It's a little much to call it Steely Dan in terms of contrast but there's something not too far removed going on.

Ruler of the Night works like a song cycle studying the oddly aching beauty of misery.

He'd rather lay back and sings songs of love won and lost, and even if that means Love Is Everything isn't necessarily ambitious, it is remarkably satisfying.

Built on Glass isn't so much limited as it is a wonderful mood piece, so think calm and cool with purpose, and then get hip to the restrained and resonating sound of Faker.

Here her vocals are resoundingly clear, and her lyrics are sharp and direct, sometimes to a startling degree.

Articulation displays West's skills at letting human emotions guide his technical explorations, matching intuition with precision to produce gripping, resonant music.

There Is No End delivers more evidence of that. Taeger and Taurelle fully comprehended Allen's musicality and embraced its kaleidoscopic dimensions. As such, it is rendered free of the misdirected, sometimes jagged and piecemeal conceits that litter other artists' posthumous offerings.

Consistently theatrical but intimate, the song increases in volume, adding components like strummed guitar and active tom drums as Savage's plea -- "Stop haunting me/Please/Just leave me be" -- gets more insistent. While the rest of in|FLUX maintains that song's often captivating sense of brewing urgency and poignancy, arrangements alter as it passes through even sparser balladry ("I Can Hear the Birds Now," "Hungry"), skittering, full-kit indie rock ("Pavlov's Dog," "Crown Shyness"), the eventual acoustic cacophony of "Say My Name," and an art-funky title track.

End incorporates a lot of the touches and techniques that made The Wilderness stand out in the group's discography, from rippling electronics to post-minimalist repetition.

It's ["Vacancy"] an ace slow jam, as are many of the equally flavorful and coquettish songs that surround it -- the slinking "Mobbin in DC," the doo-wop-tinged "Under the Moon," the weightless "Dreaming," and so forth.

It's a special work, one that might require several thorough spins -- across a long stretch of time -- to be fully appreciated by those who love Cole's hit singles.

Overall, there is a fine balance of sounds, feelings, and textures on the album, enough to make Hospitality both a vindication of promise already displayed by the band and hope for further greatness.

We Are Nots may not be the last word in the phantom subgenre of weird punk, but if you want to know how to make your punk weird in the right way, you would be well advised to give Nots your attention.

The impressive thing about Strange Little Birds is how it feels simultaneously familiar and fresh, a record that echoes the past without being trapped by it.

On Coming Apart, she comes into herself.

Moving gracefully between stretched-out and melancholic space rock sprawl and frothing explosions of psych rock power, Bo Ningen display complete control of their seemingly unhinged muse, creating an always colorful album that travels a spectrum of sounds based on other planets as well as the depths of the band's collective nervous system.

Simple Minds have finally come to terms with all the fragments of their musical identity, focused them in a complementary manner, and delivered a whole with an unapologetic pop savvy and flair. It is easily their most consistent offering since Once Upon a Time.

There's an organic, painted desert beauty to the album, and its drifting moods have an unhurried feel that may be due to its lengthy creation (the trio carved out time to record it over the course of nearly five years).

These are chilling sounds from a dark place that, nonetheless, shelter the listener. Between the European and stateside physical releases of the album, Cooper passed away. Knowledge of that could only intensify the album's most passive spins.

There are moments of impossible beauty (“Owl of Love”), dense, but structured dissonance (“Adages of Cleansing”), and of course, whimsical, classically minded, indie folk (“On the Edge”), that when consumed all together, feel like a perfectly executed mash-up of Aaron Copland, Dead Can Dance, Bill Frisell, and Shirley Collins.

In these, guitarist Brett Gurewitz's songwriting seems more fitting for the Gin Blossoms or Lemonheads than a rapid-fire punk group, but it's a change.

Bison B.C.'s creations for Lovelessness largely succeed on the strength of those imaginative arrangements and by proving themselves improbably infectious despite their brute façade.

Partie Traumatic is a very good debut that manages to earn a huge chunk of the hype that was thrown willy-nilly in the band's direction.

When the results are as fun as this album is at its best, it's hard to slam them too much for being derivative; better just to enjoy Friendly Fires as fleeting fun.

Remy's greatest gift has always been her unique ability to dismantle and reassemble the pop form in a single song, and Gem is the most vivid document of that gift yet.

As the title implies, it may take the 1975 a while to get to the point on I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It, but when they do, the results are revelatory.

Bliss Release is perhaps a little too derivative to justify the classic status it's been afforded in the band's homeland, but it's still a delightfully charming debut, made even more impressive by their hastily assembled beginnings.

The sonic growth and confidence White Rabbits display here prove they're moving in the right direction.