Some of the album's more delicate tracks still feel a little formless, and there are a lot of other bands mining similar musical territory, but The Hanging Valley's best moments suggest Cold Pumas are just tapping into their potential.

While Andrews may lack the late singer/songwriter's [Jeff Buckley's] angelic pipes, he shares his knack for making the darkness in all of us feel both hopeless and sexy.

An undoubtedly reactive work, this is undiluted and progressive nonetheless.

How to Be a Human Being's sense of wonder and joie de vivre feels as instructive to Glass Animals as their listeners, and their willingness to try anything results in some truly great moments.

It's not uncommon for these songs to bloom into something celebratory during their second half, such as on the rippling, shimmering "Wandering Still." Between Waves is easily the strongest, most inspired Album Leaf release in at least a decade.

On Stay Gold, Walker falls into the latter camp, but if these songs lack a certain spontaneity, the craft is strong and Walker seems so eager to sound like a rock star that you just might mistake him for the real thing.

Motion Graphics is a highly intriguing album of warped bitstream pop.

Brettin tries a lot harder to sound weird on Skiptracing than he did on Timeline, and the result is a more vivid album.

The album might not stand with their all-time best work, like Seamonsters or Watusi, but it's hard to deny the brilliance of a band that, so late in its career, can crank out an album as passionate, hook-filled, and flat-out fiery as this. That's the true surprise of Going, Going....

Even if AIM is more scattered than her finest work, at its best it plays like a scrapbook that pieces together over a decade's worth of sounds and issues.

Schmilco is clearly music for autumn, meant for cool nights, crunching through the leaves, and the occasional dark night of the soul. And it speaks volumes about Wilco that they could make two albums so different within such a short space of time, and both times giving us music that sounds like no one else.

The paucity of any full-on rockers may drive some listeners back to the group's more propulsive, earlier works, but the sullen, sweet, and soulful Away rewards a patient ear.

On the whole, it's an engaging debut with memorable tunes that should be tried on by fans of any of the above-mentioned bands or melodic descendants of post-punk and Brit-pop.

At first blush, this is not one of Anderson's most immediately engaging albums, but it has a meandering charm that works its magic over time.

Of Monkees & Men is above all a Scott McCaughey album. Even the most playful songs are deeply personal, leaving no doubt about how much the Monkees meant to him in 1966 as well as 2015.

Hunter works within his limits, rocking just hard enough to seem vital and, best of all, his songs remain a thing of wonder: careful and clever, the work of a singer/songwriter who values idiosyncrasy over eccentricity.

Cosmetic is a strong step forward for Nots that builds on their strengths and gives their weirdness some new and interesting places to go.

Braver Than We Are may have its flaws--it's too staid and self-conscious, for one--but Steinman never found a better interpreter for his songs than Meat Loaf, and Meat Loaf never sounds more like himself than he does when singing Steinman, and that's why the album works.

While in the process of embracing more electronics they lose a bit of their organic warmth, particularly compared to their debut, Local Natives hang on to a significant amount of their quirkiness and rhythmic flair.

Many of the songs are free of artifice, boiled down to voice and guitar or left nearly naked to let the emotional impact of the melodies and words cut more deeply.

If Soundwalk Collective's music is often lovely but understated, Patti Smith's vocals give Killer Road the pale fire that makes it come alive; she never sounds like Nico, but she ably brings forth the voice of a poet facing her final crisis, and Smith understands that just well enough to communicate it to the audience.

The warmth of the beats and the tasteful melodic arrangements are perfectly suited to McMorrow's soulful, blue-eyed delivery, and the occasional stylistic detours and offbeat turns of phrase make for welcome deviations from the formula.

The duo's sad, passionate vocals readily recall peak-era Depeche Mode, but the instrumentation is much more organic, and the production is far more atmospheric and multi-layered, even verging on hallucinatory at times.

There's a looseness to the sound that gives it some needed warmth and dynamics, while there are still enough vintage synths and spacy overdubs to keep it weird and home-cooked. So, the best of both worlds.

Unseen may not cheer you up, but it will compel and fascinate anyone with an appetite for great songwriting.

The Wink may be less readily accessible than the music Presley was making as White Fence, but it's definitely as good.

With 15 tracks totaling over 70 minutes, including a 17-minute closer, Mystère's ambition will challenge the ears and endurance of some. Having said that, the album is well sequenced, alternating lighter and heavier tracks, and the whole presentation has that enviable je ne sais quoi--c'est cool.

Fans needn't worry that the group's vitality has faded, however. If anything, it takes advantage of a broader palette as Cymbals Eat Guitars continue to dip into more styles without losing their warped, crunchy center.