While it might be impossible for them to be as shockingly distinctive as they were back in the day, they've kept up with the times, and Fires in Heaven is a return that's as strong as it is unexpected.

Leading up to the album's release, the band issued a statement that cited "post-punk, new wave, mariachi, new-wave mariachi, dub, hip-hop, and goth rock" as influences, and while there is some evidence that those disparate genres have infiltrated the sonic ecosystem, the unwaveringly idiosyncratic Five Dreams never feels like anything but a Carey Mercer project.

Palberta5000 is more mature than anything they've done before but just as playful, and more accessible while impossible to mistake for the work of any other band.

The set list offers few surprises -- if you don't recognize a song, that's because it's a new tune added to GRRR! -- but the Stones are in fine form, never seeming tired of playing the hits in a fashion that guarantees a splendid time for one and all.

PUP have made albums a lot more fun than this, but for sheer impact and focus, this feels like their best work to date, even if the recently dumped might find it a bit too relatable for comfort.

Choppy alternation between spoken and sung parts continues through much of the program's second half, as Taylor and her guests wrangle with the power dynamics of prospective new love and (with an especially apt Jill Scott appearance) delight in magnetic physical attraction. The erotic slow jams, led by the finely wrought "Bed of Roses," tend to fade out sooner than necessary as well.

Better Broken is an ideal late-era set that warrants the term "comeback" and adds an unexpectedly beautiful installment in her catalog when fans thought there might not be another.

You'd have to look hard to find another band making dark and noisy pop as sonically engaging and emotionally satisfying as Weekend do on Jinx.

Screaming Females have gone out of their way to show they have other tricks at their disposal, and Rose Mountain is one of their most accomplished and satisfying efforts to date.

Dream Wife have seized a certain energy that is undeniable and--despite the myriad inspirations and easy comparisons--feels so fresh and alive, enough to make their trailblazing influences proud.

The word "empty" aptly describes how this album feels, and that could potentially alienate listeners, but it captures the (absence of) feeling dead-on, and it contains some of his most compelling productions yet.

New Blue Sun is probably not the André 3000 solo debut most OutKast fans had expected or hoped for, but it does continue the integrity and spirit of his creative journey, in a way that's fittingly bizarre and beautiful.

Ultimately, What Went Down should please fans of Holy Fire, and they may not be the only ones drawn to its gloomy and persistent energy.

Here he successfully creates a convergence of harmonious and dissonant sounds, tensions and spaces, which reflect the subtleties in the complex emotions that construct such a powerful force.

While Astro Coast's nostalgia is missed, Tarot Classics finds Surfer Blood showing more potential to create something unique than their debut suggested.

It is one of those odd Primal Scream albums where they pull it all together--roping in the hard rock, free jazz, club beats, flowery psychedelia, the worship of the Stooges, and a devotion to avant-garde cinema--building upon the past in an attempt to get closer to the future.

The measured, modest, and melancholy "Airs" applies the finishing touches, wrapping up another flight of fancy from of one rock & roll's most illustrious, real-time dreamers.

A really strong album that shows Mazes growing in just the right way, adding some maturity and substance without sacrificing the things (great songs, youthful energy) that made them worth hearing in the first place.

Bodied is a few tracks longer than necessary, but its best moments are bewildering, and display Ital Tek's continued evolution as a sound designer.

Upon deeper listening, however, it becomes clear that some of the album's most overpowering moments are those that first come on as slight and retiring but reveal their anger, disappointment, and frustration by way of a slow, steady boil.

Some listeners might suggest that an album this varied has an identity crisis, but with standout tracks as glorious as the Dylan covers and the Eno closer, Frantic is a fascinating addition to Bryan Ferry's accomplished discography.

Kirchen has always been tasteful but his playing has gotten sharper over the years, which gives Seeds & Stems precision but also depth, as he knows these songs and styles inside-out yet can still find new nooks and crannies hidden deep within them.

Truly a natural-sounding collaboration, Saariselka's debut is rich, evocative, and sublime.

Go Tell Fire to the Mountain is surprisingly just a little too ordinary to be considered the groundbreaker many anticipated.

