There isn't much lyrical substance on Colores, and there doesn't need to be. It's a party record whose lyric flows are effortless and laid-back enough -- a Balvin trademark -- to attract listeners inside and outside musica urbano's big tent. The album's brevity adds depth and dimension to its direct, seductive, welcoming mix and garish presentation.

While fans will be glad to know that Through Water generally adheres to the well-embraced, cushiony indie electronica of Long Way Home, its "2.0" quality makes it an even better entry point for the uninitiated.

An assured singer, she settles into a hushed, urgent intimacy for Kelsea, an approach that suits the songs and her intent and also helps make the whole stylish production seem genuinely intimate.

Uneasy Laughter is a riskier proposition than Moaning's first album, but it demonstrates their tremendous growth, both as a band and as humans.

This is sometimes an aural journey through a labyrinth, but it never sounds like the participants are lost.

The Performer can get a bit bogged down in its own stylistic chicanery, but Righton is transitioning from rocker to crooner in real time, and it's the tension between the two aesthetics that keeps the listener's attention.

For the band's part, they definitely benefit from being able to stretch out in the studio for a change, and Loughead in particular delivers some excellent lead guitar work. In terms of Nap Eyes' catalog, Snapshot feels like a bold new era, though it's not without its growing pains.

Illusion of Time fittingly sounds rougher and more spontaneous than any of Avery's work or Cortini's preceding recordings, particularly his 2019 Mute release Volume Massimo, but its highlights seem to pull divine inspiration out of practically nothing.

Local Honey is an inside record that's better-suited for humid mornings and overcast afternoons than the open highway. In looking stridently inward, Fallon has crafted his most homespun and relatable outing to date.

Despite the label move, it's a follow-up both stylistically and thematically to 2018's Lavender, as it revisits themes of displacement, isolation, and connection.

As a reflection of the times, Ghosts VI: Locusts might be the more accurate soundtrack to a world on the brink of an uncertain future, wiping away any goodwill fostered by the deceptive serenity of Ghosts V: Together.

Glaspy has more or less tamped down her previously distracting vocal affectations in favor of a more sonorous style that really suits the material. Overall, she adds a handful of unique entries into the love song canon while pushing her own body of work forward.

No matter how much Kelly Finnigan cloaks or smears his sweet and sour voice, he's one of the more affecting singers of his kind, the focal point amid an expertly arranged band and supporting voices, strings, and brass.

Curiously [on the final track], the drums briefly mutate into skittering drum'n'bass breakbeats before everything goes silent, approximating the sensation of suddenly being jolted awake from a vivid dream. Moments like these keep the album intriguing, and they resonate more deeply with repeated listens.

Consistently hypnotic, yet rich with sneaky melodic shifts, Sister's rich sonic architecture, which includes Bettinson's anodyne vocals and stream of consciousness wordsmithing, is its greatest selling point.

If You're Dreaming definitely isn't as immediate as Quit the Curse, and while it isn't a demanding album, it requires a bit more concentration in order to understand it better.

While the retro-future production on some of the songs gives Migration Stories a distinctive flair, it's still by and large a typical Ward joint, replete with all of the idiosyncrasies and retro affectations that have become a stylistic hallmark of his catalog. Familiar as it may sound, though, he doesn't skimp on quality and there is plenty to love about this latest entry in his impressive catalog.

If you're looking for a soundtrack to the end of the world, which isn't necessarily out of the question in 2020, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs are here for you, and Viscerals allows you to stare angrily into the abyss in grand style.

Mellow, multi-purpose country-pop designed to soundtrack good times at home, on the road, at the office, or at a bar.

Moving the effervescent tempos and syncopated dance impulses of her first two albums from backyard parties and rumbling car stereos into the nightclubs, Empress Of's third studio album, I'm Your Empress Of, plays at times like a DJ set, keeping the music and the body in motion.

Easily his richest, most complex music to date, A Western Circular is where Archer reaches the sound he's been striving towards.

There isn't anything startlingly new or different about Kings of the Medway Delta that will surprise fans, but in the great tradition of John Lee Hooker, Billy Childish is someone who can keep on doing the same thing while investing it with enough power, intensity, and honesty that it never loses its ability to drawn the listener in. If you've ever wished that your old Little Walter records didn't sound so slick, Kings of the Medway Delta should be just the thing for you.

At its loudest and most brash, the album is fun and cathartic on par with any good high-energy rock band. In the moments when punk vitriol meets reflective, thoughtful expression, Far Enough grows more intriguing and compelling.

Deeply introspective and pleasantly mellow, Lost in the Country is a mature step forward for Benton as a writer, and more firmly establishes Trace Mountains' vision.

While undoubtedly more developed and ambitious than the first Jackie Lynn record, Jacqueline still sounds like the work of an experimental side project, but it's clear that Fohr and her friends are having an awful lot of fun with this, and it's easy to get swept up in their immersive dream world.

Compared to SP's conceptual third and fourth LPs, which arrived together in 2017, The Don of Diamond Dreams is unified by its funkier and humanized sonics more than its lyrics.

Steve Albini recorded the sessions, and he's done a typically fine job of putting this music on tape with accuracy but no needless frills, and Antarctica suggests Flat Worms have a longer and more diverse future ahead of them than one might have first guessed.

The group does touch on that raucous, open-heartedness with a closing cover of Charley Jordan's old country-blues standard "Keep It Clean," featuring cameos from John C. Reilly, David Garza, and Gaby Moreno. Arriving after such a sweet, soft collection of songs, it's a welcome burst of gusto, yet the rest of Brother Sister is attractive in its own right, highlighting the family bond between the titular Watkins siblings.