Equally meticulous and mischievous, this is some of Matmos' most engaging work, especially for fans who are as fascinated by their process as their results.

Equally sensual and challenging, it's the work of a band capable of commitment as well as grand gestures.

Everybody plays the songs they love in the way they learned them, so the highlights fall along the spectrum of sensitivity to enthusiasm.

After Glow & Behold, the only thing Yuck seemed ready to do was break up and get day jobs; Stranger Things shows they weren't quite ready for that as it vaults them back into the noise pop/shoegaze conversation, where they seem poised to stay for a good long while.

As the title implies, it may take the 1975 a while to get to the point on I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It, but when they do, the results are revelatory.

It's a resolutely lively and slightly dazed exploration of misshapen pop forms.

As of now, they've proven that they can wear the baggy tracksuits, but not that they necessarily deserve them.

Even if Quilt don't always find the answers they're looking for on Plaza, they've found some of their most confident and cohesive music.

Concerned at least as much with timbre as with rhythm, structure, or emotional tone--and none of these is neglected here--the composite is perpetually stimulating, exploiting repetition and expectation, both in time and texture. Album structure is carefully considered as well, with the drums vanishing for the final two tracks.

Fans of any of Mason's earlier projects will find something to love on what is easily the gifted popsmith's best solo effort to date.

Though 99 Cents is Santigold's most accessible work yet, it feels like the mainstream meeting White on her terms rather than vice versa, and the results are often irresistible.

Raitt's signature slide guitar is back out front; it shines throughout the recording. Her earthy singing voice, with just a hint of time's grain, is more disciplined and holds more emotional authority than ever before. It soars through a song collection balanced between rough, rowdy rockers and searing ballads.

The bookends are tracks that aim to be masterworks and fall just one step short, but everything in between is delightful, stunning, or both, making the album's title less than one-tenth apt, and Macklemore & Lewis both emo under-promisers and Grammy-worthy over-deliverers.

It's not quite Hunx and it's definitely not punk, but Seth Bogart is a blast.

As produced by her daughter and family friend, Lynn is in good, trusting hands who wish to present her at her best and, more or less, that's precisely what Full Circle offers.

It ends School of Seven Bells in moving form and suggests a new and vital start for Deheza.

Consistent in character and quality, WYWALDYAT is a rare debut, one that impacts second to second rather than by hook or groove.

Her quick turns of phrase and penchant for punctuating moments of self-doubt with colorful bits of impressionistic flair and left-field melodic rejoinders invoke names like Kate Bush, Nick Drake, and Sandy Denny, but the truth is, she's been perfecting her particular brand of moody, bucolic baroque pop for over two decades now, and with the marvelous In Search of Harperfield, that work has finally paid off.

The riffs are punchy, the drumming relentless, and nary a note is wasted, and it strikes that balance between artistry and economy that has always made Anthrax an elite metal force.

On Keep It Together, what they lose in intimacy with the amplified environment, they gain in musical maturity, which only seems fitting.

All of Summertime's charm is tied directly to its mellowness. Perhaps it would have been a more interesting record if it had a hint of adventure.

Eventually, the songs do sink in, but the reason to return to the album is its ability to conjure a specific feeling, whether it's the second the sun sets or the moment that paved highway gives way to backwoods dirt roads.

Grandfeathered shows them looking outward while successfully building upon their already impressive sound.

The Infamous Stringdusters actually put themselves in the background on much of Ladies & Gentlemen, letting their guests take the center stage while they provide the support, but if the Stringdusters opted to be accompanists rather than the stars of the show on these sessions, their songs and effortless virtuosity make it clear they're every bit as talented as their friends.

The album is a sharp, thrilling experience, and easily one of Funk's most focused works.

Crowded and long overdue as it is, In My Mind is a satisfying and mature showcase for one of the most skilled and creative talents in R&B.

The album constantly maintains feelings of loneliness and obsession, and serves equally as a soundtrack for fantasy exploration as well as late-night dancefloor enrapturement.