Human the Death Dance may be his most personal effort, but it's also an incredibly well-built full-length -- even when it borrows from a handful of genres -- and it's arguably his best lyrical effort, undoubtedly his best production-wise.

White Crosses is a big-sounding album with a blue-collar soul, but though the guitars may aim for the rafters alongside lofty, singalong choruses, the songwriting ultimately comes off safer and more commonplace than anything they've done yet.

Mysterious and subtly beguiling, Canta Lechuza begs to be listened to in the condition in which it was made: solitude.

The results are impressive standard-bearers for dancehall, displaying the duo's ample facility for floating the type of productions that have made dancehall the most experimental and extreme type of commercial dance music since it dawned in the mid-'80s.

Happiness in Magazines feels like Coxon's first true solo album -- it's the first to present a complex, robust portrait of him as an artist, and the first that holds its own next to what he accomplished in Blur.

Blasts of feedback and other dissonant elements crop up at points, but otherwise this is an album of focused calm in both singing and playing, a vision of concern and empathy amid unease.

As The Chaos teeters between slick professionalism and rampant expression, it still sounds like the Futureheads are having more fun here than they have in quite some time.

Serotonin may offer less immediate pleasures than Twenty One, but it promises to reward repeated listening.

Water on Mars is unexpectedly hooky, taking just enough from the catchy '90s alterna-pop it borrows from to root the songs in the listener's mind, but offering enough of Polizze's own voice to keep it from being a mere throwback.

It's as if this is a needy mixtape, but that minor complaint aside, Free Will finds Freeway's great mix of cold and clever on the upswing, and packaged in a near perfect blend of old and new beats.

On average, it's not one of Son Lux's catchier albums, but it is spellbinding, strange, and moving, and still as far away from expectations for a piano, guitar, and drums trio as any in existence.

Every bit as refreshing and even more insightful than her debut, Norwegian pop star Sigrid delivers another near-flawless effort with her sophomore album, How to Let Go.

Despite Tomboy's significant changes, it feels less like a radical shift than a subtle progression; while it may not be quite as dazzling as Person Pitch, it should still please fans of that album and Lennox's many other outlets.

Taken together, it's a sequestered, rainy Sunday type of album with flawed, world-weary vocal performances that are laid bare by such impressionistic accompaniment.

I'll Follow You is a record that shows off the diversity of Oakley Hall's palette, country and folk and rock, equally important and equally imposed, and because of this, something worth listening to.

Perfect Pussy choose to shroud the clarity of their words in thick sheets of noise makes for a fascinating, if frustrating contrast; the only way to fully absorb their music is to put in the time with repeated listening and reading the lyrics. Fortunately, that's not a problem with an album as thought-provoking as Say Yes to Love.

These are authentic punk anthems, played by a band who actually knows how to play their instruments now.

Onelinedrawing, in general, may be a bit too saccharine for some listeners, and it lacks the classic power pop levity of a Brendan Benson or Weakerthans, but The Volunteers is a wildly inventive record that can stand tall beside earnest peers like Saves the Day's In Reverie.

The band's poppiest and most upbeat and musical record yet.

Their third timeless gem...

Basically, Woods have put it all together on Sun and Shade, matching inspiration with performance and crafting their best record yet, one that will stand with the great folk-psych albums of the past 40 years, from the Notorious Byrd Brothers to the Rain Parade's Emergency Third Rail Power Trip to Either/Or to now.

An album that cooks up a dreamy meld of contemporary indie-New York atmosphere and a trippy past seemingly frozen in time.

2019's Age Hasn't Spoiled You introduces a multitude of influences and sounds into Greys' palette and makes for a challenging but overall worthwhile listen.

Valiantly shaped into this 18-track hour-long set, it's unavoidably a bit of a pile-up, a nonstop procession of rappers and singers fighting for space and pushing one another with verses and hooks that occasionally relate to one another. Cole makes an effort to tie it together.

The album's anxiety and melancholic mindset never abate, right up to and including resigned closer "Fishes," an explicitly metaphorical reference to mounted trophies. It makes for a satisfying, if unsatisfied, follow-up that both follows the appealing formula of their debut while letting loose on the full-band tracks.

