Oh Land's schizophrenic blend of girly club beats, icy electro-pop, and wistful balladry falls somewhere between Grimes, Lykke Li, Goldfrapp, and Robyn, and while it doesn't always work, it never stops working hard to get there.

Perhaps the Avetts are best when they run a little bit loose and ragged, letting the tempos push a little bit hard, allowing their harmonies to clash and happy to have their loose ends remain untied. Often, this means that the ballads are just a shade too tidy.

Let’s Be Still engages the most when it tiptoes outside of its comfort zone.

The 70-minute length of To All the Girls does make the album feel a little samey, but that can be a good thing, as it makes for nice, romantic mood music or a drowsy Sunday afternoon at home.

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.

Scotty's redefinition of himself as a sports bar-hopping bro is plainly shameless but, strangely enough, See You Tonight works, partially due to the Rogers-shepherded collection of cheerful country-pop but also due to the malleability of McCreery's dude-next-door persona.

Some other experiments only warrant a B or B+ and the whole jumble might feel odd to a newcomer, but since it is mostly returning fans at this late point in the discography, Head Up High earns its title with only one or two flicks of the skip button.

While it's not necessarily Dead Meadow's masterwork, it shows a band growing into its sound and mellowing nicely without sacrificing any of its radiance by exploring less extreme territories.

Warm, weary, and congenially intimate, Joe Pernice, Stephen Desaulniers, Bruce Tull, and Tim Shea have crafted a fine new set of understated anthems for the terminally wistful and forlorn, all of which strut and fret their hour upon the stage in that elusive grey area between melancholic, bottle-strewn, front-porch country and resigned, Sunday afternoon, post-pot roast AM pop.

Despite this somewhat disjointed feel, Situation Comedy should still please most of his fans, whether or not they've kept up with his busy release schedule.

While the band's elemental sound doesn't show much in the way of innovation, the spirit of true rock is so strong within it that it doesn't really matter.

It's a thrillingly bright and shiny noise pop album that is a positive addition to all the participants' already impressive résumés.

Khaled does his usual cheerleading and gets some production credits himself, but the real trick he pulls off is inspiring all these artists to somehow save up all these high-grade club tracks and singles for the DJ's annual dispatch. Suffering from Success, once again.

By many measures, Blunt's richest and best collection to date.

As a bridge between that album and whatever comes next, Wish Hotel works perfectly, hinting at only the slightest changes to the formula, but with differences enough to keep things from getting stale.

Guilt Trips is a soft, serene, and inspired debut.

Halo's voice is never heard--likely a relief for those who found Quarantine too unsettling--but this is about as jolly as the cover illustration, drawn by her father.

These songs are fun, energetic, and full of backcountry outlaw attitude.

Even though The Paradigm Shift might not be the album that listeners might expect after a reunion with Head, it shows the kind of creativity and inventiveness that, love them or hate them, helped to make them an influential force in heavy music.

Tall Tall Shadow is easily the songwriter's most fully realized effort; it should expand her audience reach considerably--even if it leaves some of her more purist followers by the wayside.

Throughout the epic set (which seems to have been played to less than 50 people from the minimal amount of cheering and banter between songs), Phillipps and the umpteenth update to his backing band maintain an air of autumnal detachment and sinister cool, true to their best moments even though the performance happened so deep into their career.

Overall, it's an impressive debut that's sure to make fans of any of the bands the trio came from really happy.

In its own way, it's some of his strangest music, and might appeal more to fans who appreciate his willingness to try anything once than those expecting a repeat of his previous album.

Perhaps the concept and execution are conventional, but even in this utterly expected setting, Clarkson retains her fiery, individual spirit, and that's what makes Wrapped in Red appealing: to the letter, it delivers what it promises.

Brain Holiday may not be reinventing anything, and Furlow could stand to take a break from his '90s worship, but the album does sound amazing and anyone who likes their guitars loud and melodies strong will find Brain Holiday something well worth digging into.

This ultimately winds up as one of Avril's livelier and better albums; it's all about the good times, no matter how temporary or illusionary they may be.

While these kinds of weird departures would be hard for any other band to pull off, Tres Cabrones shows that, even after 30 years, the Melvins are still as brash as ever, and the album feels like a fitting way for the band to ring in a big anniversary with an old friend who was there at the very beginning.

Fans of BP will no doubt delight in this masterful set, while newcomers will experience their brand of mind-melding consciousness expansion en masse.