The end result winds up not as a curiosity but rather a small wonder, revealing new dimensions of the original recording while opening up these songs for new audiences.

Think of A Beautiful Life as a solo album travelling in the disguise of a group effort (much like how the Replacements' All Shook Down can be easily read as a Paul Westerberg solo project), and you get a clearer picture of the personality of this music, though it documents Wennerstrom continuing to mature as an artist with a talent and vision that connects regardless of branding.

More than 50 years after its release, it seems there isn't much new to be said about The Velvet Underground & Nico, and I'll Be Your Mirror doesn't challenge that notion. But it does allow a number of worthy artists a chance to see themselves reflected in these songs, and it's a labor of love that's engaging and from the heart.

A Beginner's Mind is intelligent and well-crafted, and will appeal to fans of either Stevens' or De Augustine's recent work, but it somehow feels less distinct than the music they create on their own.

Even though it's not as stylistically wild as prior efforts, Flux is a step forward for Poppy's songwriting and her ability to command a full band. No longer just the girl in the computer, she's become a fully realized human with this most authentic and earnest work.

How Beautiful Life Can Be is not a particularly great or even good album, but there is something in its bright tone and positive messaging that feels undeniably nurturing, especially in the climate of late 2021.

Guyton is broadening and expanding the genre-bending sounds of 1990s country-pop, both through production that weaves in modern elements and her distinctive point of view. She does all this within the framework of pop music, managing to maintain her own strong personality within familiar settings without quite reinventing the form -- and that's quite an accomplishment for a debut album.

The songs generate a sense of vexation through the interplay between Zedek's plain-spoken guitar figures, with the interjections of piano, pedal steel, and cello, and the unobtrusive, rock-solid rhythm section that holds this music in place.

Concise and brisk, Trip At Knight is one of the more focused Trippie Redd albums, and calls for repeat listening where some of the others were difficult to get all the way through.

When New Age Norms, Vol. 3 comes to a close with "Wasted All Night"'s drifting coda, it feels like a fitting conclusion to the project's mix of big-picture ambition and in-depth emotional exploration.

Though not limited to romantic love, True Love is dedicated to relationships and fondness, resulting in the slowcore-descended duo's warmest collection to date. Also their richest-sounding.

Whatever his method of delivery, Meek sounds like he's walking a tightrope with his head on a swivel.

While the subject matter here is more personal, it sticks to a palette of lush, guitar-based band arrangements and doesn't shed any sociopolitical awareness.

Sounding like it was created from the other side of the crushing sadness that defined his earliest work, the album continues Blake's incremental shift to lighter material and songs that lean more into acceptance than torment.

While I Want the Door to Open is likely to both alienate some fans of Lala Lala's rawer early material and capture the attention of new ones, taken on its own, it feels like a deliberately unsettled middle ground.

Swift's young age may be a major point of interest in bringing listeners in, but by the end of the record she's succeeded in keeping them.

A welcome evolution from the debut, Astro Tough's lingering inconsistency is part of the fun.

The most diverse RP Boo release to date, Established! finds the innovative producer stepping back and observing the big picture, and reflecting on his place in the lineage of dance music.

At their best, they entrance to such an extent, like watching a slalom skier at half-speed, that the plainly worded sex talk is as inconsequential as any random boast about wealth. Toliver sounds anesthetized more often here.

Though its smoothness sometimes makes Moondust for My Diamond a little less immediate than Diviner, it's the perfect complement to that album's somber reflections and another confident step forward in his creative journey.

While Optimist makes a good case for FINNEAS' skills around a pop melody and a perceptive viewpoint, he also drops the instrumental piano piece "Peaches Etude" in the middle of the track list. Accordingly, the album plays like a portfolio, perhaps fitting for a musician still sorting out and amplifying his potential.

Lately doesn't always sound like the album Lilly Hiatt might have cut under ordinary circumstances, but it comes from the heart and speaks to the time and place in which it was made. It's a compelling, generous work from a songwriter who grows a bit each time she heads into the studio.

Faster may piss off blues purists, but that's their problem. Fish uses the genre aptly in these well-crafted songs; she extends their reach to dance with sophisticated modern pop that in turn gleefully meets her brand of unruly rockin' blues.

While late-era Evanescence is definitely a touchstone, fans of TesseracT, Deftones, and Meshuggah will have plenty to enjoy, especially with tracks such as the swirling "Circle with Me" and the haunted title track.

With other songs featuring Psycho-like slashing string effects and whirring bass echo ("Darkest Hour"), robotic vocal distortion ("Did My Best"), and spoken-word broadcast recordings ("Cógelo Suave"), Una Rosa has a kitchen-sink, blown-out-speaker quality to it that will alternately alienate or excite.

Largely due to Duffy's restrained, inward-facing vocals, Fun House is at its best on songs with soft-spoken, atmospheric designs, but the experiments here are far from missteps.

Punk is relatively odd for an album that debuted at number one on the charts, sneaking some of Young Thug's inherent eccentricity in among its more commercially viable moments.

Sometimes beguiling, sometimes bewildering, Fantasy Island is a strange album even by Clinic's standards. While it's hard to shake the feeling that its sunny vibes are just a mirage, it's still immensely entertaining for anyone game to follow the band into their oddest musical terrain.