Its varied tones and moods settle into an exciting, vivid bigger picture and represent a clearer collection of Wilson's intelligent lyrical portraits and shifting stylistic muses.

At times, Embrace can get a little too droning and repetitive, but it's a confident and promising debut.

One Second of Love's main issue is not one of sonic fidelity, but consistency. If the murk of earlier recordings hid some of Nite Jewel's intentions, they also succeeded in hiding slightly forced stylistic leanings.

Wolf has often stated that he has no allegiance to styles when it comes to recording, but The Bachelor feels most alive when it's wallowing in its own dusky ruin.

That Metric were able to follow up their best record with another just as good is quite an achievement, hopefully something they will do again and again.

Causers of This sounds like a dance-pop mixtape plunged underwater -- it's all smeary synthesizers, chopped-up dance beats, and washes of reverb.

Instead of changing their sound to accommodate a wider palette of sounds, they wisely chose to incorporate them into their aesthetic. It's an inspired move that will help them keep their old fans and still allow the duo to progress musically.

All well and good, and all very entertaining, but this is an album that's meant to be more: it's intended to be a soundtrack to a way of life, but it winds up playing as a collection of songs.

While it's far from being truly bad, Elevator is a disappointment, and a perplexing one: everything seems to be more or less in the right place, but still doesn't quite fit together.

Sweaty Magic's fearless experimentation is admirable--and though its songs are far from flawless, there are enough keepers here to make it a fun, summery fling.

At times, it almost feels like too much at once, but the band's music is so buoyant that to bring it down to earth too much would be a shame.

At this point, EDD will probably never get the recognition they deserve, but those in the know are sure glad they're still at it.

It feels like Damon & Naomi have always been around to soundtrack the inner lives of melancholy dreamers smart enough to seek them out, and with this album they continue to provide the same impressive and necessary level of solace and inspiration, deeply felt songs, and enchanted performances that they always have.

It's a wall-to-wall party for the freaks, burnouts, outcasts, and misfits and if you don't get it that's your fault, not hers.

This is a sweet-sounding album with subtle depths, not really bluegrass, but a precisely gentle folk album that grows more graceful and revealing with each listen.

It is perfect for lazy summer afternoons, cozy winter nights, or anytime you might want some music that's blissfully peaceful and sweet, but never boring.

Dame Fortune is a culmination album with an artist's evolution pushing things forward with all his strengths in tow. Check Dead Ringer for that debut spark, and look to this one for something more skilled, bigger, but just as free-spirited.

As should be expected from a secondary release, the quality control here is not as tight as it is on Islah, but this is Gates in undiluted form.

Like other Bing & Ruth albums, Species was thoroughly conceived before the musicians began recording it, yet it has such a river-like flow that it can seem as if it spontaneously poured out of Moore and his cohorts.

Much of the magic in Change the Show, as with most of Kane's work, is in the way he turns being a kid of the '90s with an obsession for all things mod into something of his own oeuvre.

This exercise works surprisingly well and, if one is a fan of this genre, F-1 Trillion knocks it out of the park.

Though Heavy Lifting isn't quite up to the level of Kramer's 1990s work, it comes close enough that it would have reaffirmed his status as a veteran guitar hero and proto-punk sage, full of hard-won wisdom, good tunes, and an admirable reserve of piss and vinegar.

It results in a wildly mixed bag where the listener has to actively engage to keep up, and the constant unexpected gear shifting makes for one of the more fun and happily confounding GbV sets of their post-reunion output.

The Black Lips still sound like the rulers of an unwholesome party underworld on Satan's Graffiti or God's Art?, but it's hard not to feel like both hosts and guests are running out of steam.

Right Thoughts Right Words Right Action is a welcome return, fusing a crowd-pleasing sound with some of Franz Ferdinand's most interesting songwriting. Track for track, it may very well be the group's most satisfying album yet.

Fueled by heavy dance tracks and popping electronic beats, The Fame, the first album by the glamorous Lady Gaga, is a well-crafted sampling of feisty anti-pop in high quality.

Do You Wonder About Me? is superior ear candy that won't hurt your intellectual teeth, and a more than worthy follow-up to 2017's fine Swear I'm Good At This.

Talk to La Bomb revisits nearly all the elements that made their 2005 self-titled debut such a thrill, but the songwriting has slipped a bit, welcoming the beloved act to the sophomore slump.