As with any of the band's releases, this one requires extreme patience, as it can go from lengthy passages of near-stillness to unrelenting torrents of sound.

Sometimes beguiling, sometimes bewildering, Fantasy Island is a strange album even by Clinic's standards. While it's hard to shake the feeling that its sunny vibes are just a mirage, it's still immensely entertaining for anyone game to follow the band into their oddest musical terrain.

Going Places isn't a particularly challenging record, but that's not the point. Rouse imbues these little vignettes and easy-going love songs with his trademark charm and wit, creating a self-contained mood that has plenty of appeal.

"While My Machines Gently Weep" brings to mind the trippy, shoegaze-influenced techno of Daniel Avery, while others are closer to the stark, dub-informed tracks by Surgeon and the Sandwell District collective. "Roseville" is percolating electro-techno with snapping beats, and "Hazel" is akin to a bullet-train head rush.

An album that once again proves Pop never was and never will be an ordinary guy.

'Why Does She Stay,' forms the front end of a two-track patch of glorious gloom--the album's center, both literally and figuratively--complemented by 'Fade into the Background,' where he watches the one who got away get married.

Even more than on their first release, Girlpool feel like a unit, totally locked into each other musically and emotionally, and their stark presentation remains a boon to their risky and appealingly human songs.

Enough of Alright, Still works -- as pure pop and on the meta level Allen aims for -- to make the album a fun, summery fling, and maybe more.

Ultimately, Cripple Crow is a roughly stitched tapestry; it is rich, varied, wild, irreverent, simple, and utterly joyous to listen to.

Every single moment of Man vs. Sofa is suspenseful and exciting.

"Look Away," with its inventive and Eastern-tinged, Led Zeppelin III-inspired acoustic guitar work, the soulful and contemplative title cut, and the breezy, psych-folk-rocker "All Directions," are administered with equal amounts of nuance and backbone, showcasing the band's versatility in both songcraft and execution, a feat made all the more impressive by their predilection for recording live in the studio. That craftsmanship, no doubt bolstered by the group's adherence to a rigorous tour schedule, is the glue that keeps Feral Roots from bursting apart at the seams.

G3 is heavy on bangers, with all tracks whizzing by in two or three minutes, and the album constantly stays sharp and exciting.

With Cooler Returns, Kiwi Jr. remains suspended in an alternate reality where it's always the last day of undergrad classes and a group of bookish housemates is hanging on a front porch waiting for a party to start around them. The sophomore semester moves with a little more intention and nuance than the freshman year did, but the year-end celebration is no less of a blast.

This is a very good album.

The songwriting is the driving force behind the album, and any reservations about whether or not Frightened Rabbit would transform into radio-friendly M.O.R. are swept away.

Mining her musical upbringing and honoring her myriad inspirations, Halsey comes full circle, connecting her own youth and innocence with intimate adult ruminations on parenthood, aging, and legacy. It's an engrossing homage to the figures that made her into the artist -- and inspiration -- that she has become herself.

If there's a gripe to be had about the record, it's that it isn't longer than nine tracks, although there's something to be said for mirroring the debut in leaving us wanting more.

This shift toward playing to the listener's gut rather than head gives the Dillinger Escape Plan a newfound level of accessibility without diminishing the impact of their punishing sound.

Intense and thrilling, The Allegory is a powerful work with uncomfortably realistic and poignant snapshots of American life that linger long after the last song has finished.

2021's Cavalcade found the group exploring a lushly orchestrated avant-prog sound, switching between spiky, angular workouts and softer, more patient compositions. Hellfire moves further in this direction, but with a greater sense of showmanship.

Prior to Backspacer, Pearl Jam wouldn't or couldn't have made music this unfettered, unapologetically assured, casual, and, yes, fun.

This is still insanely large-sounding music, and is heavy in the extreme, but its new tenets give listeners more to hold on--and perhaps dream on--than simply low-tuned, ponderous riffing.

Hip Hop Is Dead is not Illmatic.

To be sure, In Ghost Colours is a triumph of craftsmanship rather than vision--a synthesis and refinement of existing sounds rather than anything dramatically new and original--but it is an unalloyed triumph nonetheless, and one of the finest albums of its kind.

Take Me to the Land of Hell delivers performances with the kind of weight--and lightness--that can only come from an artist entering her ninth decade.

It's this momentum that makes Sexwitch such a transcendent album, and some of the most exciting music any of these artists have made.

Only the less impressive closing song "Fingers" sounds primed for mass appeal with traditional hooks. More compelling are the moments that showcase Lil Peep's unique relationship with self-expression and self-destruction. His delivery, lyrical choices, and sincere examination of difficult feelings seemed curious when he was alive, but take on a profound significance in the pallid wake of his death.

Despite the label move, it's a follow-up both stylistically and thematically to 2018's Lavender, as it revisits themes of displacement, isolation, and connection.