This band hasn't sounded this enjoyable since the mid-'90s, and if it isn't a full-scale return to form, it shows they aren't a spent force.

Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die! paints an exciting picture of Panic! At the Disco's genre-bending career trajectory to come.

Despite self-imposed strategic boundaries, The Rest Is Scenery is a remarkably free and unfettered album. Most artists couldn't conceive of such a thing, let alone pull it off; Youngs does it in spades.

The set's predominantly reflective mood and nuanced composites of jazz, soul, and hip-hop make it sound like an extension of Glasper's Black Radio Recovered, Everything's Beautiful, and reinterpretation of Kendrick Lamar's "I'm Dying of Thirst" as much as the trio's meetings on Black America Again.

There's still plenty of mileage left on their sound, and as long as they keep making records as sweet, cozy, and melodically engaging as Truth or Consequences, Yumi Zouma can keep going for quite a while with minimal depreciation.

Noctourniquet highlights the more intellectual, esoteric sound the band has championed over the years, but even though the album soars creatively, it feels emotionally restrained.

Idlewild is certainly a spectacle, and an occasionally entertaining and enlightening one at that, but it translates into an elaborate diversion when compared to what this duo has done in the past.

This album works both as music that can take you over and take you up on a cloud of pop, and as mood-enhancing tunes that can fill up the empty room with happy ambience. Either way, it's an enjoyable, sometimes beautiful, album, one that Vetiver have been working toward since they began.

Three consecutive Timbaland productions, including one suited for a black college marching band and another that effectively pulls the romantically co-dependent heartstrings, enhance the album rather than make it more scattered.

Eno may be trading on his earlier developments in ambience, but Small Craft on a Milk Sea is a good and proper balance of curiosity and expression.

For the most part, Kimbra's invention is a marvel to behold, as her enchanting and swooping jazz-pop tones glide across a veritable feast of sounds

There are no outright clunkers in the mix, but a light trim would have further distilled the power of this excellent sophomore release.

"Black Holes and Revelations" may be a more commercial record, but The Resistance is Muse's most realized effort to date.

While their artistic risk-taking is commendable, unfortunately the same can't always be said for the results: Black Cherry sounds unbalanced, swinging between delicate, deceptively icy ballads and heavier, dance-inspired numbers without finding much of a happy medium between them.

At times, WWPJ do give into their dour side too much, and while there's no denying that their dynamic shifts and all-or-nothing climaxes pack a punch, songs such as 'This Is My House, This Is My Home' and 'It's Thunder and It's Lightning' get repetitive. Fortunately, as These Four Walls unfolds, WWPJ show that they can do more than just anthemic angst.

The only hint of intrigue comes 40-odd minutes into the record, when Youth takes up his mighty bass for "Chicago Dub," which briefly changes the pace for the better.

Throughout the album, he finds ways to expand on the intimacy he hinted at on The Inner Mansions, delivering one of Teen Daze's best balances of atmosphere and songwriting in the process.

It may be a side project but Dwyer really put all his formidable talents into Cold Hot Plumbs.

It may not be as riveting or intense, but it still has the unmistakable Burial sound and it's still unpredictable, so it's still well worth the listener's time.

Lupercalia's highly melodic but still resolutely exuberant nature indicates that Wolf's newfound positive outlook on life definitely seems to suit him.

Scope Neglect is a disorienting, sometimes deceptive work, but it's thrilling in the way it dismantles genre tropes.

The rest of the album is a little more stiff than it should have been, fault going to the antiseptic arrangements, rigid musicianship, and Johnson's wavering take on "Have Thine Own Way, Lord," which needs a lot more solemnity (or at least stability) to truly get its message across.

Prisoner remains one of the boldest statements of intent from a fledgling act this year, and while it will be a little too intense for some, it pinpoints the Jezabels as one of the bands to watch from Australia's thriving indie rock scene.

Burdon pours everything into this album, as if he realizes this is his last best shot to get the credit he's due. And, against all odds, he succeeds with this tough, flinty, proudly old-fashioned rock & roll album.

There are the purely lovely moments like "Midnight Glories" that help make Sumie a quietly compelling, inviting full-length introduction to an artist who can't help but bewitch listeners willing and able to embrace her stillness.

Dying Surfer Meets His Maker showcases All Them Witches in complete control of their songwriting, arranging, producing, and performing. Slow-burning albums that provide this much weight, creativity, surprise, and enduring pleasure are rare.

The Majestic Silver Strings is one of those rare "supergroup" projects that works--as much by its understatement as its savvy choice of material and excellent performances.

The changes are so minute and the record so unassuming and melody free that it is really hard to care about the band anymore.