Production-wise, this roams around with some abrupt switches, supplying slow-motion and spaced-out grooves, low-profile boom-bap, and wayward guitar scrawl with highest frequency. Hynes' downcast disposition and the return of several Negro Swan collaborators -- Lu, Isiah, Pat, and Porches -- provide the continuity.

The warm, fuzzy melodies take hold almost instantly.

Her uncommon, even singular approach to singing, recording, and writing, remains fully in evidence here.

Accessible and elusive at the same time, The Floodlight Collective is an addictive debut.

Much like his longtime collaborator Four Tet, Snaith has fully entered his festival dance era, making some of his most outwardly expressive music by injecting his own personality and emotions into superbly crafted club tracks.

It's definitely a change from Clinic's brash art-punk and wicked folk, but it's one the band had to make to keep their music vital. Fortunately, Bubblegum's sound is so inviting that it sticks.

The level of sophistication--arrangements with subtle details, the frequency of slow tempos, a couple well-trodden motifs--lends itself to a couple tepid tunes, but Ne-Yo remains a premier source of R&B that is both traditional and contemporary.

He has a true knack for rhyming about the dangers of the West Coast.

An album that's already brimming over with personality thanks to the chemistry between the two rhyme stylists and their ability to bring out the most inventive sides of one another.

When taken together, the tracks on III provide incontrovertible evidence that 15 years after their career ambitions went up the chimney, Death continued not only to make music, but to evolve and grow as a band. Even though this music is less intense, it retains the trio's trademark sound throughout.

While the EP is a little more straightforward than Do It Again, it's a fun, spontaneous portrait of a moment made all the more poignant due to Falk's death from pancreatic cancer in 2014.

With its lavish arrangement and Williams' gritty performance, the band find new ways of celebrating one of the great underappreciated artists of the '60s and '70s--something that's true of Bobbie Gentry's the Delta Sweete Revisited as a whole.

Ultimately, Drastic Measures is more distinctive and memorable for its unique textures than things like melodies and grooves, although its more organized songs forms give them something tangible to adhere to.

Okie is a laid-back collection of original songs that are more poignant and more nakedly autobiographical and topical than anything he's previously issued.

These tight, explosive songs combine a refined poetic lyric approach in songwriting and arranging that's every bit as urgent as the album's two predecessors, yet it's so emotionally charged, it leaves the listener breathless and exhausted, as well as compelled and excited.

Bronson's imagination, vivid as ever, makes up for the decreasing variation in his microphone approach.

Still Sucks stands as a fun and highly enjoyable addition to the band's discography, delivering exactly what a Limp Bizkit listener wants to hear.

Pinegrove has yet to deliver a clunker, and 11:11 should be a welcome addition to any fan's regular rotation, in addition to offering a few gems for anyone partial to a tuneful, earnest protest song.

Time will tell if Lavers is snatched up for work in scoring or if he will develop his songwriting on future albums, but based on this under-30-minute taste, his handiwork seems destined for continuation.

It's telling that it takes cameos from a pair of rock superstars -- John Mayer helps sculpt "Better Days," Bruce Springsteen haunts the corridors of "Sandpaper" -- to help pull Bryan's aspirations into focus: where the rest of the record seems caught in its own head, these tunes have a forward motion that makes the rest of The Great American Bar Scene seem relatively bereft of musical imagination.

While this experimentation is sometimes seamless, sometimes fun, and sometimes distracting, Hawke's distinctive, vulnerable rasp, wispy melodies, and perceptive lyrics keep the album on track.

Wherever this door does go, it is a place that calls for boat shoes, a relaxed attitude, and a returning fan's patience.

Simian Mobile Disco's debut is a dance record that shows a surprising amount of subtlety and flair.

For Now I Am Winter, effortlessly incorporates elements of pop into the budding singer/songwriter's already evocative blend of wistful neo-classicism and icy electronica.

As with the other Fiepblatter releases, Miscontinuum Album may not be for more casual fans of St. Werner's work, but those willing to dive into the sounds and ideas he leaves on the fringes of his more widely released music should enjoy this journey.

The Wink may be less readily accessible than the music Presley was making as White Fence, but it's definitely as good.

Anyone who can craft a record that sounds and feels as good as Get Guilty deserves to keep on making records forever.

Belong manages to strike a nice balance between San Fermin's musical theater/experimental rock predilections and their emerging pop ambitions, and while there's still a lot to chew on, the taste has grown significantly sweeter.