There's no deeper level to be revealed in Oberhofer's brief pop-rock tracks and for that reason Time Capsules II remains a consistently easy and pleasant listen.

None of it is forgetful and all of it is more than enjoyable.

Isles is a headphones record as colourful as its artwork, and should be enjoyed to the fullest on its own terms, the work of an act in constant flux who refuse to rest on their laurels.

Anthemic, emotional, powerful – The Tipping Point is a very good record.

This album is like candy; it's not great for you, but it tastes delicious and goes down easy. Plus, it's only 37 minutes long, so it's not like listening to it requires a huge time investment.

The two divergent halves of the album never intermingle and propose two very opposite visions for what Underworld aim to achieve, yet there’s not really a single bad track here. Still, the tension remains, and can never quite dissolve.

Out And About strikes as a series of stories cut off halfway from their conclusion, leaving the rest to the listener to fill in. It’s probably the most generous way Lewsberg has applied their trademark pragmatism to their music. They’ve always had a unique gift for painting vivid scenery with even the simplest, most barren of means.

Yes, this will drive some away, and allow critics to easily point to its messiness (as if NFR wasn’t all over the place aesthetically – something Antonoff’s production homogeneity cleverly disguised – same with Lust for Life, or the underrated Born to Die), but it is also rewarding and surprising.

Space Heavy is ultimately King Krule’s most challenging work. It acts like a stream-of-consciousness but with minor guardrails to keep Marshall from spiraling out into truly wicked realms. The moments he does let go, like in the end, never feel completely satisfying.

The album, true to its title, seems like a long and tortured joke with plenty of narrative that only the teller can fully grasp – at times the delivery is bravura and spellbinding, but too often it falls flat and loses momentum. There’s undeniably a great work of art in here among the clutter of scraps that McMahon has collected over the last few years.

Occasionally, the band goes for the jugular but winds up succumbing to melodrama instead. Standell-Preston, Austin Tufts, and Taylor Smith are still fantastic musicians, and can be really strong songwriters with weird and interesting ideas, but perhaps they would fare better if they boiled it down to the essentials next time, bask in their specific brand of minimalist rock, and shake off the excess.

What we do know is that What Happened to the Beach? is a musical ride. While it does not hand out aces on all fronts, it remarkably returns to classically flamboyant roots that urge the importance of enjoying life.

There's much beauty to be found here on the fifth Mountains LP, Centralia.

Were it not for the aforementioned instrumental pieces, then it would be hard to recommend Voices unless you were in a particular mindset. While the tapestry of it all is undeniably magical (strings, voices, electronics, and the aforementioned details all woven together seamlessly), the high points are when Richter demonstrates how a sweep of his hand can evoke floods of emotions in the mind.

It’s tempting as ever with Berninger’s work to let it do its slow burn thing, and while repeated listens are far from unrewarding or unpleasant, the depth doesn’t feel quite as vast as what we have come to expect. Still, there’s no doubting that Berninger fans new and old will welcome the album and embrace it too.

Brilliantly sequenced and realised though it is, the album only just manages to keep the attention for its 54 minutes, meaning first-time listeners could be put off by the sparse arrangements and slow pace.

As major label rap debut albums go, Live from the Underground is a relative anomaly in that the artist seems to have escaped with most of his integrity intact.

On the canyoning, Weyes Blood-sounding brooder “Not A Love Song”, she seems to find peace within her place in a corrupted world, realising the illusion that its violence inherent can be captured or neutered. Squeeze opts to bathe and contort in it with visceral theatricality.

It does not at all feel lazy, rather a conscious effort to do something new. Five Easy Hot Dogs is an incredibly addictive record that entices with its lightheartedness and almost weightlessness, which is aided by the absence of vocals and lyrics.

The lyrics, though straightforward at times, come from a place of genuineness and vulnerability.

Despite its flaws, Sun is not a complete failure and does deserve to be mentioned alongside the rest of her work, if only for the comparison of how she once tried something different--a flawed but worthwhile attempt.

Luminol’s focused stylistics and singular aesthetic succeed overall, yielding a distinctly cohesive and compelling project while further establishing Johnston’s already recognizable brand.

White Denim's attention to detail is superb, but everything just fits together. It must be said though, that they aren't breaking any new ground at all, but sometimes that doesn't matter if the music is good enough to hold its own.

This is a delicately sincere and softly stark album, and arguably Fretwell’s best. It’s certainly his most intimate, but after all that time away, he’s no doubt figured out exactly how he wanted to say what he wants to.

