If you're riding and vibing with Lorde, this bright shapelessness is superb mood music. If you're not riding her wave, Solar Power can seem elusive, even cloying, as it circles and sways with a smile.

Tracks like "Clash," "War," and "Bomb" all maintain battle imagery, in multiple senses (musical, political, personal), and Fire as a whole is steadfast in its fury and perseverance.

The Old Fabled River is a moving and inspired collection that followers of both folk and experimental music will find greatly rewarding.

It's a unique document of reflections a time that felt suspended, and at points its sadly beautiful atmospheres feel outside of time completely.

Clocking in at a very 1950s 25 minutes, Encore doesn't feel like a major event and it doesn't add a great deal to the Wanda Jackson story, but it's a welcome reminder that the first truly great female rocker is still among us and hasn't surrendered to time, changing tastes, or the music business. Encore confirms that Wanda Jackson is still Wanda Jackson, and that's no small feat.

As a whole, the album doesn't provide a lot sonically that fans haven't heard before, but it doesn't need to because WITTR have created their most uneasy balance of brute force, massive power, and brooding, trepidatious calm to date.

Still Slipping, Vol. 1 isn't the type of release that an artist would be likely to make at the beginning of their career. It's a labor of love requiring extensive reflection about how music and family have impacted one's life.

The end result is vast and ambitious yet deliberately welcoming. Its many sounds and rhythms greet listeners wherever they are and compel them to invest in an altogether wondrous sonic journey for body, mind, and soul.

Year of the Spider is the work of four musicians who are not content to be goofballs -- they can maintain their creative vision while making more of it, and it's a great step forward for a band that's becoming deeper and more satisfying than one might have expected.

Try It... You Might Like It! is a stellar second effort from GA-20. They get the spirit and the sound right here in delivering enough sweaty, raucous, grooves to fuel a rent party all night long.

His work is full of the messy energy and surprising turns of a life lived hard, and on The Horses and the Hounds, the music speaks as vividly as his excellent songs. Not many artists pushing 60 get to deliver as satisfying a breakthrough as this one.

Featuring a distinctly intimate, shadowy, surf-infused sound, Everything may be dimly lit and occasionally grief-stricken, but it avoids being persistently maudlin.

The songs on Saturday Night, Sunday Morning are the kind you could easily see getting placed in the background of TV shows or used in commercials. Taken on their own, these are fine songs and Bugg's reedy alto is showcased to nice effect throughout.

It's a sound that demands your surrender, which you don't mind giving in to.

Infinite Granite is a transitional record, but it's an enormously pretty one, and it suggests that their directional shift is an excellent idea that warrants further exploration.

Pain and solace are the twin poles that guide these songs, and Wainwright's vocals capture a wealth of emotional detail; sounding a bit like Kate Bush without the comfort of fantasy to protect her, Wainwright rides over the melodies with a bold willingness to venture into the unexpected, and the dynamics of her voice as it weaves around the atmospheric arrangements is truly remarkable.

For those on board with the group's flagrant disregard for conventional songwriting, Deep States is willing to descend even further down the rabbit hole, with the band offering a good time despite all the twists and turns.

Stylistically in line with The Baby, Scout serves as an understated addendum that packs a sentimental punch.

Refuge sounds composed, thoughtful, and intimate, with reflections on pain, grief, acceptance, and relief coming through in the character of the album's varied atmospheres.

For the most part, it's a continuation of what the giants have done over the preceding several years with the likes of Dave Hollister, Johnny Gill, and Peabo Bryson: compositionally rock-solid adult contemporary R&B with an emphasis on ballads and slow jams. And, as always, the songs are tailor-made for the singers.

Jungle are at their most elevated throughout Loving in Stereo, in terms of both creativity and the general tone of the album. The songs are exploratory and fun, exuding energy and positivity and resulting in some of the group's best work to date.

At times, American Noir sounds like the product of an undead E Street Band, like a strong line of thunderstorms suddenly appearing above "highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive."

An album that fulfills the promise Aalegra showed on Feels and Ugh, Those Feels Again.

A frequently lovely album born out of introspection and loss, Love Drips and Gathers captures the complex ways life and music change while upholding Piroshka's musical legacy.

Where Chorusing excels, however, is on experimental-leaning tracks best represented here by "Watching the Beams" and "Billowing," which affect with a distorted mix of organic and inorganic textures alongside more of the album's melancholic folk song.

This would be an impressive first salvo from a new artist, and coming from a seasoned veteran, it's a truly welcome sign that her creative well isn't about to run dry.

This matured focus on concept and mood saves the album from becoming an odd catalog misstep, serving instead as a dignified artistic exercise that rewards the band's bravery by becoming the most heartfelt and poignant statement of their careers.

Not only has she written an engaging set of songs, but they are played and captured with gusto.