Rodriguez has been hinting at the ambition displayed on Lola for some time. What's surprising is how a record of such scope and imagination can be rendered so intimately and elegantly.

There's no pretense here: this album is pure, no-frills, feel-good fun, a start-to-finish crowd-pleaser for fans of that classic pop-punk sound.

Anyone who was into previous El Guincho albums will be satisfied by the new direction he's taken, and who knows, some R&B fans with an adventurous nature may even find his sound to be something worth checking out.

The arrangements are exquisite, the textures multivalent, and the emotional resonances cavernous, intuitive, and expressive.

Dixon judiciously edited over one-third of the tracks to facilitate flow, his craftiness most evident in the way Talc's breezy part-soft rock/part-Daft Punk hybrid melts into one of Beady Belle's graceful lounge laments. Dixon's taste dips back several decades, but he keeps it relatively contemporary all the way through.

Victorious amounts to little more than a thrown-together mess.

All the good stuff is still here, one might just have to do a little digging, hang in through a couple listens, and then the songs on Life of Pause will begin to connect with the head and the heart.

The album ends up being more sprawling than it initially seems, but no less triumphant.

Grasque proves to be the group's most elusive outing to date, favoring icy, often formless melodies that come and go as they please, and existential lyrics that periodically dissolve into ghostly, wordless repetition.

Aside from messing with his own formula, it's not necessarily the most groundbreaking or well-written LP Sartain has made and, taken as a whole, it feels more like an experiment than a major step forward.

Compared to You Are Not Alone and One True Vine, the quality of the material is more variable.

By the time the meditative, strings-driven "Zone Null" brings Void Beats/Invocation Trex to a close, it feels like the end of a journey that reveals Cavern of Anti-Matter as a playful yet profound group capable of touching on the cosmic as well as kosmiche.

Ultimately, Need Your Light is an ambitious, thrilling album, full of songs that aim to grab your heart as well as your ears.

Phase is an exciting debut from a talented artist, a case where the hype is duly warranted.

At its best, Neo transcends redundancy with raw power, but it remains to be seen whether or not the band can find their own voice amid the maelstrom.

Undeniably great sounding, the record puts Animal Collective's brightest colors forward and, if history is any indication, is no predictor whatsoever of what they may do next.

Banshee is a smart and impressive piece of work that speaks to the mind and the soul with similar clarity.

They've honed their sound even further, zeroing in on a vintage-inspired, '60s soul aesthetic.

The other way to look at the erratic Pablo is as an "instant" LP, one that was mastered at the last minute and debuted via streaming. On that count, it's a fascinating, magazine-like experience with plenty of reasons to give it a free play, and with "Feedback" adding "name one genius that ain't crazy" to the mix, Pablo excuses itself from the usual criticisms, although it could have been tighter.

Even with the album's epic length, it never feels meandering or indulgent, as Prins Thomas remains supremely focused throughout the entire journey, finding the duality between the different types of "cosmic" music.

Daze is an astounding leap forward, harnessing an overwhelming amount of energy and transforming it into an arsenal of sonic warfare. The album also feels like it's the beginning of what could become a lengthy saga, with many additional battles to come.

Arts & Leisure is so easygoing that it's easy to underestimate, but it reveals Martin as a first-rate storyteller who captures the joys of new sights and new ways of thinking in songs full of life and humor.

It might have been interesting to boil the track list down a bit, then spend a disc catching up on the post-1995 bands that have kept the sound alive. That being said, the story they do tell on Still in a Dream is a fascinating one, full of guitar-mangling bliss and soaring melodic grandeur suitable for a fuzzy trip down memory lane or a deep dive of discovery for the novice gazer.

Hidden City would have made a great EP, but falls far short of the mark as an album. It closes this arbitrary trilogy on a strange and unsatisfying note.

The music fits the moods perfectly and the low-key sound makes the songs even stronger. In that regard, it might be the best match of Astor's career. Even if it's not, it still makes for a pretty great album, one of his strongest and one of the strongest singer/songwriter albums one is likely to hear in 2016.

