Though the album's openness does require some amount of patience on the listener's part, it's a beautifully crafted album that expands upon the ground laid by the recent experiments of Earth, and will provide anyone willing to explore the depths of tracks like "Walkin' with a Woman" or "The Shroud" with a rewardingly trippy listening experience.

Fans of the Maine are going to have an easy time falling in love with this one, but anyone looking for a new slice of that (relatively) old alt-rock sound should give Forever Halloween a chance to get its hooks into them.

In a way, the Black Dahlia Murder have figured out how to create a new sound not by innovation, but invitation, welcoming bits and pieces from all over the metal world to make something exciting and exhilarating.

While other acts work diligently to re-create the sounds on All Hell Breaks Loose, the Black Star Riders offer them naturally with creativity, heft, and inspiration.

The Del-Lords once embodied the spirit of the ragged, rootsy, New York rock & roll scene at the end of a magical era; but that culture has long since vanished into history, making most of these songs, no matter how well constructed or intentioned, feel like exercises in nostalgia rather than anything vital.

Time Off contains great songs. It's warm, spacious, sophisticated, and elastic.

The interchangeability of the songs and artists is one of the best parts of the hypnotic, detached, and ultimately insular sound.

There are enough good songs and enough energy on hand to make In a Warzone a solid release; less interesting than previous efforts, but still fun in an aggressive way.

American Ride is every bit as strong as Innocent Ones, if not more so.

For fans of the members' other groups, Palms' debut is an easy recommendation that will leave listeners enjoying the similarities and getting lost exploring the differences.

At a surface level, the album seems like more of the same kind of offerings found on GB City, but with more styles covered and improved songwriting, the album is a slight step up. His skill set as a singer, vocalist, drummer, guitarist, and bassist is very impressive.

Names like Just Blaze, Lee Majors, Cardiak, and No Credit supply the beats for this more mature/still flashy release, all of it adding up to Wale's win number three.

Listeners attached to Aguayo's comparatively spindly early-2000s work will hear much of this as cracked chaos, but the level of carefree delight brimming throughout has to be, at the very least, admired.

He acknowledges and celebrates musical difference, allows for those tensions to reveal themselves inside his music, and creates a dialogue that uses rhythm and harmony as unifying signifiers in his political language. Brilliant.

Those looking for the cleverness of MC Paul Barman and the conceptual weight of Deltron 3030 really ought to give this a listen.

The best songs on Fantasy are easily the best in Lightning Dust's catalog because of this winning combination of pushed boundaries and inspired writing.

Without a weak song on board, Bosnian Rainbows is a daring, excellent debut that is as compelling as it is ambitious.

Deceiver of the Gods suggests that Amon Amarth may just now be hitting their stride, as it's an undeniably well-honed set, yet the band manage to flex their muscles well outside of the Draconian stylistic confines of the genre by remaining, like a true Viking horde, prickly, primal, and unstable.

Thanks to their actual growth as artists, it may be their best yet.

Throughout, Tweedy and company give Mavis even more room than on You Are Not Alone. While this isn't as exciting, the grip is instant, hard to break.

Side-stepping the chart-busting singles of their former labelmates, they have carved their own identity in the rich roots of the country and folk musics that have inspired their debut.

Its spacy, half-dreaming vibes remain close enough to Earth to keep things accessible and not swamped in reverb but still pretty far out by merit of the band's own inventiveness.

The songwriting can be a bit samey, but the group writes some unexpectedly catchy hooks that might win over cynics.

An album that's engrossing and just a little hard to break away from--but in a good way, of course.

As a whole, this album might be less coherent than Native To, where Is Tropical spent their time delivering variations on one sound. Track for track, however, I'm Leaving is the more interesting and promising set of songs.

The high level of songcraft, Saloman's devotion to his sound, and the fierce performances on White Numbers show that anyone who thought maybe the Bevis Frond were past their prime was just dead wrong, and this is a welcome addition to their catalog.

Rzeznik and Takac are merely sticking with the program that they helped to create, but they have honed their sound so close to the corporate bone that the marrow is beginning to show, and if they're not careful, there soon may be nothing left to feed the masses with.

While Long Enough to Leave may lack some of the punch and energy of previous releases, it shows The Mantles developing their own sound and the record grows more and more powerful with each play.