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

The best moments are bathed in a warm radiance that fosters a comforting, uplifting mood.... However, the content isn't exclusively cerebral, uplifting, and/or surreal.

Nada Surf show they can play well with others on If I Had a Hi-Fi, though they'd do well to apply the lessons learned here to some new tunes for their next album.

Devout will undoubtedly resonate with former ravers who have now grown up, started families, and face problems dealing with relationships and parenthood (and whose taste in music has drifted closer to introspective pop and R&B rather than dance music). For other listeners, however, the sentiments might fall flat, and the album might be too sparse, sluggish, and sad to really latch onto.

It's a sound that demands your surrender, which you don't mind giving in to.

Like Homesongs, this record reveals more with each listen, burrowing its way into your consciousness and becoming a welcome part of your musical DNA.

Even if it's not quite as fully realized as some of their other albums, King's Mouth boasts enough beautiful music and striking imagery to make it well worth hearing, especially for Flaming Lips fans who miss the music they made in the 2000s.

The downside of Reprieve is that it isn't as musically arresting as earlier albums like Out of Range, and DiFranco, on a song like "Millennium Theater," can be rather obvious.

The duo’s effective use of reverbs and filters works wonders here, transporting the listener through an array of the same kinds of sounds, but they're treated whole-heartedly and differently with each moment.

The key to 3 is that the group might be less noisy, but ultimately they're no less weird, and if the album sounds like they're still making sense of their new configuration, their eyes are still on the buzzy prize, and this is a great, challenging, off-center rock album.

With Planet's Mad, Baauer charts a journey that elicits emotion through physical response, channeling rage and frustration through his songs in a cathartic release that plays like musical therapy for a galaxy's worth of ills.

Black Forest is a little less scuzzy and raw than the band's earlier work, but it passes the test: the later at night and the louder you play it, the better it sounds.

While Versions may be too tasteful-seeming for die-hard fans of early Zola Jesus, the album's undeniable beauty reveals another accomplished facet to Danilova's music.

Volume 14 of the Kompakt label's Pop Ambient series contains a surprising amount of material that is aggressive, almost piercing--certainly less lulling--compared to gentler series highlights like Donnacha Costello's "Dry Retch" and Triola's "AG Penthouse."

A tighter, cleaner band than the scruffy renegades of the '80s, but still the same band, which is evident here in ways it never was on the perfectly fine R.E.M. Live. That was a production. This is rock & roll.

This new direction is one that suits the band well, and although it may seem like they've put their bar rock days in their rear view mirror, it's seems pretty clear that the band is heading toward a big, arena rock future.

Though it blisters with intensity, it boasts well-written songs illustrated by canny production, played with confident recklessness and vulnerable honesty.

It's challenging and confrontational, but it's still engaging and relatable. Bracing and personal, What One Becomes is some of Turner's most intense work yet.

It's mature music played with the energy and passion of youth, full of experience and tenderness but never complacent. It's no wonder that the band have inspired so much devotion since they have never lost the inspiration behind their music and Crybaby is one more shining example of that.

Expansive and enveloping at the same time, this set of songs puts Warpaint's past and future in perfect balance--one of the best things a band can do on their second album.

Approach Rap Album One is an acquired taste that's worth acquiring because it isn't for everyone, but it's excellent.

Neither as endearingly fragile nor as transcendently healing as his previous two volumes, Abundance is nonetheless a fulfilling and soulful work, worthy of the Red River Dialect canon.

Add the Night Marchers to Speedo's roll of triumphs and feel free to rank See You in Magic as one of his finest moments. It's really that good.

This is the kind of album that drifts by like a lazy white cloud on a beautiful summer day, leaving only positive feelings in its wake.

These songs never hit their mark as a result, aiming for the relaxed pitch of an afternoon siesta and often sounding closer to a snoozefest instead.

While it may lack the dark, muscular, apocalyptic machismo that permeates the majority of metal's subgenres, it's more often than not a hell of a lot of fun.

Highlights include the folky "Sneak Out the Back Door," the jaunty, joyous-sounding, and lovely "Blind Eye" (which sounds just a little bit like vintage Donovan without the hippy-dippy lyrics), and the oddly hopeful (for Sexsmith, anyway) "Life After a Broken Heart," although the whole album feels like a uniform meditation on aging, mortality, and the affirming wish to go forward in spite of what's been.

The quality of the record is still on par with the first part, so anyone who enjoyed the previous record will certainly find more to love here.