It makes for a diverse album within the tight framework that Lytle operates in, and even if it could have been a solo album just as easily, it works as a Grandaddy album too. If not quite as compelling overall as their best work like Sophtware Slump, it's a worthy successor to the very good Just Like the Fambly Cat and a welcome return for the "band."

Angels of Destruction! is an album that brims with joy, rage, and adventure, and deserves your attention.

Granted, it is serious-minded fun with ambition, but with Manic Street Preachers you take fun whenever you can get it, and they've never sounded as ebullient as they do here.

Asleep on the Floodplain stands as a brilliantly constructed bridge between SOOA's For Octavio Paz and Sun Awakens, yet moves deftly and pronouncedly forward into previously uncharted terrain.

It's easily the meatiest the band has sounded to date, but it doesn't deviate from the punishing, aural miasma that Pissed Jeans have been stewing in since their 2006 debut.

While The Social Network may not be as iconic as the Dust Brothers' score for Fincher's Fight Club, it's as impressive and listenable in its own way. Reznor fans and film score aficionados will find a lot to like here.

This open-minded vision was already quite evident on prior Ihsahn solo albums, of course, but on Eremita it arguably flowers more confidently than ever before.

The album's middle third is exceptional, where Moiré's output once again draws from Parrish, Lawrence, and also Moodymann with raw, almost jacking beats, sustained high-pitch strings (either sampled or synthetic), and entrancing, downcast melodies.

Weirdon feels more lighthearted than its predecessor, offering just as many aggressive guitar freakouts and blasts of antagonistic noise, but handing them over this time with a smirk instead of a scowl.

Touching on Hot Chip 's classic themes and sounds as much as it does, Freakout/Release isn't an entirely clean slate, but it does offer some fresh perspectives on their music along with one of their strongest batches of songs in some time.

Ultimately, Levi's score is as powerful a presence as Jackie herself, and its creativity is more appropriate than more traditional music would have been.

Ashore is the product of decades of musical maturation and technical refinement, and is an unalloyed triumph.

Politically charged punk rock can be an exhausting and overtly self-righteous affair in the wrong hands, but Oberst and company temper their outrage with unadulterated melodic might, resulting in that rare protest album that rewards both the condemners and the condemned.

Intensely focused and steady.

Listeners attached to Aguayo's comparatively spindly early-2000s work will hear much of this as cracked chaos, but the level of carefree delight brimming throughout has to be, at the very least, admired.

Rave Tapes takes a while to hit its stride, but it delivers plenty of moments to keep fans intrigued once it does.

Numerous proven mixtapes help set Ty up for an easier introduction than most, but Free TC tops all expectations, as the man conquers the club, the bedroom, and the brain with this end-to-end stunner.

While there is much good music here, there isn't much that adds to Nirvana's legacy, nor is there much that's revelatory.

Something is a different beast: wilder than its predecessor, stronger in the songwriting department, and totally, wonderfully weird.

With songs like this, Trouble in Paradise proves Jackson is still better than many of her contemporaries when it comes to making fizzy electro-pop.

The melodies remain fuzzily in focus, so Ashes & Fire winds up as ever-shifting mood music, sustaining an appealingly lazy haze residing somewhere south of melancholy.

One can't help but wish the 15-track set list included more numbers like 'Frankie's Gun,' which features some of Ian's wittiest lyrics and the brothers' spot-on imitation of the Band, but it's hard to find fault in this collection of earthy ballads and barroom jams.

It's an ambitious album that finds Miller really stretching himself as a songwriter, but it's hard not to wish there were more songs like the nervy 'If It's Not Love' on board to help the medicine go down.

Even though the album may be enough of a stretch that it could chase away many of the band's fans, if you give it a chance, Memoirs at the End of the World is a completely successful melding of the Postmarks' autumnal sweetness with the elevated drama and epic nature of film scores.

A study in how to be settled without settling, this album is a very welcome return.