Just as you think the trio are going to lock up legs and topple over, they fall into a gorgeous minor-key stride and dissipate into a sweepingly ominous mid-song bass solo. Ultimately, it's these moments of dazzling group dynamics that help make Man Made Object a jazz-infused work of art on GoGo Penguin's own terms.

What they lack in showiness or branding, they make up for in honesty and slightly battered spirit.

They've simply absorbed the lessons they've learned and are content to lay back, spinning out trippy harmonies and fuzzy riffs, music where the feel matters far more than individual songs. This also means the band hasn't changed much in 20 years--back in 1996, songs were also secondary to vibe; they were still peddling hippie nonsense--but the older Kula Shaker are better at execution, which means K 2.0 is the rare sequel that trumps the original.

For now, on Everybody's Dying to Meet You, the trio sounds like a worthy heir to the classic noise pop sound and the genre's best bands, like Shop Assistants and Tiger Trap.

The making of Synesthetica was a big deal for Radiation City; the result is a big deal to those who like their modern pop smart, fun, and with just the right amount of modernity.

She has the talent and courage to speak from her heart and make her ideas heard. Anyone who has ever had a (broken) heart will find something they can understand on Good Advice.

As good as these moody moments are, My Wild West is best once the darkness settles, and Lissie offers nicely sculpted miniatures that feel alternately comforting and bruised, with the human touches Lana Del Rey works so hard to remove from her own music.

Opus, the album, is keenly constructed and an excellent beginning-to-end journey in spite of its size.

The appeal of Down to My Last Bad Habit feels more Memphis than Nashville: it's Vince Gill's soul album, which is a welcome thing indeed.

With Né So, Traoré feels completely dialed in and in control, delivering her most compelling record yet.

While Kozelek remains an incredible storyteller, and the album is fascinating as ever to his faithful followers, it's likely to be exhausting, infuriating, or simply head-scratching to anyone who isn't already a fan of his. And as wonderful as Broadrick's musical contributions are, they recede into the background and aren't nearly as distinctive as his own work.

Khalifa, the album, is influenced by the "See You Again" sound, and yet that mammoth single's inclusion would've helped round out a set of tracks that aren't nearly as direct in their lyrics or intent. These expansive cuts surely benefit the Wiz discography, and will do best when shuffled into his canon, but lump them together into one LP and take away the driving influence and Khalifa feels more like part of a continuum than a self-contained statement.

Compared to the impressive and occasionally brilliant Venice, this album's mix of high and hard times has deeper resonance.

Other songs are colored with words and phrases of despair and resignation, like "doubt," "losing my grip," and "let's just break up." If the productions weren't so richly detailed and deceptively varied, Escapements might be a stifling experience.

Songs like "18 Wheeler" and the relationship laundry list "Boys (That I Dated in High School)" are surprising winners on an album that feels like it probably should be written off.

We Are King is all about plush, impeccable grooves and spine-tingling harmonies. It's without fault.

Here and throughout Is the Is Are, DIIV reveal themselves as a more thoughtful, more rewarding band than could have been expected from their debut.

Hold On! provides the best evidence yet that he and his band can find more rhythmic, harmonic, and dynamic paths to explore inside the well of musical history.

If Turin Brakes' world-view has changed little over the years, their embrace of the craft of record-making has only improved, and Lost Property is an impressive document of their skills in the recording studio.

Written and recorded almost entirely in Maine's Manhattan apartment, the album was mixed by Chris Coady (Beach House, !!!) and should play equally well in bedroom headphones and basement nightclubs, and leave many anticipating album three.

Much like Jepsen's Emotion or Swift's 1989, Foxes' All I Need is vibrant, intelligently crafted pop pleasure.

With this sophomore record, Nap Eyes offer a subtle gem that ultimately improves on their debut.

Scheherazade isn't exactly the Feel Good Album of 2016, but being lost and forsaken with Freakwater is a more satisfying experience than feeling perky with most other acts, and Scheherazade is a brilliant reminder of what Catherine Irwin and Janet Beveridge Bean do so strikingly well.

