Smoke never sounds dated or rehashed--instead, it's a fresh, consistently creative, and consistently listenable debut.

The benevolent spirit in ["HER Love"] and almost all of the other tracks makes the strong-arming "Hercules" and the retribution tale "Fifth Story" seem like misplaced throw-ins.

Revealing McRae as a potent voice and keen ear that can deliver emotion and excitement in equal measure.

Sometimes it's enough to write really catchy and fun songs and play them with a minimum of fuss. Harlem has done that on Hippies, and for that, they deserve all kinds of praise.

As with many of his songs, the lyrical value (clever, cerebral) is far greater than the musical value (sluggish, meandering). It's much more about delivering a message and provoking debate than replays.

The lack of instrumental country accouterments heightens the album's stylized spaciness; it's not earthbound, it floats upon a breeze. Sometimes, Rosegold threatens to drift away yet it's never threadbare: it's a singular mood piece, one that suits a spell of twilight reflection.

This strong debut points to even stronger, more focused work from Foy down the line.

All in all, Slurrup is a smile-inducing reminder that it's too easy to pigeonhole him as just a master craftsman--and that Hayes' pop is arguably even more potent when it's not quite as elaborate.

It's not clear if the album is truly meant to be a new direction for Washed Out or a sort of clearing out of the past to make way for something new; either way it sounds pleasing and easy, like the work of someone not trying to make the masses happy, but instead making music that comes naturally to him.

It sounds like it was worth the wait for Sandoval and O'Ciosoig and it's a welcome return for fans of her music, and also for fans of late-night, melancholy balladry that will break your heart and ease you gently into dreams.

One Fast Move or I'm Gone might have evoked Jack Kerouac more vividly with other vocalists besides Farrar, but as a composer and producer, he's done right by his lyricist, and the results are modest but rewarding.

While every song is undeniably weird and sometimes crowded to the point of confusion, Schuster-Craig never loses the plot, exerting complete control over a set of tunes almost as delightfully catchy as they are perplexing.

Adding harmonies from Curtis Hall, Ron Lewis, and Jeff Montano helps to thicken the melody, and Grand Archives revolves around the strong singalong hooks that turn this debut into a soft rock record for the indie crowd.

Add a short runtime and You Disgust Me feels like an inflated EP of lost tracks and hidden heat, so marvel at their more crafted and conceptual albums, then come back here for a more free-form sampler of strange.

There may be moments that give fans expecting another laidback psych record pause, but on the whole the band succeed in refurbing their template and coming up with something that's both extremely chill and interesting at the same time.

As it is, if you delete the missteps, you can cherry-pick a really strong, really simple '80s pop EP from the remains.

Those only aware of Pepe Deluxé through their Levi-assisted one-hit wonder won't know what hit them, but fans who have continued to keep up with their abstract brand of electronica should enjoy most of the ride.

This is Guided by Voices sounding free and wild, and it's ultimately more satisfying than any of the "classic lineup" GbV reunion efforts that appeared between 2012 and 2014.

From start to finish, Big Boi is so at ease with assured nonchalance that he blithely makes references to a mass murderer and an alleged serial rapist, and occasionally slips into some other juvenile business. Otherwise, he's in elite statesman form. He and his collaborators likewise don't seem all that concerned about the album's place in contemporary rap, and it's all the better for it.

Only bummer for loyal fans is that five of these tracks are repeated from the Internet Leaks EP, but ignore that redundancy, and Al remains the undisputed king of the parody song.

Conversations ends up a fine debut from the band, tightly focused and carefully constructed but still filled with plenty of understated heart.

Pink Friday 2 lacks the cohesion and self-editing that would make it a rightful follow-up to her 2010 mainstream arrival. As it stands, Pink Friday 2 is another collection of Nicki Minaj songs, most of them exhilarating and fun, but some forgettable or awkwardly placed.

An album that's more like the Walkmen's concerts than the meticulously crafted sound of their other albums.

Still, the best songs have more than enough energy and creativity to prevent this album from being an Awkward sophomore slump.

Fantasia doesn't invest the songs with subtle emotion so much as she indulges in balls-out emotional overdrive, overloading these simple songs with histrionics that are compelling in the short term and even if they're exhausting over the long haul these full-throttle pyrotechnics make Back to Me her most interesting album.

His mixtapes certainly feel more "alive" and offer more variety, but couple them with this deeper, hard-hitting album, and the full Young Dolph picture becomes both clear and more attractive.

Blue is an inarguably impressive full-length debut in terms of Communions' ability to evoke the sound and mood of a particular time and place, but it might be a stronger work if the groupmembers had actually witnessed the time and place themselves.

Banks packs enough energy and zeal at the starting line to duly lay waste to whoever was foolish enough to break her heart.