They haven't stopped being unpredictable and confounding, and they're even exploring deeper emotional territory than before, yet their work becomes more cohesive the more one becomes familiar with it.

Amelia might have worked better if Anderson had kept the focus on Earhart's internal dialogue as she struggled to live up to the goal she set for herself and why she chose such a brave and challenging feat, but as it is, it's a collection of interesting ideas and striking moments where the whole doesn't quite equal the sum of the parts.

They never clear the chateau dancefloor, and they add flashes of '80s synths on tracks like "Don't Change," video game music on "Kiki, You Complete Me," glockenspiel and fluttery effects on the mysterious "It's About Time," and a sense of urgency on the fiery "La Bomba." It all makes for a good time for all while at the same time offering to recede nicely into a groove-heavy background as needed.

A more consistently angsty, saturated sound results that's in harmony with lyrics about struggle, self-examination, and challenging life events on songs with titles like "Change," "Sink," and "Fall Came Too Soon and Now I Wanna Throw Up."

Everything Squared is nearly as engrossing as anything from the group's past.

Infinite Health offers enough variation on his style so that it doesn't seem like he's covering old ground, even though it's actually some of his most nostalgic work.

Disconsolate, intricately produced, and surprisingly varied, all things considered, The Well I Fell Into should appeal to sympathetic fans as well as the less-folky sad-song set.

Not all of the melodies are as striking, however, and song for song, it's not quite as memorable as the previous two Molchat Doma records. Still, it's a massive step forward in terms of production, sound design, and overall ambition, and it signals the beginning of a new era for the band.

More or less what fans would expect from a Fred again.. album at this point, Ten Days is a diaristic emotional whirlwind with a handful of highlights.

The album is certain to satisfy Richter's fans from all around the classical-to-pop spectrum.

It establishes Pearson as an artist who's eager to experiment but in command of her musical identity.

Odyssey isn't a next step for the artist, but a giant leap into unbridled inspiration, focus, and creativity. Like Source before it, this arrives at a captivating juncture in Great Britain's wildly diverse jazz scene, and will no doubt influence it.

The overall effect of the album's variability is less vibey but more emotionally resonant than the debut -- perhaps an even tradeoff given that they both have the quality of feeling like records the band had to make.

Oberst's storytelling songwriting remains despairing and maudlin, but he seems more self-aware of this than ever before, injecting some triumph and levity into these songs that suggest he's not just smiling through the pain, but laughing at how ridiculous life can be, and maybe even secretly a little bit grateful for being able to experience it all.

Throughout their career, Ed Schrader has retained energy and spirit, even as their direction has shifted from noisy, primal blues-punk shouting to dramatic, new romantic-style crooning. Orchestra Hits reflects the sophistication of aging, and relating to the past while continuing to artistically evolve.

It seems this was collected from material recorded over the space of several years. But Wynn was right to hold on to this stuff, as these ten tracks cohere into a very pleasing album.

He's as present and raw beneath the computer voice as he's ever been, but with these darkroom synth tracks, Sparhawk makes his audience work a little harder to locate him.

Just because it's fun doesn't make it a divertissement, as Ishibashi brings complex feelings to the table alongside some virtuosic genre exercises.

If there's any bone to pick, it's that some of the slower, more atmospheric numbers don't quite gel as well as the rest of the tracks. Still, the high points make Cutouts every bit as worthy of devoted listening as the first two Smile albums.

The Hard Quartet reject no idea on their debut, and the results are usually familiar, strange, and fun, and at its strongest, the album reframes the individualized sounds of all four powerhouses as something new.

This collection is at its most intriguing in the brief moments where listeners can hear Reed experimenting with these ideas, ones he'd fully realize a little further down the road with the Velvet Underground. These moments show up fairly unambiguously in the sadistic sneering of the Primitives, but they're also there to be found just a little bit deeper below the surface of songs where Reed was trying his best to emulate simplistic pop music but couldn't keep his inherent darkness from showing.

Its lyrics are concerned mainly with current- or post-relationship malaise, whether he regrets ever getting together in the first place (the somewhat cringy "Starfucker"), feels distant ("2001," "Same Old Story"), wonders if he's leaving any impression at all ("What's It Gonna Take to Break Your Heart?"), or ambivalently philosophizes "Maybe love is a way to kill time," which could have been the title for the album.

Generally even more affecting are relatively spare entries like the lilting, piano-centric ballad "Sunset Hunting," the eerie "Violetlight" ("Enclosing a disaster"), and the environmental "Mother Tongue" ("I should be angry/But I'm just tired"), although nothing on See You at the Maypole is simple or without determination.

The album levels up with its final four tracks, which fully commit to the rapid tempo of drum'n'bass.

The guys are aging gracefully, playing to their strengths -- catchy, high-energy anthems that blend pop-punk with good ol' fashioned hardcore -- rather than trying to rehash any of that youthful intensity and rawness of their early albums.

While fans are bound to miss Abbott, Heaton's still got more to say, and his crew is in fine form.

Addiction and mental health, subjects that are interwoven throughout the potent 22-track set with the rawness and renewal born of having been caught in their grips.

Though Heavy Lifting isn't quite up to the level of Kramer's 1990s work, it comes close enough that it would have reaffirmed his status as a veteran guitar hero and proto-punk sage, full of hard-won wisdom, good tunes, and an admirable reserve of piss and vinegar.