The lyrics are generally focused around breakups, loss, and loneliness, and while those subjects are well-trod territory, Redway sings them with conviction, and his passionate vocals complement the tracks nicely.

Keith Troup, who was slain in 2015 and gets a moving tribute in the mixtape's highlight "King TROUP." The rest of the best comes from the empowering music that reflects the mixtape's title.

Yes, I'm a Witch Too may be somewhat uneven, but its wildly different tracks reaffirm that Ono's music contains multitudes.

Maybe his previous effort, 2013's I Am, flowed better and came with more of a sense of purpose, but this loose LP is still well above satisfying and features highlights that stand with the man's best.

It's the sound of a great band evolving with the times, even as those times try their soul and conscience.

How to Dance is a quietly remarkable work from a group that can make modesty and excellence coexist.

Moomin is not making house for dancefloors; A Minor Thought aims for the sunrise, the morning after, the calm days devoid of storms.

Begin resonates most when Hervey and Goodman are left to themselves.

An excellent debut that flows perfectly and offers something new with every return.

Still a teenager at the time of the album's release, Aurora proves to be an already skilled fashioner of dynamic, affecting pop.

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.

It all makes for a heartfelt, satisfying whole that reaffirms Lust for Youth as one of the few bands reinterpreting the '80s that can rival and surpass its influences as well as its contemporaries.

Psychopomp is an impressive work by an artist well worth watching in the future.

As its title suggests, Welcome the Worms is a portrait of embracing life's changes and challenges and growing stronger in the process.

Silicon Tare is an exciting warm-up for the epic conclusion to the Com Truise story.

A few adornments like horns, cello, and piano add additional color to some of the tracks, but by and large, Bent Shapes are a ripping guitar band with pop smarts and punk sensibility.

However they adapt, it's always on their own terms, and #N/A is some of their most radical music yet.

On an album that, from a musical perspective, seems incongruously loaded with self-doubt ("I'm 20, washed up already," "I don't know what I'm cut out for") the material is consistently hooky, endearing, elegant, and uncommonly candid.

As it stands, Metal Resistance is still worth hearing, if only for the half of the record that captures the insanely silly balancing act that their debut managed so well.

This combining of the human-organic and the quirky-mechanical not only rewards repeat listens, but ultimately fascinates with warm alienation.

Ultimately, Everything You've Come to Expect plays like a west coast film noir fever dream, scored by Ennio Morricone, with Kane and Turner the doomed protagonists, chasing icy blondes and lollipop Lolitas down their own debauched Hitchcock-ian spiral.

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.

As spare and gently satisfying as a warm spring afternoon, Upland Stories is a reminder that the brilliance of Gone Away Backward was no fluke, and that in his mid-fifties, Robbie Fulks is only getting better, both as a songwriter and as a recording artist. Highly recommended.

Changes shows Bradley still has plenty of new ground to explore at the age of 68.

Cheap Trick can still make a solid and entertaining hard rock record. If that doesn't sound like much, compare Bang, Zoom, Crazy... Hello with the current work of their late-'70s peers and you'll see what a fine surprise that is.

Azel is essential, not just for Bombino's growing legion of fans or even those of music from the Sahara region. It is a remarkable example of 21st century popular music.

At their best, Black Mountain approach '70s rock with a 21st century mindset, and that's the sort of sound and feel that make IV so effective.

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.