With third full-length Atlas, Real Estate grow even further into the sound they've been spinning for themselves, mellowing more while they become more nuanced in both playing and production.

This album's depth and excellence--only the tedious "Like That" falls short--suggest that Deykers should consider going all analog all the time.

As ever, indisposed listeners with little patience will hear Willner's tracks as distended and routine. Those who can't get enough of the stuff have another reliably durable set of techno that draws from dream pop, dub, and Krautrock. It has the potential to stupefy, if in very familiar fashion.

Understated and enveloping.

Sunbathing Animal may not be the shock to the system that Light Up Gold was; it may not be quite the sensation. It is the work of bandmembers in total control of their sound, doing exactly what they should on a second album.

Silence Is Wild is a solid step forward for Frida Hyvönen and a record to check out if you like singer/songwriters with a unique approach to be singing and songwriting.

Like the open-ended, amorphous production, the tunes all accentuate the record's general thrust of interior contentment. Musgraves, along with her regular collaborators Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk, do manage to capture and sustain this delicate sensibility, creating a record that's every bit as pretty and memorable as gentle afternoon rain.

Like Richard Buckner, Zedek holds the amazing capacity to make the saddest stuff compelling, even heartening.

While the artifact quality and live vibe of this music come as no surprise, the show band emphasis of Trey Anastasio suggests that this artist may be placing a little less faith in the voodoo of improvisation and more in the payoff guaranteed by musicians who can tear up the same charts night after night.

Here there's a slightly warmer feeling. More central, tweaked vocals add a new dimension to the "hard beats + bittersweet melodies" pattern of the past; songs like the gorgeous, ice-melting "Zoetrope" glide along on simple celestial glimmers without a single bass-line in sight.

Listeners willing to pull out a shovel and dig through the layers are bound to find something new each time they listen, but for most newbies, a simpler album would be a better starting point.

The bottom line is that some of the immediacy of her rockabilly jazz is lost once she goes for romance and seduction, but Mayhem is still a fresh, invigorating record that is worth picking up, no matter what your musical convictions are; it's that good.

Part of what makes Circa Waves so compelling is that they are able to match the sound of their influences while still believably making the results sound their own. They've grown into an assured rock entity, but they've retained their fundamental sense of working-class Liverpudlian blues.

All of this is familiar, so what counts on Prince of Tears is execution, and from top to bottom, it's one of his strongest albums, benefitting from his assurance and lack of nonsense.

Overall, Where the Action Is is another reliably interesting and well-written addition to the band's latter-day renewal.

Always a unique band, with these 13 experiments, No Age has created something puzzling, beautiful, and truly one-of-a-kind.

While The Supreme Balloon's nostalgic synthetic playground is a smaller statement than some of Matmos' other albums, it's still a strong one.

Wrecking Ball feels cumbersome and top heavy, Springsteen sacrificing impassioned rage in favor of explaining his intentions too clearly.

Slow-moving and thoughtful, I Was Born Swimming thrives on its central idea of rootlessness, roving through moments of heartache, joy, wistfulness, and the myriad pangs of melancholy that accompany personal growth. Brimming with personal observations and subtly dynamic performances, Williams offers a strong debut.

She hasn't yet released one that's consistently exciting and satisfying from beginning to end, though there's more than enough here to make this worth a listen and to suggest that Deradoorian could have more interesting things up her sleeve for her next solo effort.

From nearly anyone else, The True False Identity would be a striking and adventurous work, but given Burnett's body of work, there's no arguing he can do better.

The Way of the World is not a comeback album; Henry had a nagging suspicion that Allison might have something new to say and Allison obliged. In the process they created a gem of an album that proves the pianist and songwriter still has many tricks up his elegantly tailored, eternally hip sleeve.

The whole feeling of The Shadow Gallery is something that is pretty familiar on the one hand, yet polished and assembled into something strong on its own, surprisingly alive and distinct from the get-go.

Even though some of the tracks are a bit slower and obviously produced while Thomas was ill and bed-ridden, they don't seem too sluggish or lazy for their own good. An easy success.

These songs may sound fun, upbeat, and lovelorn, but there's a dour and utterly realistic undercurrent that makes Cape God Allie X's most relatable and human effort to date.

Four years later, the follow-up, Monsters, picks up where that album left off, submitting an unpredictable sequence of 13 tracks injected with elements of cabaret, hip-hop, indie electronic, modern pop, and more.

They haven't stopped being unpredictable and confounding, and they're even exploring deeper emotional territory than before, yet their work becomes more cohesive the more one becomes familiar with it.

Like the first Georgia album, Seeking Thrills is a sophisticated, emotionally complex pop effort that seems to encapsulate the London native's life experiences to date.