The album seems pleasingly scattershot as it bounces from guest to guest.

The album's laid-back, off-the-cuff experiments are just enjoyable instead of brilliant, but they nevertheless display the undeniable creative chemistry that the trio shares.

Rarely, if ever, have synths sounded so truly urbane, and the cumulative effect is postmodernist pop music that sounds simultaneously cutting edge, retro, and utterly timeless.

It is one of his best in years and is filled with witty, thoughtful songwriting and polished instrumentation that works together to make a seamless album, engaging the listener.

It feels utterly natural, a continuation of the emotional navigations she's spent her career documenting with characteristic insight and sensitivity.

A record that stands out as a career highlight in an already very impressive and inspiring career.

DZ Deathrays' roaring rawness and furied energy create a sense of momentum that makes the sound their own.

While they need to focus more, there's enough potential here to ensure that there's plenty to choose from.

This is a solid debut, made by a band that arrives fully formed and has a great future.

Key track "Rhythm Is All You Dance" is the zeitgeist with a thumb piano plus a keyboard line that's kin to the Ohio Players' "Funky Worm," but this excellent debut is a journey worth taking from beginning to end, and often.

Midnight is an impressive debut, one that's good enough to kind of make one a little angry that Lissvik didn't get around to it sooner.

While by no means a replacement for the originals, this is a fine collection highlighting several of Funkadelic's many aspects, serving as a party celebrating P-Funk and the Detroit music scene.

Murderburgers shows that King Khan is growing as a songwriter and a vocalist, and he's a great collaborator, as he and the Gris Gris bring out the best in one another in the studio; hopefully the next bunch of friends he works with will work as hard and as well for him.

PITH is a thrilling leap forward for the band that sees them hitting all the marks they hit so well on their debut and then leaping past them into new dimensions of sound and energy.

Desert Window is her first full-length, and it's a more fleshed-out expansion of her sound, incorporating more acoustic instrumentation as well as more complex choral harmonies.

While the album is far from rote, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will certainly feels familiar; it may not be as immediately impressive as some Mogwai albums, but its back-to-basics approach makes it another fine addition to their body of work.

Theatrical and heartfelt, Celebration is a fully realized debut that promises even better things to come.

Possibly too understated, Woolhouse could benefit from more pronounced changes and variations in his writing, but taken as a whole Songs is a warmly rendered mood piece full of layers and quiet yearning.

Though more than a few of Wilkinson's contemporaries are working in similar territory, A Mineral Love goes beyond mere re-creation. For Bibio, these are the good old days.

Interiors is not only a quality record in isolation, it also encourages a reappraisal of their two previous efforts and the band's wider significance. Nevertheless, it's not an exercise in rehashing old glories, either.

Released six years to the day after Phife's death, Forever serves as both the final realization of his artistic statement, and a loving tribute to the memory of the artist himself.

Space Gun doesn't quite match that underappreciated masterpiece, it comes close enough to confirm that Guided by Voices are quietly in the midst of a late-career renaissance.

Emotionally powerful, darkly beautiful, and troubling yet genuine at the same time, Don't Be a Stranger is the sort of album only Mark Eitzel could make, and if it's not always as strong and as focused as one might hope, it honors his muse better than he has on his own in some time, and shows this master songwriter still has some worthy stories left to tell.

Months after scores of music fans went bananas over an opportunistic resuscitation of a deceased peer's studio scraps, Brandy, a superior vocalist ignored or disregarded by many of those same people, released one of her best albums.

As much as Mogwai are known for defining post-rock's sound, they're just as good at defying expectations, which Les Revenants does with an intimate, low-key brilliance.

Ultimately, Las Que No Iban a Salir is more a mixtape than a proper third album; and as such, it works. It offers snippets and full-scale portraits of Bad Bunny in process, all the while showcasing his curatorial skills and providing thoroughly enjoyable performances.

Whitechapel is a band that is definitely worth checking out, and with its expansive and devastating sound, this self-titled album makes for a great jumping-off point.

All four members of this indie supergroup make Overseas unique, but at its highest heights, the Kadane brothers make the band great.