It's still a label sampler at heart, so a pre-love of platinum gangsta music and that slick Maybach sound are still advised.

Nothing Was the Same doesn't show large amounts of growth, but the small changes to the sound and the slightly wider net his lyrics cast make it worthwhile.

While it's no shock that the bandmembers had an album like this in them after all this time, Saves the Day's effervescence makes for a pleasant surprise, giving listeners a brief escape from their day into a world filled with poppy hooks and sparkling melody.

Is Survived By features more of the Los Angeles hardcore outfit's furious, passionate, intensely personal sound.

While a few more songs on this level would have taken Hell Bent from good to great, the vibrancy Potty Mouth bring to angsty reflections like "Sleep Talk" and kiss-offs like "Shithead" (one of the few times the band actually sounds riot grrrl-ish) makes it the kind of album listeners can take to heart.

All People is about feeling good and hopeful. Split this collection of peace and sunshine down the middle for greatest effect.

There is no doubt that Scattergood is deeply connected to the journey that she voyages through on Arrows, and it's clear that only a small future refinement would result in more songs like the shimmering electro-pop of "Subsequently Lost."

There is a whiff of condescension to some of the blue-collar anthems, the air is often haughty ("The Night the Pugilist Learned How to Dance")--but this is Sting's tightest collection of songs in ages, and they all play off each other, adding up to a cohesive whole that is surely one of his best latter-day records.

When the Devil Wears Prada strays from the typical modern metal formula with progressive ideas, the results are almost always favorable, and 8:18 finds the sextet at their most provocative and heavy.

Mark Lanegan's deep, weathered voice is relatively (rightfully) unornamented and dissipates amid soft drones after "Here come the lonely night…can't escape my mind." It helps make Innocents Moby's most powerful work in several years.

Unapologetically sullen and raw, Girls Like Us is a strong debut from a band with a lot to offer.

While still plenty noisy and messy-headed, Sky Larkin sound their most organized on Motto, and the deeper focus they apply to their energetic sounds is what makes the end results work better than any of their previous albums.

The mood album implied by the title is really a mood EP waiting to be extracted, but approach it as a normal Kaskade effort with a bit more risk and a bit more richer music and the rewards will follow suit.

Reflektor is as fascinating as it is frustrating, an oddly compelling miasma of big pop moments and empty sonic vistas that offers up a (full-size) snapshot of a band at its commerical peak, trying to establish eye contact from atop a mountain.

In its best moments, Fuzz will have listeners forgetting Segall is part of the equation at all, the album's brooding heaviness more immediately moving than any of his distinctive sonic ticks.

Bangerz's take on R&B is most convincing when it's balanced with Cyrus' country and pop roots.

These are songs that build in slow, flowing layers held together by dusky, swirling keyboard parts and Boldt's low, everyman baritone vocals.

Another solid album.

K2O plays like an extended groove, and while the addition of guest percussionists makes it feel more like a band jam than a bedroom recording, the instrumentation never flares up enough to break the listener from a trance. Instead, the setting-sun artwork sums up the vibe for an album that Price himself elegantly describes as "fuzzy lullabies."

A sort of cosmic, high-def honky tonk that for the most part proves tasty, injecting some much needed brevity into windy frontman Eric Earley's colorful yet often perfunctory tales of sin and redemption.

In the end, Jackson's foray into bluegrass seems easy and natural, as if he'd been playing it all along.

Sleigh Bells' studies in contrasts aren't shocking anymore, but the fact that they sound more natural on Bitter Rivals makes this some of their most enjoyable music since Treats.

A self-titled EP in 2011 yielded three lengthy songs of the duo's wild combination of airy atmospheres and menacing fuzz, but debut full-length Psychic moves into more compositional territory, though it remains drifty and narcotic in ways similar to its predecessor.

Song for song, The Blow is arguably a more consistent set of songs than Paper Television was, but its aloof wit ultimately makes for slightly smaller pleasures than what came before it.

It gives old-schoolers a reason to dust off their jungle hoodies and drum'n'bass shoes, while the 2013 set get a bottom-heavy, funky, and passionate alternative to the current crop of bright EDM and light indie electronica.

Less of a preview of things to come than a few extra songs, Tally All the Things That You Broke still offers enjoyable evidence of what makes Parquet Courts unique and exciting.

[A] likeable, meandering, bedroom parlor-pop outing.

For fans, the first disc has plenty of exciting material to offer: it sounds great, the writing is excellent, there are new musical directions, and, as expected, there is terrific playing throughout.