Fortunately, it's a warm and fuzzy gloom that sounds just right all the time. You won't want to miss Secret Walls, another step in the band's progression.

Best of Crime Rock is one "greatest-hits" album that lives up to the billing, and this is the best recorded introduction to one of the most interesting bands on the garage punk underground.

What makes S&M2 so absorbing and entertaining is how all the musicians involved embrace both the ridiculousness and seriousness of their endeavor, creating a glorious overblown noise impressive in its ambition, heft and unspoken absurdity.

While '70s and early-'80s pop informs all of Music, there's still something contemporary and deeply sincere in Benny Sings' songs. He's a quirky indie rocker drawing upon his vinyl heroes for inspiration and reassurance.

Highlights include the Carly Rae Jepsen-esque, synth-washed jam "No Problem" (with Felix of Stray Kids) and the frantic sing-along anthem "POP!" Front-loaded with the immediate, pulse-pounding fare, IM NAYEON closes with a trio of sensual and smoothed-out tracks that would make early '90s R&B girl groups proud.

On Face Down in the Garden, they have reached peak vibe, and if it is their last album, as they have said, they exit at the top of their very specific, very Tennis game.

It can all be a bit much at times, but this all-in approach to creativity has been VanGaalen's M.O. from the start and his talent remains something to behold.

As good as The Runners Four was, Friend Opportunity just might be even better.

With such a resounding sadness, it's doubtful that this will be the album to pull in new listeners, but it's certainly his most mature record, and packs a hell of an emotional punch.

Even if Joli Mai's presentation isn't quite as dazzling, the undeniable quality of these tracks makes it a welcome companion piece for more than just completists.

Ghost Forests offers listeners an expansive offering of the duo's strengths in improvisation, songwriting, and interpretation. Yet, for its considerable imagination and creativity, there is also an elegant restraint that allows listeners access to an interior world of sound and poetry perhaps previously unimagined.

Overall, Not All Heroes advances Metro Boomin's technique, utilizing an Avengers-of-trap team to amplify the drama in his atmospherics and focus the hypnotic appeal of his sharp beat pops.

Moving toward more mainstream sounds makes this album some of Autre Ne Veut's most distinct and confident music yet.

Westerman creates music to think and daydream and plot adventures to. Arriving among a musical landscape of clean, but often vacuous bedroom pop, he has created something of lasting substance and clarity.

Molina has a consistent--if downcast--view of the world in his songs, and the canvas he uses to express it does so perfectly.

A rather inoffensive listening experience, a middle ground that Idles have mostly been able to avoid until now.

The album's soft-focus allows Blonde Redhead to explore its relatively newfound romanticism more deeply than before... but with less tension between the fragile and harsh aspects of the band's sound, its soft-focus occasionally drifts into lack of focus.

Few bands can get away with being in a holding pattern like Tindersticks.

Jerusalem is the work of a thinking troublemaker with a loving heart, and while more than a few people will be angered by some of his views, Earle asks too many important questions to ignore, and the album is a brave and thought-provoking work of political art.

Like both Radiohead and Foo Fighters, Cave In is a stylistic chameleon that rarely uses its freewheeling taste as a crutch to present self-indulgent material.

It ranks high among his finest albums.

Andrew W.K.'s debut found meaning in partying, but The Wolf sounds like a party about finding some meaning in life.

The 74-year-old singer/guitarist rocks out furiously for the better part of the set, evoking obvious predecessors such as Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker.

Brown turns the Versions material, drawing on both released and unreleased sections from the original sessions, into something closer to harsher rock at points, but on balance the various tracks turn into a series of tense counterpoints between loud and soft, always with an eye toward careful flow that transforms the material into slow evolutions.

All of it comes together for an album that's deep, attractive, and well-executed, but it's also incredibly wise.

Even if My Love Is Cool sacrifices some of Wolf Alice's earlier fury, the album is all the stronger for it.

Listen closely, it's evident that Star-Crossed is a quintessential divorce record--the story is laid out quite clearly in its 15 songs--but in a practical sense, the album delivers sophisticated mood music, providing a soothing soundtrack for all manners of quiet domestic activities.

Blue Mountain is very much an extension of his work with the Grateful Dead, particularly Workingman's Dead and American Beauty: he's tapping into legends, then spinning them for the present day.