The hook-heavy Haunted Painting is prime for tweens looking to break into indie rock sectors – it’s quirky, it’s light, it’s fun, and it’s Dupuis at her most earnest.

His continuous work positions him as the Bob Dylan of the alternative rock era, and By The Fire sums up every aspect of his artistry.

Nadja have often been a band who have played with aural textures, with the light and shade of sound, and have the rare ability to allow the listener to lose track of time as they fall into the music. Luminous Rot is no different and is up there with their best work.

The love is undeniably deep – overflowing, perhaps – and moisturizer is a proud and expressive declaration of both a newfound queer identity and queer endearment. That it sometimes misses the mark due to its rose-tinted vision is hard to be too miffed at.

But Here We Are is such an honest and raw record that it’s hard to judge but easy to feel and empathise with, especially if a listener has been anywhere near the grieving process.

At its best, the album strums out a stark moment, like a voice calling for help. ... Where a little bit of focus is lost is when Karijord becomes almost incantatory with Dessner’s words, repeating phrases with ambiguous meanings but not coming out the other end with any greater sense of purpose (“April”, “October” and “November” in particular).

Plum is a warm hug of a record. The kind you get from those types of friends you know you don’t need to keep in touch with all that regularly, but when you do it feels as though they’ve never been away and time goes all too quickly.

As a whole, Arkhon is a distinct statement. Even Danilova’s uneven work manages to be intriguing.

Being an EP of three full songs, the whole affair is very scant and acts more as a teaser, and it’s not like every choice works perfectly; the endings of the songs, in particular, feel a bit unceremonious, and the songs themselves could have likely been developed a little bit more. But by revisiting the original getup that helped put him on the map, Vernon reaffirms what many may have forgotten amidst all the wizardry: that all he really needs is his heart and his guitar.

Another successful release from Khotin, an artist who, armed with just his laptop and a small home studio, has the ability to make you laugh, dance, reflect and space out all during the same album.

At times invoking Sung Tongs-era Animal Collective, although never to the point of copyright infringement, Julian Lynch's Terra is certainly an interesting listen, even if it does come across as disjointed.

It never quite reaches the potential of a fully-formed imaginary future world, as Future Sounds of London managed so effortlessly decades ago. It’s a cool and exciting album, but it doesn’t dream of electric sheep.

Even if it isn’t the notable stylistic statement that McCartney II was, it still feels poignant, and yes: surprisingly youthful.

Dogrel showed Fontaines D.C. could make a great post-punk album; A Hero’s Death shows they have more than sub-genre affiliation on their minds.

Each one is solid, and some of the vocal samples allow him to showcase the stilted sort of sense of humor that's constantly on display in his Twitter feed.

Ambitious and heartfelt, Crooked Wing might have needed more time – or anger – to fully reveal qualities we manage to briefly glimpse only.

The Babies is a worthwhile enough diversion to make me genuinely excited for the next Vivian Girls record, and think that maybe Morby should stay in the spotlight and ask Woods to find a new bassist.

Collections From The Whiteout excels in storytelling and lyrics but doesn’t always prove the easiest experience. However, this is an album that becomes more comfortable with each progressive listen, unwinding in the listener’s consciousness like the sung stories themselves.

While A Sleep & A Forgetting is a bold new statement for the band, the album occasionally treads on the mundane level, due to its similarly-orchestrated tracks.

People shouldn't expect a "completely Dr. John" record, but there is a lot to enjoy from the simplicity and overall throwback feel to Locked Down that provides a positive and hopeful experience.

Her ethereal, purposefully-sloppily-overdubbed vocals haven't changed, but now they have a much stronger rhythmic backing.

There is nothing out and out original on Viscerals, and in many ways that is the appeal. If you like down tuned sludge/doom then you’ll find plenty here to get your teeth into.

On Mala he certainly could have done himself some favours by trimming away some lesser moments (particularly the pointless minute long “Mala” or “A Gain”) but there’s certainly a sense that’s he gradually becoming more efficient with his song writing.

What we’re given is 10 songs in just under 34 minutes, one of Veirs’ most efficient and direct albums.

The electronic approach doesn’t work for every song, and a little more humanity and ambience would have been charming, but the appeal of the whole grows as nuances reveal themselves with repeated listens.

This is a worthy comeback for the singer that is fun, catchy, bright and ultimately another addition to the canon of necessary, escapist music we need to forget the world’s impending descent into madness.

