Think of it as a conceptual street release made for Styles and/or Scram fans and Float succeeds splendidly.

While Half of Where You Live is a slightly more streamlined electronic album than his debut, it still manages to be a transporting work that is easy to enjoy as a hip, calming background mood piece, and stands as a nice, fitting addition to the Ghostly International catalog.

This kind of loopy, poetic imagery is carried throughout all of Planta, and helps make it one of CSS's most creatively fertile and enjoyable pop organisms to date.

The more the band embraces Pythons' slickness, the better it sounds; it's a pleasant, ingratiating set of songs that don't aim to be anything more than that.

Both [Tape One and Tape Two] are uniquely imaginative and scattered, and with this one, it becomes wholly apparent that Young Fathers have carved out their own distinct style.

The debut is the one with the hits that draw you into her dark mood, while DVA is the sludgy one you sink into and wallow in for a while.

If you're a free agent in the market for a band that delivers some serious melodic death metal without feeling the need to take itself too seriously, Halo of Blood is an album that you should definitely check out.

Although not as strong or as memorable as his first effort, this album will grow on the listener, and its melodies and ideas are intriguing enough to merit repeat listens.

Most impressive about The Wack Album is that The Lonely Island manage to get their jokes across without feeling like they're making fun of rap which, given how much material they'd have by making fun of themselves, would really be a last resort.

Whenever they seem affected it's when they try to be a little bit too pure in their bluegrass ("Hermitage Hostep"), but when they incorporate bits of rock & roll and gospel, or when they cut loose ("People Been Talking"), or lay back ("Just Like You"), they're a compelling, muscled Americana outfit, given just the right showcase here by Benson.

Always moving at full speed, YPLL creates a sense of anxious tension that, were it a longer album, would be exhausting.

Black Dog Barking is like a safe haven for hard rock purists, offering up a safe place for people to wear jean jackets and pump their fists without irony or judgment.

At its best, Danish & Blue finds Amos and Hall taking their sound in playful, unexpected directions with growing finesse.

While the most aggressive electronic moments are also the weakest songs here, the merging of whispery pop and fully engaged electronic production is a huge success for a band whose output has been sleepier in the past, and points toward even more exciting developments in the future.

Best to ignore these two misfits [ballads "Sob Story" and "In a Bad Way"] and think of all the finely played and sung modern guitar pop that surrounds them. Because that stuff will make fans of Prefab Sprout, Orange Juice, and all the bands who have stolen from them through the years very happy and satisfied indeed.

The songs on This River are tighter and more deftly written than on previous offerings, but the more immediate, in-the-moment-of-creation production and incendiary performances keep things from getting slick.

Without the hooks or the lofty lyrics, the album seems made exclusively for Miller's fans or those who right-click indie rap mixtape links on the daily. Those audiences should find it an interesting trip, admirable artistic growth, and an attractive, entertaining step in the right direction. Others will likely be flummoxed.

Norrvide strips the project to its barest essentials and allows listeners a chance to really hear the perpetually uneasy emotions at its core.

Yessir Whatever suffers from being disjointed and a bit too much like a sketchbook, but the album is pulled together from 12 years of archival recordings, some of them previously released on rare comps and out-of-print vinyl.

The album quickly stabilizes with satisfying, if mostly unexciting, material. Other than the lack of European dance-pop, the main difference between this set and Here I Am is the presence of Rowland's most revealing and powerful song, "Dirty Laundry."

Three albums in and Lemuria are starting to explore past the point where their heroes left off, and while it's not quite uncharted territory, it's certainly moving in the right direction.

While even those fond of the '90s revival may be close to overdosing on nostalgia, Empire offers a fresh enough take to make it worth a listen.

As a whole, this album might be less coherent than Native To, where Is Tropical spent their time delivering variations on one sound. Track for track, however, I'm Leaving is the more interesting and promising set of songs.

Its spacy, half-dreaming vibes remain close enough to Earth to keep things accessible and not swamped in reverb but still pretty far out by merit of the band's own inventiveness.

Even if it's not as striking or emotionally resonant as Duntisbourne Abbots Soulmate Devastation Technique, it's certainly an engaging, welcome return.

There are enough good songs and enough energy on hand to make In a Warzone a solid release; less interesting than previous efforts, but still fun in an aggressive way.

While other acts work diligently to re-create the sounds on All Hell Breaks Loose, the Black Star Riders offer them naturally with creativity, heft, and inspiration.

Though the album's openness does require some amount of patience on the listener's part, it's a beautifully crafted album that expands upon the ground laid by the recent experiments of Earth, and will provide anyone willing to explore the depths of tracks like "Walkin' with a Woman" or "The Shroud" with a rewardingly trippy listening experience.