Sees the group shift away from the more anthemic direction of their major hits ("Love Killa," "Gambler") to an airier, more vocally driven set of songs: strummed-funk tracks like "Tied to Your Body" and "Blow Your Mind" pull heavily from Justin Timberlake's early-2000s run, while others like "About Last Night" and "Better" slide toward the nostalgic disco yearnings expressed by their 2010s contemporaries.

It all goes to show that Carpenter's knack for composing scores that are entertaining in their own right is alive and well, and just as engrossing nearly half a century after the first Halloween slashed its way onto the silver screen.

While Night Call builds nicely upon Years & Years' indie electronic roots, it primarily feels like a new beginning for Alexander as he boldly embraces his pop future.

Brought up on a steady diet of singles, Templeman has some trouble stringing together a substantive 14-track set and a number of the cuts simply coast along on groove and tone without much else to recommend them. Minus the filler and occasional bouts of clumsy wordplay, Mellow Moon does little to damage the young singer/songwriter's reputation and adds a clutch of well-made tracks to his growing canon.

Their renderings of "Don't Worry Baby" and "Wouldn't It Be Nice" may be ramshackle, but much like the originals, they're delivered with unguarded joy and wide-eyed innocence.

While Will of the People is not as essential as their 2000s classics, it's a quick, satisfying burst of Muse essentials that cleverly forgoes the hits-compilation graveyard in favor of fresh material that honors both their evolution and dedicated fan base.

Ken Carson makes music to be overpowered by and to lose oneself in its sheer magnitude, and More Chaos accomplishes that once again.

This is pure NPR music, all neo-jazz melodies and martini-lounge flourishes without the sly bite of its predecessor.

The songs are too weak, the sound is too good (aka lifeless), and the album feels like a career move instead of anything real or fun.

Wide-eyed wonder still intact, there's a lot of depth to explore in the 30 minutes of Hobo Rocket, from bombastic glam, to chugging stoner rock, to colorful psychedelia--all of it odd as usual.

Heaven Upside Down is Manson at his most human. If Pale Emperor was a welcome return to form that signaled a new day for the band, its successor is just as satisfying, if not better.

While there aren't as many heart-stopping productions as on 2002's unjustly neglected Come With Us, Push the Button proves the Chemical Brothers have retained the innate curiosity necessary to keep them blazing trails for years to come.

By not forcing Redcar's music into a pop template when it doesn't fit, the album reaffirms him as a resolutely independent artist and makes another fine addition to a nearly flawless discography.

Through it all, Leonard maintains an intangible charisma that, along with sustained vulnerability and a knack for keeping the familiar in play while distorting it, has the potential to enthrall.

With Brazilian Girls' sense of wonder and love of musical globe-trotting as strong as ever, New York City is a welcome return to form for this very special group.

Encompassing the past, present, and future of sci-fi scores, Tron: Legacy feels like it grew and mutated from its origins the same way the film's world did. Without a doubt, it's a game-changer for Daft Punk.

If lightweight, it is often pleasant and amusing, if not utterly engaging.

There aren't any weak points, and it drifts along dreamily, from one understated jam to the next.

While Savage and Kelly clearly get big kicks from genre-jumping and trying to trip out listeners, "Baby Boomer," "Michael Kelly," and "The World Never Stops" show that they can rock earnestly as well.

The Royal Bangs don't just grab you by the throat and demand your attention, they threaten to rip apart your speakers, drench you in your own dancefloor sweat, and leave you begging for more.

The gorgeous and haunting ending leaves more than a few questions unanswered, and begs listeners to play the album again from the start to seek them out once more.

It's another batch of nuanced, quietly intense songs that have some degree of heartache to them.

Luckily, there's enough genuine melody at the core of these songs to warrant their arrangements.

Their loosest, wildest, and most honest collection of Saturday night/Sunday morning pining/drinking songs to date.

The new looseness that runs through the grooves, the variety the additional voices bring, the very strong songs, and Eno' perfect production all add up as the album plays, and as a result, Thr!!!ler ranks as the band's best work to date. That also makes it one of the best modern dance punk records to date, right up there with LCD Soundsystem's best.

Ot overall the compilation, with all its good intentions, pales in comparison to the originals and will only strengthen the urge to hear Russell's wonderful songs again after listening to this well-meaning but flawed collection.

If you still hold Lanois' earlier recordings to a high ideal, this may indeed frustrate you because it offers considerably more evidence that Lanois has lost his way as a musician.

So did Do Make Say Think actually intend to attach this level of conceptualism to 'Do,' 'Make,' 'Say,' and 'Think?' Probably not, but it sure is fun to listen to that way.