A fluid continuation of 2018's appropriately titled No Sounds Are Out of Bounds.

Romanticize the Dive is yet another great Metric album, another stunning showcase of Haines' second-to-none vocals, and an example of how if a band plays with emotional and sonic imagination, indie rock doesn't have to sound overcooked and insipid when it is blown up to twice its size.

This is an album for Sunday afternoons, for fans of Frank Sinatra and Aaron Copeland, for sophisticates who want music to soothe their minds rather than demand their full attentions.

With its more considered, balanced approach, Surrender to the Fantasy feels more like a complete album than Balf Quarry's collection of moments did. It may take a few more listens to surrender to its fever dreams, but it's well worth the effort.

Lacking the intensity of her main catalog, Great Thunder plays out more like an addendum that an essential Waxahatchee recording, but the songs are still worth discovery.

For Interpol, embracing their veteran status doesn't mean a slide into complacency; if anything, it's the opposite. Marauder doesn't need to be qualified in terms of the band's former successes--on its own terms, it's one of the richest albums of Interpol's career.

As part of the Bees, Fletcher and Parkin helped make a lot of really good songs and albums. On their own, they went right ahead and topped their old band's catalog on their very first try.

On Madness as a whole, Poliça were evolving even when the world seemed to come to a standstill.

This is not an indispensable part of the Wu legacy, but it's a consistent, duly rugged, and satisfying one nonetheless.

Happy to You is an album that aims for commercial appeal, so there is a noticeable push and pull between prescribed pop and the eclectic electro that the team is known for, but the songs that land in the dead center have a nice even balance.

Neither particularly sad nor happy, Oh Man, Cover the Ground has a sort of ramshackle, neo-folk nonchalance that might not make much of an impact unless you're willing to slow down with it and enjoy it for the contemplative mood piece it is.

Summers and Weikel's talent and craft are all over The Helio Sequence, but this music is more than a bit short on inspiration, and the finished product sounds less like music they had a passion to create than something they were put up to--which is just what they tell us it is.

Daylight works best when Potter is steering the ship. Even with the considerable and seasoned talents of Valentine, Nocturnals alum Benny Yurco, and keyboardists Larry Goldings and Benmont Tench behind her, Potter commands the room.

Their darkest and most complex work yet, In the Pit of the Stomach unleashes We Were Promised Jetpacks' full fury with impressive results.

Just about any of the album's selections would have fit perfectly on a vintage 120 Minutes episode.

Blurry Blue Mountain is an album full of heart, soul, and wit, and this music confirms that no one does quite what Howe Gelb can do with such remarkably innate grace and feel; Gelb's songs find pretty remarkable things in the odd details of simple lives, and there some very real magic to be found in the elegant force of Blurry Blue Mountain.

Good fun for confirmed followers, and not a bad sampler for those needing a taste of Thee Oh Sees' special brew.

On Neuroplasticity, her ear-popping sophomore long-player, she takes the "doom soul" architecture to an exciting new level, pumping it full of nervy post-rock and no wave, resulting in something that sounds akin to Santigold, St. Vincent, TV on the Radio, Laura Mvula, and Macy Gray at their most despondent.

It's clear that Kath and Glass are already looking for more ways to expand on this familiar-sounding, edgy, innocent, menacing, bold, nuanced, and altogether striking debut.

Coldplay manages to grow even bigger with Everyday Life, absorbing flavors from across the globe with their most indulgent and, perhaps, poignant album yet.

The album includes a handful of well-placed and effectual guest contributors, including Bilal, Dwele, Lily Allen, Common's dad, and the one and only Primo. Still, it's a shade less satisfying than "Be."

Best summed up as a deranged Mardi Gras (the cover art is perfect), it's a strange little album, and surprising that something so alienating and overwhelming could also be so utterly listenable.

Paradoxical as it may seem, the more structured version of the band that Do Whatever You Want All the Time presents just may be more exciting, and offer more potential, than what Ponytail were doing before.

2011's Ninth was the leanest and most immediate collection of new material from Peter Murphy to arrive since the late '90s, and Lion, his tenth long-player, while a much different animal (pun intended) sonically, goes for the jugular in a similar fashion.

The strength of the songs and the powerful energy with which the duo deliver them help them escape any charges of ripping off the past.

It's a good thing she dug through her back pages and finished these songs, as she's wound up with one of her strongest albums.

All the performances on Rule 62 are delivered with a casual assurance that gives the record a warm feel that, when combined with sturdy songs from a variety of styles, gives the record the feeling of an old favorite; it feels like a record that you've lived with for years, in the best possible sense.

Accessible and friendly yet highly profound, Vision Songs is a truly uncommon work, and easily one of Laraaji's best.