While their last album, The Way Things Fall, was some of their poppiest music yet, their Mute debut, Detroit House Guests, sounds more like a gallery installation than a set of danceable tracks.

Like contemporaries Daya, Steinfeld, Bebe Rexha, and Dua Lipa, Larsson delivers polished R&B-influenced pop gems that shine bright like diamonds while maintaining a too-cool-for-school factor that helps to distinguish her from the bubblegum.

Time will tell if the overall poppier disposition is a determined shift or a diversion, but, alongside the album's dark humor and utter lack of stagnation, it's one she handles with skill.

Concrete Desert is far from relaxing, but chances are you already gathered that. While it is effective, at nearly 70 minutes, it's better digested in small doses to better distinguish the multiplicity of textural, dynamic, and sonic strategies at work in individual pieces.

Doris & the Daggers is settled in an appealing way. Kannberg eases into a collection of classicist guitar pop that recalls vintage '80s college rock from New Zealand and Australia, but also bears some resemblance to the sharp, knowing pop of Kelley Stoltz, who functioned as a part-time collaborator on the record.

It might make their fans happy, but for a band that claims to be dangerous and rebellious, it goes a long way towards reinforcing the fact that the JAMC are no longer either of those things.

It delivers the sound of a mature band coming into its own and learning to utilize its various strengths.

Pitbull manages to provide enough variety on Climate Change to at least maintain his position as one of the globe's most enduring peddlers of positive vibes.

The temptation is to listen to some of their mentors instead, as many of the acts who have walked this sonic highway before have done so with much more swagger, a better inclination for a danceable tune, and an inherent dose of innovation.

While the album might be "business as usual" for Murs, that's purely a good thing. Two decades into the game and he's endearing, insightful, and sharp as ever.

Boman and Talabot seem to have enjoyed themselves coming up with these gritty, off-the-cuff tracks, and The Night Land is easily enjoyable without being too safe or conventional.

Stace still has the lyrical facility and way with a melody that made Harding a potential Next Big Thing in the '90s, while also gaining some seasoning that shows he's not simply chasing past glories.

Throughout its just-over-30-minute runtime--very punk--Graffin and company take on everything from gospel, Americana, and bluegrass to Crazy Horse-esque pre-grunge and breezy Laurel Canyon country-pop, and that they do so with such gusto makes Millport feel like less of an outlier, and more like guys making the best of a power outage.

There are a few other bands treading this same sonic path (Omni being the best around), but with Offers, NE-HI show they have what it takes to compete.

The entire album is exhilarating from top to bottom, and is easily the most exciting Squarepusher-related release in at least a decade.

One of their strongest albums in a while, Hot Thoughts is more proof that Spoon only get better at introducing new ideas into their music, while sounding unmistakably like themselves, as the years pass.

The result is rich and resonant, a testament to the power of communal music over solo soul-baring.

Paradise suggests it may be a very long time before Anohni gives us another album like I Am a Bird Now (if she ever does), but the strength and vision of this EP offers the promise that she may soon offer us something similarly powerful and moving in her new musical frameworks.

Robust and fearless, Spirit may end up being one of the earliest and best salvos of its political era.

Along with producer Cole M.G.N. (Beck, Julia Holter), Real Estate seems to both fine-tune and expand an already identifiable sound on In Mind, with engaging and often beautiful results.

This fondness for old-fashioned songwriting gives Feel Your Feelings Fool! a sturdy understructure upon which the Regrettes thread feminism, sneering angst, and ecstasy. All these intertwined emotions give the album an emotional punch that complements its musical rush.

The easy joy of the music on Freedom Is Free is as eloquent as any of the lyrics, and this is ambitious multi-cultural funk with a firm sense of heart, soul, and groove.

They continue to show that rare talent here and, ten years into their recording career, that's something they can point to with pride.

Tonally falling somewhere between Joy, Departed and It Kindly Stopped for Me, the album's blunt confessionalism doesn't always make for an inviting world, but is nothing if not completely honest.

Perhaps the individual songs seem ephemeral when isolated on their own, but that's because Room 29 is constructed as a tone poem, a collection of songs, poetry, and incidental music that's designed to be a hyper-reality--an intersection of the glamorous past of Hollywood and our arch modern sensibility, and it succeeds gloriously at that.

What could have easily become a motley collection of showboating duets is in fact a remarkably cohesive record featuring a number of fine instrumental augmentations to Brown's thoughtful songs.

There is much to be enjoyed on Everything Is Forgotten, but the elegant lightness of touch on their debut has all but disappeared. The potential is clearly still there, but next time they'll really need to embrace and explore it to their full ability if they are to make their mark.

The tone of Locus is unerringly dark with the repetition and harsh timbres occasionally tilting proceedings into the overly bleak, but there is enough overall nuance to keep the listener engaged for the duration.