Cayamo Sessions at Sea works best as a commercial for the ocean-going festival, but it also offers glimpses of some very talented artists crossing paths and sounding like fans, as well as musicians, as they make their way through some songs they clearly love.

Written and recorded almost entirely in Maine's Manhattan apartment, the album was mixed by Chris Coady (Beach House, !!!) and should play equally well in bedroom headphones and basement nightclubs, and leave many anticipating album three.

Dominated by unrelenting synthesized bellowing battling slashing guitar figures and femur-snapping drumming, Pop. 1280 summon a hellish wall of sonic abuse that manages to also be curiously compelling, a neo-industrial attack that starts in high gear and never stops pouring fire and brimstone on the listener.

The overall result is a spirited collaboration that digs through the past for inspiration, but seems to prefer to keep memories a bit hazy.

If the individual components occasionally drift or sit still, the overall construction of the soundtrack has momentum, warmly wandering from a 14-year-old tentatively plucking away on his acoustic guitar to a singer/songwriter who never quite seems as confident in his art as perhaps he should.

Yes, I'm a Witch Too may be somewhat uneven, but its wildly different tracks reaffirm that Ono's music contains multitudes.

Not for background listening, the album rewards repeat plays and gets the new project off to an impressively cathartic start.

With their dark fidelity and overly spacious arrangements, these new meditations feel almost as if they were unearthed from some distant vault of preserved wax cylinders rather than re-recorded.

She has the talent and courage to speak from her heart and make her ideas heard. Anyone who has ever had a (broken) heart will find something they can understand on Good Advice.

For now, on Everybody's Dying to Meet You, the trio sounds like a worthy heir to the classic noise pop sound and the genre's best bands, like Shop Assistants and Tiger Trap.

They're able to execute ideas they were only able to hint at when they were a young band. Some songs do have hooks that sink in quickly.

Other songs are colored with words and phrases of despair and resignation, like "doubt," "losing my grip," and "let's just break up." If the productions weren't so richly detailed and deceptively varied, Escapements might be a stifling experience.

Keith Troup, who was slain in 2015 and gets a moving tribute in the mixtape's highlight "King TROUP." The rest of the best comes from the empowering music that reflects the mixtape's title.

At its best, Neo transcends redundancy with raw power, but it remains to be seen whether or not the band can find their own voice amid the maelstrom.

While Kozelek remains an incredible storyteller, and the album is fascinating as ever to his faithful followers, it's likely to be exhausting, infuriating, or simply head-scratching to anyone who isn't already a fan of his. And as wonderful as Broadrick's musical contributions are, they recede into the background and aren't nearly as distinctive as his own work.

The other way to look at the erratic Pablo is as an "instant" LP, one that was mastered at the last minute and debuted via streaming. On that count, it's a fascinating, magazine-like experience with plenty of reasons to give it a free play, and with "Feedback" adding "name one genius that ain't crazy" to the mix, Pablo excuses itself from the usual criticisms, although it could have been tighter.

The album ends up being more sprawling than it initially seems, but no less triumphant.

Begin resonates most when Hervey and Goodman are left to themselves.

They've honed their sound even further, zeroing in on a vintage-inspired, '60s soul aesthetic.

Dedicated fans will want to note that two of the tracks--"Swimming Pool" and "Social Halo"--were taken from her 2015 EP S, though the ten additional tracks more than make up for any duplication.

The riffs are punchy, the drumming relentless, and nary a note is wasted, and it strikes that balance between artistry and economy that has always made Anthrax an elite metal force.

The Infamous Stringdusters actually put themselves in the background on much of Ladies & Gentlemen, letting their guests take the center stage while they provide the support, but if the Stringdusters opted to be accompanists rather than the stars of the show on these sessions, their songs and effortless virtuosity make it clear they're every bit as talented as their friends.

After Glow & Behold, the only thing Yuck seemed ready to do was break up and get day jobs; Stranger Things shows they weren't quite ready for that as it vaults them back into the noise pop/shoegaze conversation, where they seem poised to stay for a good long while.

Concerned at least as much with timbre as with rhythm, structure, or emotional tone--and none of these is neglected here--the composite is perpetually stimulating, exploiting repetition and expectation, both in time and texture. Album structure is carefully considered as well, with the drums vanishing for the final two tracks.

Eventually, the songs do sink in, but the reason to return to the album is its ability to conjure a specific feeling, whether it's the second the sun sets or the moment that paved highway gives way to backwoods dirt roads.

On this record, Yorn seems to master mood more than tune, but that winds up being to his benefit. This tonal elasticity gives ArrangingTime an enveloping warmth, one that is alluring even if it tends to shift concentration away from the songwriting that allegedly was his greatest strength.

Two decades into their careers, as a mature Nada Surf continue to channel their youthful spirit, they've recorded a wise, plaintive album that touches upon the sounds of their past while confidently looking toward the future.

On Keep It Together, what they lose in intimacy with the amplified environment, they gain in musical maturity, which only seems fitting.