Instead of party-starting excitement, the band refracts echoes of Can, Bowie, and the Talking Heads at their most abstract for an album that feels tense and bleary, like a party that's still fun but has burned on for so long that the sun is coming up and things are starting to get weird.

While certainly one of the most robustly guitar-centric albums Angels & Airwaves have made, there is still plenty of synthy, otherworldly shimmer glowing at the edges of Lifeforms, and cuts like "Rebel Girl," "Euphoria," and "Spellbound" bristle with a vibrant blend of punk and dance-rock energies.

Mod Prog Sic finds Black Dice pushing themselves even further into a place of singularity, making music that's gross, funny, captivating, scary, and beguiling at once, and finding new details in the extremes they've been exploring for decades.

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.

At a scant four tracks, The Roadside EP hardly marks a major release from the veteran artist, but in lead single "Bitter Taste," he presents one of his better late-career offerings. ... The other two cuts, "Rita Hayworth" and "U Don't Have to Kiss Me Like That," are well-executed, if forgettable tracks that harken back to the singer's '80s heyday.

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.

The love and fire on display here confirm what his best work has always shown -- he's not just a fine songwriter, he's a top-shelf musician who lives for this stuff, and it's a pleasure to hear him dig into this material.

The moments of uncertainty and incompleteness that sometimes surface only get closer to the unvarnished core of what Morby was aiming for with these songs: a state of emotional suspension that's not quite the end of the day, but not nightfall just yet.

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.

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.

The quartet sound more cohesive than they've been in years, benefitting from a single producer's vision in a similar fashion to what Brian Eno pulled off with Viva La Vida.

As on Grey Area, there are no dry spells or dips in quality, just a master class in modern songwriting with heaps of poise and a beating, soulful heart.

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.

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.

It's no masterpiece, but it's decidedly not the most cringeworthy Ministry release, either, and it's much easier to appreciate the band's creativity this time around.

While LaFarge might still be a time-traveling rock troubadour, he seems to have found the center of his musical universe with In the Blossom of Their Shade.

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

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 25-minute blast of brief, confused, oversaturated synth rock tunes, All Day Gentle Hold! is over before you know it but won't soon fade from memory.

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.

It is unmistakably the work of Brandi Carlile, who once again proves she's one of the best singer/songwriters of her generation.

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.

Throughout the album, BadBadNotGood and their guest collaborators flesh out the sonic canvas without taking away from the raw energy of the performances.

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.

This isn't a record where the songs and arrangements are at the forefront, it's an album that's all about the show and spectacle. Its pleasures are slightly fleeting but they're pleasures all the same.

The band injects their own perspectives -- both lyrical and compositional -- into Modern Fiction, giving the songs personal angles and emotional color that place them very much in the now.

A bit less club-ready than Livanskiy's other releases, Liminal Soul is a stirring set of late-night reflections.

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.