Epithymía is uneasy and sometimes painful, but it beautifully conveys dark, heavy emotions and is well worth the time.

Stop Mute Defeat is a recharge and a reinvention for White Hills, and is, by necessity, their most focused work.

While a long way from perfect, Big Walnuts Yonder is overflowing with great ideas and imaginative execution--enough so that one hopes this foursome heads into the studio again someday, or takes this very special show on the road.

Despite all of its sonic busyness, the vast majority of which falls in the category of charming rather than challenging, the album ultimately comes off as a little goofy, fun, and full of promise.

Little Steven may share the same sense of grandeur in his sonics, but he keeps his focus earthbound, and that provides a nice tension to Soulfire: it's big music about everyday things.

Ultimately, Parking Lot Symphony is one of Trombone Shorty's most balanced productions, equal parts New Orleans R&B sophistication and loose, block party fun.

Clipper Ship feels like a standalone statement, one of powerful simplicity and masterful control. In stripping away almost everything, Toth's songs reveal cores of sometimes blinding beauty and unsettling honesty.

Shake the Shudder is the work of a band that know exactly what works for them, while still being willing to try new things. It's a winning combination of past, present, and future that bodes well for !!!'s future making plenty more great albums like it.

What makes these moody moments striking is that Weiner hasn't renounced the power of rock & roll, nor his penchant for mischief; he isn't trumpeting a new direction, he's adding dimension to a band that already offers more than its fair share of surprise and pleasure.

Through it all, Kasher offers affecting material that's persistently tense but also loose and lively.

Party finds the sweet spot between raw and refined, and in doing so, feels very real.

Black Origami is a monumental achievement, yet it still seems like Jlin is just getting started.

The album's potent mix of soul-searching lyrics and spaced-out sonics lends itself to deep thought and accompanied stargazing.

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.

Love Is Love is a thought-provoking, intensely felt album, full of all the warmth, frustration, and alternating bouts of despair and hope that half (or more) of the United States felt at the time the record was recorded.

It's good that he decided to stretch his creative muscles a little on You're Welcome. It's even better that he came up with a smart and compulsively listenable update on the Wavves sound that kept all their rambunctious energy, but also added some fun tricks and treats.

While there's no real dance anthem in the bunch, World Be Gone does deliver on vocals and memorable Vince Clarke melodies, as well as on arrangements that add some oomph to slower tempos. At the time of its release, it seems on point.

After over 20 years of writing fine songs and making great records, John Darnielle and the Mountain Goats are actually getting better and more interesting, and Goths is a genuine triumph.

He's far from catering to the mainstream here, but through it all, the wistful chords and progressions that are such a trademark of his sound act as a sonic through-line. Also uniting the album are immediate, conversational vocals and, similarly, an impression that accompaniment is gathered in a circle playing along by ear.

The Silver Globe was Weaver's coming-out party; Modern Kosmology serves notice that she's here to stay.

The issue isn't that it's a pop effort; indeed, they get points for a brave attempt so outside of their wheelhouse. The problem is that much of One More Light is devoid of that visceral charge that previously defined much of their catalog. It's a provocative challenge that ultimately fails to satisfy.

This is an utterly triumphant, uplifting album.

He glides into even mellower, more sentimental territory here for a set of brazenly unapologetic love songs.

It's a brief outing at just over 30 minutes with seven songs and a short instrumental interlude ("Inbetween"). Still, it has time to transport and make an impression, emotionally and sonically, traits that all of Sóley's work to date has in common.

Overall, Pollie presents a wistful and warm little microcosm that subtly builds on the foundation of his debut.

The result is striking, unlike anything Jessi Colter has ever released: it's hushed and haunting, an elegiac testimonial to the power of enduring faith.

Clocking in at just under 35 minutes, Sorcerer's willfully lo-fi, exploratory jam session architecture is pretty digestible, which makes the occasional sonic detour much more rewarding.

The last thing PWR BTTM are ready to do is mope; instead they've chosen to create a record that feels defiantly optimistic and celebratory.