SBTRKT's downtempo, mellow nature means it's a dance album that's unlikely to ever be played in a club, but showing James Blake that sparse, minimal dubstep and well-crafted pop melodies aren't mutually exclusive, it's a daring debut which lives up to the masked man's "next big thing" label.

I Know What Love Isn't is Lekman at his finest, transmitting real emotion and humor in songs that are impossible to stop humming for days.

As far as the argument over whether Death Grips are indie rap's great, destructive Dada Art crew or whether they are just the genre's Spinal Tap, the excellent No Love Deep Web suggests they're the sophisticated former.

Anyone who enjoys their pop with extra wry and some sobering awareness should love What Have We Become?, but it's the Beautiful South faithful who will rightfully gush over the release, as these antiheroes have lost none of their touch or fatalistic flair.

It's a bit of a mess at times, but there's no denying that Crying's sense of fun is a major part of their appeal.

As with other Mayer studio full-lengths (including the SuperMayer release), & has an anything-goes spirit, jumping from style to style and resisting expectations. It flows well as an album, though, starting out celebratory before getting darker and more sinister and finally ending up sublime and relaxed.

At 33 minutes, the album is an intense but abrupt ride, with both musicians soaring into bold new territories. For dedicated fans who couldn't get enough, pre-orders of the album were bundled with a bonus disc containing eight additional tracks from the same sessions, which are just as mindblowing as the album proper, if not more so.

Even though Renegade Breakdown intentionally lacks the club energy that drove much of Davidson's best-known material, it's at least as inventive and exploratory.

As a whole, the album doesn't provide a lot sonically that fans haven't heard before, but it doesn't need to because WITTR have created their most uneasy balance of brute force, massive power, and brooding, trepidatious calm to date.

EarthGang's rapping could often take a backseat to their grandiose production and arrangements, but Ghetto Gods balances quality vocal performances and detailed instrumentals.

Brandy Clark benefits from her songs being heard without the pleasing Nashville accouterments that decorated Big Day in a Small Town and Your Life Is a Record: in these spare settings, the emotional pull of her songs is undeniable.

Karate exhibit more verve and fun here than on much of their previous output, and continue to push themselves into new forms regardless of how dissimilar to their earlier iterations those forms may be. That ethos on its own is commendable, and the best results of it on Make It Fit are proof that Karate's ever-evolving approach is working.

50 years later, these demented rock & roll outsiders pick right back up as if no time had passed at all, and they have a blast doing it.

Ruins is never complacent, though, keeping its rough, rustic edges, and allowing for the sounds of fingers on frets on quieter tunes like "To Live a Life." Lyrics don't put on a false front, either, and that's ultimately what makes the album linger.

Two thirds of the way through the Body Talk project, it's clear that this experiment is reaping rich rewards for Robyn and her listeners.

Crazy for You is meant to be an album that creates a mood, a feeling of gentle despair and wistful longing that grows with each song. On that count, it's a complete success.

Shocking Pinks is an intriguing introduction for listeners who want to catch up with [Harte's] ever-growing body of work.

Sonny Smith will never be Buddy Holly, but if Buddy were around, he'd recognize a kindred spirit. So would Rick Nelson, Bobby Fuller, or Marshall Crenshaw (who isn't dead but still...), or anyone else who made simple but powerful pop music with brains, guts, and hooks sharp enough to cut glass. Hit After Hit is that good.

Shrines is a fine debut, full of lighter-than-air synth pop that manages to be dark, sparkling, innocent, and knowing all at once.

Without applying any analysis, there is much to enjoy here; their raucous energy shines just as bright, but underneath the surface Ultra Mono lacks the sparkle that made their first two records truly special.

Though its smoothness sometimes makes Moondust for My Diamond a little less immediate than Diviner, it's the perfect complement to that album's somber reflections and another confident step forward in his creative journey.

Although the rage gauge occasionally hits the red, the melodies are too sugary and catchy to feel sincerely scathing.

The warmth, sophistication, humor, and immediacy present on this set make it a welcome addition to her catalog.

Where the self-titled record felt like a vivid explosion of feelings, sounds, and ideas in line with the end of a summer full of motion and conflict, Anchor sounds grounded and wintery, a little older and making the space to look before it leaps.