All of it is minuscule and done in a minor setting, but it’s also meaningful. Tracks appear like brief sketches before dissipating into the air. It’s the low-key nature of this mixtape that makes Still Slipping Vol. 1 a compelling listen.

It’s a gallery walk through of her feelings with fans and listeners. The mind, like a bedroom, can be messy. While completely set up with decor and personalized trinkets, the chair in the corner with all your clothes and the trinkets poking out from under the bed are quite obvious. Grande proves again that she is not embarrassed to let it all be seen.

More than any time prior, it feels we’re getting the true human being that is Thao on Temple, offering her every thought, rather than letting another take her words from her. However, for the more casual listener, the musical barbs and purposeful roughly-hewn nature of the music might prove to be a bit of a barrier. With the inherent vulnerability of the words here, however, perhaps that’s just the blanket the band needed.

Different Rooms is more evidence of the duo’s quality, and its main downside is that it doesn’t reach the magical highs of their debut album. Still, in different places, different results will be yielded; Different Rooms may have familiar qualities, but it makes for a different excursion.

Yes, Mclusky are still here, but they’ve returned to the well balanced noise rock of their debut, My Pain and Sadness is more Sad and Painful than Yours, where things aren’t quite as thrilling as on Do Dallas and The Difference Between….

Embracism is a record that’ll grab you and bring you close, but also one that won’t hesitate to push you away with a gut punch and expect you to take it like a man.

With tighter editing – Different Kinds of Light can feel plodding in its ambitious length – on her third album, Bird should only continue to improve.

BANKS still surprises and delights with her unique lyricism, emotive vocals and direct assessments of those who have hurt her alongside herself as an individual. Still, many tracks are damned short and feel like they are lacking necessary bridges to reach their full potential that this album feels quickly consumed and fleeting when we want to stay inside these songs a bit longer.

Regardless of the energy used in the moment, Lindstrøm and Thomas create music that feels at home in many environments. This is particularly relevant as 2020 nears its end. Listeners can make of III what they will, whether that be slowly dancing along in their rooms, or laying back and taking the music in, waiting for the world to start up again.

Smother may lack the proper drive of Two Dancers, but it succeeds in whittling down what has become Wild Beasts' motif.

Okay, they may never reach the heady heights of Between 10th and 11th again, but we should just be grateful that they still exist and are still looking to move their sound forward in ways that many of their ‘peers’ seem incapable of. It doesn’t always hit, but when it works it’s a glorious thing.

Sanguivore might not be as precisely balanced and pop-pitched as Sex, but there’s craft and talent here, and the album is punctuated with sublime and sublimely entertaining moments.

Raging with a steady purr, Play With Fire might be an obvious follow-up to their 2017 debut—but that doesn’t mean it’s any less powerful or interesting. The LP sees L.A. Witch solidifying their status as the cursed love children of Black Sabbath and The Shangri-Las.

It promises even better material to come if he can blend the astounding songcraft from earlier efforts with the atmosphere of this album.

Beatopia lacks the edge and drive of its predecessor, yet several inspired moments are enough to maintain Kristi’s reputation as one of the nation’s most exciting young artists.

If you take one thing away from this debut, take away the fact that it's thoroughly deserved.

At times, take the cake feels like it’s at an ennui crossroads, trying to define listlessness while side-stepping its intentions. But how many artists have we seen hover around an emotional bullseye on their first album only to hit it on their next go-round? Even if take the cake doesn’t show PACKS’ full potential, it still gives us much to look forward to.

The record is about opposition: it haunts but soothes, it repels while drawing you in. As you listen, this unbridled exploration of sound will become part of your own dialectic subconscious rather than a soundtrack on your dancefloor. You have to listen.

Incessant repetition with infrequent and almost indiscernible alterations in cycles is the key to unlocking the joy inherent in dance music, and Snapped Ankles utilise this recipe with aplomb. Not everything on the album lands fully, though. .... These are, though, minor quibbles on a record that begins to at least start to translate the total enigmatic elation that a Snapped Ankles live show can manifest.

Secret Love may well capture the vapidity of the consumeristic life, but does it, in the process, dip into vapidity itself? Rather than critiquing or lampooning end-stage capitalism, Shaw in particular seems to have succumbed to its toxicities. Perhaps the album is best heard as a memento mori, a dying declaration – art, like everything else, drowning in the waters of mendacity.

12 Lines is enjoyable enough to be worth its existence without seeming rehashed and a solid improvement over his debut.

It’s a new Loaf album, with varied rock gems that will fit snugly into live setlists and even get those old fans to sing along. It’s one of those rare reunion albums that satisfies a need, even if it doesn’t land as hard as some may have hoped.