They're able to execute ideas they were only able to hint at when they were a young band. Some songs do have hooks that sink in quickly.

After releasing one of the best and boldest albums of her career with Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, Williams goes from strength to strength with The Ghosts of Highway 20.

Human Ceremony is an impressive debut from a band who seem positioned to make many more excellent albums if they can continue to do such a good job of mining the past for gold and revamping it in their own fashion like they do so well here.

The addition of simple pop elements to Commontime and the fact that the Brewis brothers manage to keep cranking out music this intelligent and flat-out fun to listen to without ever having the slightest dip in quality, makes it one of their more interesting and rewarding efforts to date.

Often, the tunes appear to be handsome constructions--grand, stately, and well appointed--but their foundations are shaky, constructed from threadbare melodies and words that dissipate not long after they land.

By the end of Anti, Rihanna may not arrive at any definitive conclusions about her art but she's allowed herself to be unguarded and anti-commercial, resulting in her most compelling record to date.

Compulsive in more than one sense, Big Black Coat contends with Last Exit as Junior Boys' deepest, most vibrant work.

With their dark fidelity and overly spacious arrangements, these new meditations feel almost as if they were unearthed from some distant vault of preserved wax cylinders rather than re-recorded.

Not for background listening, the album rewards repeat plays and gets the new project off to an impressively cathartic start.

If the individual components occasionally drift or sit still, the overall construction of the soundtrack has momentum, warmly wandering from a 14-year-old tentatively plucking away on his acoustic guitar to a singer/songwriter who never quite seems as confident in his art as perhaps he should.

"Tough Towns," which salutes cities like Pittsburgh and Cleveland, similarly lapses into ambient space for an extended time period, and closing track "Fame II: The Wreckoning" is nearly still for five minutes before its splashing, hopeful finale. Other than these more reflective moments, the album is generally pretty exhilarating, particularly on vicious avant-rap tracks like "At Your Service."

Songs for Our Mothers indicates Fat White Family still want to annoy you, but they're only going to put real effort into it for so long.

Ultimately, with Promise Everything, Basement return from the brink of oblivion and deliver an album that more than lives up to its title.

Never has TTB sounded so organic, relaxed, and free. Let Me Get By is the album this group has been striving for since their formation. You need this.

The overall result is a spirited collaboration that digs through the past for inspiration, but seems to prefer to keep memories a bit hazy.

Dominated by unrelenting synthesized bellowing battling slashing guitar figures and femur-snapping drumming, Pop. 1280 summon a hellish wall of sonic abuse that manages to also be curiously compelling, a neo-industrial attack that starts in high gear and never stops pouring fire and brimstone on the listener.

If Perfect is a tighter and better-focused album than one would have expected from Half Japanese in the '80s or '90s, miraculously it still sound like them, wild but fully engaged, and you'd be hard-pressed to name a band that not only sounds fresh but is still finding new creative paths close to 40 years after it began.

The overwhelming stillness of Promise demands attention but ultimately rewards it: it's an album that comforts the unease that arrives in moments of solitude, whether they arrive in the dead of night or in the chill of the morning.

Cayamo Sessions at Sea works best as a commercial for the ocean-going festival, but it also offers glimpses of some very talented artists crossing paths and sounding like fans, as well as musicians, as they make their way through some songs they clearly love.

Much like Deftones, NIN, and Tool successfully coexist alongside their respective sibling projects, Puciato, Eustis, and Alexander have created a refreshing entity to foster an alternative outlet for their emotions and creativity with satisfying results.

As an entry in Wilson's catalog, 4½ comes off as a fully considered EP, although leaving off "Year of the Plague" would have made it stronger. His obsessive attention to detail is everywhere in the production, but more than that, most of this provides fans with another fantastic showcase for his amazing band, excellent writing, and fine arranging.

When the band attempts to branch out, the results are mixed.

Vulnerability is often an asset to singers, particularly in matters concerning love, but Puth's problem is that he feels stage-managed; you can sense him hitting his marks.