For Beans' nightmarish spoken narrative, Pritchard makes like a member of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop with intensifying patterns of organ filigrees and electronics that blip and swarm.

The supplemental voices are used to positive effect, whether they contrast with or echo Ejimiwe's plaintive surveillance of personal and societal ruination.

More than either 1989 or Reputation, Lover seems fully realized and mature: Swift is embracing all aspects of her personality, from the hopeful dreamer to the coolly controlled craftsman, resulting in a record that's simultaneously familiar and surprising.

The seven tracks represent different, curious branches extending out from the seeds planted by Some Rap Songs, each reaching for new ideas and switching gears when another thought arrives. It continues Sweatshirt's streak as an innovator and as one of the more compelling artists of his time.

Warbled, atmospheric electronics eventually expand the sound design, as do subsequent tracks, like the bright, harmonic full-band pop of second track "Unready" and the lush, shimmery "Limits," whose arrangement includes scuttling electronic drums. The sparer tracks are where Gordi really excels, though.

As a whole, The Width of a Circle doesn't quite add up to much more than an odds-and-sods collection, but then again, that's its appeal. It allows listeners to live within Bowie's 1970, a strange, weird, and absorbing year when he was figuring out his strengths and weaknesses.

The 12-song set ends with the dialogue-heavy "Home Movies (1989-1993)," which, like much of the rest of the album, is full of affection. If there's a knock on Rarely Do I Dream (and it's a light rap), it's that Rarely Do I Dream sometimes seems like an album for an audience of one, like a personal collage of photographs and cards on a pinboard behind the laptop monitor in the den.

Different Rooms is a nebulous haze of semi-familiar melodies and half-heard voices, forming an abstract dreamscape.

Call it sustainable punk--the kind that doesn't need to burn out or fade away.

Pure Heroine seems to hint at the truth... but the truth is, Lorde is a pop invention as much as LDR and is not nearly as honest about her intentions.

There's nothing really new or earth-shattering about this album, but that's not a prerequisite for great rock & roll.

No Color is a welcome return to form, and a nimble balance between the extremes of Dodos' previous work.

The only shortfall that could be noted is that Trials & Errors is a touch long, clocking in at 72 minutes, but fans of Molina, along with the audience, who you can tell had a wonderful time at this show, will feel that this is a bonus.

Even if Slugger might appeal more to Speedy Ortiz fans than Top 40 diehards, hearing Dupuis seek intimacy and independence is never less than pithy, fun, and thought-provoking.

The album is easily the most solid offering from the Woods camp to date, besting even the production of its incredibly strong predecessor and presenting the songs with even more clarity and interesting choices than ever before.

In the end, there's something amusingly kooky and undeniably likable about a band that can evoke both the acid house, Rolling Stones spirituality of a band like Primal Scream just as it can, perhaps unintentionally, summon the ghost of early-'90s Duran Duran.

The whole album is pulsing with both those elements [energy and emotion] and comes across like the group's most important album, only without the kind of pretension that kind of thing often entails. It's more that Formentera captures the warring emotions, steady fears, and crushing uncertainty of the era it was made in and delivers it all wrapped up in triumphant and true songs that one will want to spin again and again.

The stories of grim wedding scenes, hospital visits, and the various disappointments of daily life are all harrowing and intense, but Crutchfield's deft arrangement of lyrical details and their slow-release impact keeps the darkness from ever coming off as self-indulgent.

Worth the three years it took to materialize, this is a strong, assured debut that shows Factory Floor can build on their influences in a way that feels fresh.

NMA's version of Junior Kimbrough's "Meet Me in the City" here almost sounds like power pop, but filtered through a rustic moonshine filter. Every track here is like that, roaring into the 21st century sounding big, urgent, and huge, but so grounded in the local folk-blues tradition that each track seems to carry imprinted DNA that says boogie all over it.

All these happy concessions, along with the strong emphasis on instrumental interplay, give Mudcrutch the feeling of a true band effort, and even if it's not perfect--it is indeed possible to amble and ramble just a little bit too much--it's thoroughly winning because of its imperfections, as this is music that's all about cruising down the back roads on a sunny nostalgic day.

With Richard Formby and the MC himself on production, Ghostpoet remains the most aptly named rapper in the game with his excellent sophomore effort.

The production on II is cleaner than on Fuzz's first studio album without ironing out the nooks and crannies of the band's sound (the report of Moothart and Ubovich's amps is just as fierce and buzzy as ever), and listeners who resonate to Iommic frequencies will get a righteous shake from this music.

He launches into bristling pop-punk after the intro, and elsewhere offers honeyed hip-hop, convincing retro-soul, and a touching corrido, among other styles, refining his R&B-rooted bedroom pop throughout.

There's a heady joy in his bile that's infectious, and Every Loser is a weirdly joyous celebration of life from someone who knows why you shouldn't toss it aside.

Sometimes suggesting a cross between Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade and Bruce Springsteen's The River, The Most Lamentable Tragedy is as big, smart, and heartfelt as either of those albums, and a striking example of what Titus Andronicus can achieve.

Spiritual Songs is not a casual listen and can be emotionally overwhelming at times, requiring complete attention in order to fully enter the intimate world of these star-crossed lovers. Once inside, Spiritual Songs for Lovers to Sing is as intoxicating as falling in love for the first or last time.

Taken without context, Snow is a gorgeous collection of slow-burning, neatly groomed songs and perspectives, always introspective but never without joy. When viewed as another chapter in the ongoing lineage of the Kadane brothers, it takes on a deeper gravity.