Observatory is ultimately not the Wrens record we all wanted, but it’s what we have and it’s better than it has any right to be given all the turmoil of its conception.

It lacks a genuine peak like “Spanish Sahara” or “Balloons,” but it achieves greater consistency elementally, if not tonally.

Weird Faith is an honest and well-written record by one of underground pop’s sharpest and most empathetic artists.

The Caretaker certainly remains a fascinating and worthwhile project.

The irony of Collapsed in Sunbeams is that Parks’ greatest strength also gives the album its most noticeable weaknesses. We are mainly here for her connecting songwriting, which means that the production – by Gianluca Buccellati – is restrained to allow her direct words to flow at their own behest.

Much like DeJ, this is an album that occupies its own space, music to get lost in your head to. It may rarely run and may struggle to fully break through for that very reason, but it does more than enough at its own, proud, steady pace.

The key is to receive the album in the spirit in which it was intended: as an escapist distraction during troubling times. Your enjoyment of Garbers Days Revisited will depend, to a significant degree, upon how seriously you take it.

MEGAN doesn’t really match her most memorable projects. The music doesn’t match a multifaceted generational talent, and the result is a record full of what feels like compromise. Nevertheless, the Hotties get many new great songs to enjoy, and Megan and her team get proof that the rapper can successfully take her sound in many different directions, even if that proof is interspaced with much more filler than it should be.

Less sleepy than Penny Sparkle but also less vibrant and consistent than 23, it’s the work of a band that took a breather, and came back reassured in who they are. They’re inviting us back in — to their table, no less — and proving that they still deserve our company, and we still ought to seek theirs.

The end sensation is one of anticipation, to hear where Eisold goes from here, now that he has made the album he has worked his career for and it is ultimately underwhelming. Thus Cold Cave are stuck with another good album, and are hopefully an album away from a great one.

While some tracks could stand to have their ideas explored more fully – in particular “Default” which ends suddenly right as things start to swell – this is still a satisfying listen from start to finish.

While Sally Shapiro (the duo) take some much-appreciated baby steps towards new sounds on Somewhere Else, Sally Shapiro the frontwoman remains just as stuck in unrequited love as ever, and the music that supports her is no less bouncy or plasticine as her previous stuff.

Like a bottle of aforementioned white wine, it needs to develop within the container of people’s memory before it can fully blossom into the role of moody summer album that it aspires to be. The nuances are definitely already there.

Her ability to speak about truly complex and philosophical facets of love and the self in a lyrically simplified way, but with sonically expansive and cohesive instrumentation, is admirable and incredibly progressive in the world of genres and storytelling.

On first listen to Fanfarlo's sophomore effort, it doesn't leave a lasting impression, but with repeat listens, more and more intricacies start to creep out of the woodwork.

Although sonically the production can feel repetitive – especially towards the album’s middle – what ultimately anchors this project is the lyricism. He manages to explore his experience as a gay man and all its accompanying troubles and triumphs, yet also frame them in the universal understandings of heartbreak and alienation.

Bar a few tracks that outstay their welcome, there is a lot to love about this album.

It may not be the most instantly appealing of albums, but with a little time it proves itself to be more than its title suggests.

The impulsivity that he has carried with him for most of his career has come into full bloom on Jiaolong.

Just shy of magnificent and unprecedentedly accessible, Emeralds' latest is not their best work, but at least in terms of the group's development, it's among their most exciting.

It’s a consistently good album, and one that harks back to their previous work while also suggesting new possibilities as they move forward. It would be nice if they could take less time to get the next album out, though.

The Ascension is at its best when Sufjan calls forth light in the darkness.

While the 80s loom in 11:11’s background throughout the album, on “Silhouette” they manifest as a modernised Debbie Gibson or Exposé. “Stay Home”, on the other hand, relies on a cymbal-heavy trip-hop referencing beat to underscore its blissful sensation. Finally, the bookend arrives: a neat and tidy ending to what had previously been a happy mess.

Though lacking in musical revelations, there are more than a few moments on the album that highlight her sharp instincts as a songwriter. There is a catharsis to Someone New that’s palpable, and if Deland harnesses that going forward, things can only get brighter from here.

Barbarism is much further from the sound of a Priests record than expected, and it’s further proof that the Greer isn’t interested in repeating the past over and over again.

Oceania isn't a great record, but it's a strong enough one, filled with songs that sound like the Smashing Pumpkins you remember.