling music at the same time.

While not a low in their catalog by any means, No Geography is also not their strongest or most memorable work to date. It's best not to call it a comeback, just another ample addition to their decades-long discography.

Full Upon Her Burning Lips is sumptuous, a return to basics informed by Earth's decade-and-a-half period of discovery. The album's impeccable balance of those poles places it among the band's finest recorded offerings.

The nine tunes on Piano Nights walk a line between the haunted beauty of Dolores and the more austere, glacial darkness of earlier recordings.

They've always existed in their own space, and Trouble is yet another fine example of their fascinating art.

More Life is another overly serious, musically uninteresting effort.

The record gets better when the sci-fi murk lifts and a song comes into focus, which happens more often on the second half, when Simpson relaxes enough to offer up a bit of good ZZ Top funk ("Best Clockmaker on Mars") and a blues shuffle ("Mercury in Retrograde"). But songs aren't the point of Sound & Fury. As the title makes plain, it's all about the sound and fury, noise that grabs hard and eventually softens its grip.

Strongly recommended to all adventurous dub fans.

["Grow"] is worth the price of admission alone, but the rest of this brief set is such an unexpected surprise that it's worth the nearly half-hour investment. There seems to be nothing that Willow can't do as she adds rock to her résumé with ease.

Found Light is recognizably the work of Laura Veirs, but with a freedom and sense of creative possibility that hasn't always been part of her music in the past. It's an engaging new chapter in the career of a gifted songwriter.

Swanlights, the fourth full-length by Antony and the Johnsons, reveals that 2009's The Crying Light was a stepping stone that furthered his sophistication as a songwriter, arranger, and singer.

Without many spikes in volume or energy level, these murmuring songs generate an undeniably powerful radiance, breaking down doors creatively despite their understated trappings.

Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose is as restrained in its own way as it is vibrant; just over 30 minutes long, it shows that Houghton knows how to leave listeners wanting more.

Vega Intl. Night School is just as immersive as Neon Indian's previous work and even more impressionistic, with a flamboyance that makes it a captivating standout within his own work as well as his contemporaries'.

Wavering Radiant works as a single piece of music rather than a series of songs, and it is cohesively played by an ensemble that is more interested in the dark majesty of metal than its potential for expressing anger.

Wenu Wenu cleans up Souleyman's music just enough to place it in an expanded musical and sonic context that creates a new frontier without sacrificing its power.

As it stands, it's a hard album to get your head around and it's a hard album to fully embrace.

They're a little less baroque, they're a little less depressing... but they're just as emotional and affecting, which makes Gang of Losers very good indeed.

"Out of the Shadows" is an indie dream come true. A dream like another great Elliott Smith record, or a Sebadoh record that isn't an embarrassment, or a Neutral Milk Hotel record that makes sense.