Go Tell Fire to the Mountain is surprisingly just a little too ordinary to be considered the groundbreaker many anticipated.

Human the Death Dance may be his most personal effort, but it's also an incredibly well-built full-length -- even when it borrows from a handful of genres -- and it's arguably his best lyrical effort, undoubtedly his best production-wise.

White Crosses is a big-sounding album with a blue-collar soul, but though the guitars may aim for the rafters alongside lofty, singalong choruses, the songwriting ultimately comes off safer and more commonplace than anything they've done yet.

Mysterious and subtly beguiling, Canta Lechuza begs to be listened to in the condition in which it was made: solitude.

The results are impressive standard-bearers for dancehall, displaying the duo's ample facility for floating the type of productions that have made dancehall the most experimental and extreme type of commercial dance music since it dawned in the mid-'80s.

Happiness in Magazines feels like Coxon's first true solo album -- it's the first to present a complex, robust portrait of him as an artist, and the first that holds its own next to what he accomplished in Blur.

Blasts of feedback and other dissonant elements crop up at points, but otherwise this is an album of focused calm in both singing and playing, a vision of concern and empathy amid unease.

As The Chaos teeters between slick professionalism and rampant expression, it still sounds like the Futureheads are having more fun here than they have in quite some time.

Serotonin may offer less immediate pleasures than Twenty One, but it promises to reward repeated listening.

Water on Mars is unexpectedly hooky, taking just enough from the catchy '90s alterna-pop it borrows from to root the songs in the listener's mind, but offering enough of Polizze's own voice to keep it from being a mere throwback.

It's as if this is a needy mixtape, but that minor complaint aside, Free Will finds Freeway's great mix of cold and clever on the upswing, and packaged in a near perfect blend of old and new beats.

On average, it's not one of Son Lux's catchier albums, but it is spellbinding, strange, and moving, and still as far away from expectations for a piano, guitar, and drums trio as any in existence.

Every bit as refreshing and even more insightful than her debut, Norwegian pop star Sigrid delivers another near-flawless effort with her sophomore album, How to Let Go.

Despite Tomboy's significant changes, it feels less like a radical shift than a subtle progression; while it may not be quite as dazzling as Person Pitch, it should still please fans of that album and Lennox's many other outlets.

Taken together, it's a sequestered, rainy Sunday type of album with flawed, world-weary vocal performances that are laid bare by such impressionistic accompaniment.

I'll Follow You is a record that shows off the diversity of Oakley Hall's palette, country and folk and rock, equally important and equally imposed, and because of this, something worth listening to.

Perfect Pussy choose to shroud the clarity of their words in thick sheets of noise makes for a fascinating, if frustrating contrast; the only way to fully absorb their music is to put in the time with repeated listening and reading the lyrics. Fortunately, that's not a problem with an album as thought-provoking as Say Yes to Love.

These are authentic punk anthems, played by a band who actually knows how to play their instruments now.

Onelinedrawing, in general, may be a bit too saccharine for some listeners, and it lacks the classic power pop levity of a Brendan Benson or Weakerthans, but The Volunteers is a wildly inventive record that can stand tall beside earnest peers like Saves the Day's In Reverie.

The band's poppiest and most upbeat and musical record yet.

Their third timeless gem...

Basically, Woods have put it all together on Sun and Shade, matching inspiration with performance and crafting their best record yet, one that will stand with the great folk-psych albums of the past 40 years, from the Notorious Byrd Brothers to the Rain Parade's Emergency Third Rail Power Trip to Either/Or to now.

An album that cooks up a dreamy meld of contemporary indie-New York atmosphere and a trippy past seemingly frozen in time.

2019's Age Hasn't Spoiled You introduces a multitude of influences and sounds into Greys' palette and makes for a challenging but overall worthwhile listen.

Valiantly shaped into this 18-track hour-long set, it's unavoidably a bit of a pile-up, a nonstop procession of rappers and singers fighting for space and pushing one another with verses and hooks that occasionally relate to one another. Cole makes an effort to tie it together.

The album's anxiety and melancholic mindset never abate, right up to and including resigned closer "Fishes," an explicitly metaphorical reference to mounted trophies. It makes for a satisfying, if unsatisfied, follow-up that both follows the appealing formula of their debut while letting loose on the full-band tracks.

It makes for a diverse album within the tight framework that Lytle operates in, and even if it could have been a solo album just as easily, it works as a Grandaddy album too. If not quite as compelling overall as their best work like Sophtware Slump, it's a worthy successor to the very good Just Like the Fambly Cat and a welcome return for the "band."

Angels of Destruction! is an album that brims with joy, rage, and adventure, and deserves your attention.