As it acknowledges current hardships and allow the tiniest glimmer of hope for tomorrow, It Won't Be Like This All the Time proves the Twilight Sad are making some of their most vital music more than a decade into their career.

Myth of a Man ultimately feels more like a Danny Lee Blackwell solo project than a Night Beats album, but it's a very good Blackwell solo album--a largely successful creative detour that shows he has more up his sleeve than expected, though fans of his more raucous sessions may be a bit thrown by it.

A front-loaded set song-wise, it maintains an effervescence and living-room danceability that has the potential to charm the masses.

There's no need to search for deeper meanings or enlightenment on Internationally Unknown. Instead, Cardy and Armstrong invite listeners to let go and enjoy the ride, which is an energetic, wild blast.

Tobacco's production throughout the album isn't quite as lo-fi or dirty-sounding as his solo work, and his presence is clearly felt, but he doesn't overpower Aesop. The two are a fitting match for each other, and their collaboration works as well as fans would expect.

These 12 songs represent artistic development and a strike at emotional vulnerability from a talent who could have tread well-known territory indefinitely. At times, the changes feel experimental and uneven, but when they connect, the shifting perspectives of Assume Form are refreshing.

I Used To Be Pretty is an unexpected triumph from a band far too compelling to be a one-off.

Mercurial as it is in terms of stylistic influence and intensity, the album feels woven together by a modestly shifting shared palette, and lyrics full of yearning and awareness.

All of this works nicely, and reinforces the notion that at over twenty years into their career, Papa Roach are handling maturity pretty well.

While it sometimes feels like Rogers could be even bolder than she is on Heard It in a Past Life, it's a strong debut that shows how well she's growing into her fame as well as all the dimensions of her music.

With Love Hates What You Become, Lost Under Heaven hit you in the heart right out of the gate, but then spend the rest of the album building you back up, hammering a crack into reality to let the light in. The album sticks with you even after coming to its crashing end.

The album is an ambitious and adventurous set of music that's every bit as engaged as anything they've ever released, and there's an undertow of discovery that makes their new music an adventure worth a spin or two.

On The Unseen In Between Gunn's guitar is the hub on which his songs turn, but is not their centerpiece. For guitar fans, there's an abundance of fine playing here, but the songwriter's aesthetic shift delivers listeners his most consistent album to date.

Well-conceived, vibrant, and executed with attitude and aplomb, About the Light is a career standout for Mason.

Subtract the handful of tracks that fall into this category [come off like bad imitations of Drake or the Weeknd] and what's left is a fun, very well-crafted EP of uplifting dance music, the best Bear has made yet. Add them back and the record ends up a very mixed, somewhat disappointing bag that takes Toro y Moi to some exciting new places, but also treads familiar ground.

Throughout Remind Me Tomorrow, she plumbs the depths of contentedness, setting her satisfaction to a sound that's nominally dark yet strangely comforting and nourishing. Even if this album doesn't speak to your specific life, it will nevertheless enrich it.

From the weariness and wonder in its title to the mix of delicacy and anger in its songs, Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared? is one of Deerhunter's most haunting and thought-provoking albums.

Older, wiser, and still passionate, Phoenix is a worthy continuation of Pedro the Lion's legacy with just enough spirit to set it apart from his 2010s solo work.

De Facto is the work of musicians seeking something sonically and emotionally better and getting very close to the burning, white-hot center of it all. It's a challenging listen at times, but there's never a moment where the effort doesn't feel worth it and the rewards of digging deep into the sounds and songs are many.

It doesn't just repeat the past, it mines it for gold while tossing out the dross, a process that works to refine this record until it gleams like a precious gem.

It will be interesting to see if You Tell Me is the start of something long-running or just a one-off. However it turns out, the album works as another argument in favor of the on-going genius of Peter Brewis and as an impressive introduction to the lovely music of Sarah Hayes.

Somehow, they manage to keep it engaging from start to finish; then again, that should be no surprise from two artists who rarely run out of ideas.

Even if it's familiar territory, he remains a master of this particular hip-hop niche, and Evil Genius is a late-era catalog highlight.

DiCaprio 2 surpasses everything the rapper offered before it, with his strengths in full focus at a level that can't help but remind of the career peaks of greats that came before him.

Even though the album is still arranged and produced with great care and Quever's vocals and melancholy melodies are as affecting and cozy as ever, there's a bit of extra energy and spirit in these songs that give the album a huge boost and help make this the best Papercuts album yet.

This trio kicked this out in a burst of powerful inspiration, and if this had been pressed up as a 45 in 1979, one of these tracks would probably ended up on a Killed By Death compilation by now. The C.I.A. is good noisy, cranky fun from folks who know how.

Though they include sentiments like "Romance is dead and done/And it hits between the eyes," songs such as "Romance" and "I Can't Keep You" are more up-tempo and incorporate drum kit and multi-part accompaniment, but the album's sound, on average, is less sustained and more frail than Daughter's, and the lyrics more personal.

Andy Partridge, Rivers Cuomo, and Peter Buck & Scott McCaughey all deliver new songs--and it has the same feel, blurring the lines between the past and present so thoroughly that it no longer matters to discover where they're separated. Schlesinger's presence is also a tell that Christmas Party leans into power pop. ... [Micky Dolenz's] having a great time, as is everybody else making the record, and it's hard for the listener at home not to smile too.