With a twisted approach to a tried sound, The C.I.A. expand on their declarations of their debut, enhancing every note, every string, every crash, and a lot of it comes from how well the three synchronize their unique sounds.

The diversity is so vast and so well done that it’s almost commendable. Mainly though, it’s just a bit much for one sitting, and instead feels more like you’re listening to The 1975 radio on Spotify.

With their influences in the right musical zone, we could be hearing some great things from Jacuzzi Boys in the future. Sadly, this release proves that they're not quite there yet.

It's not a bad effort at all, showing their ability to craft songs that are consistently solid.

The band put themselves on display nonetheless, incoherency and imperfection be damned. Uppers provides thrills aplenty from a band making their mark during strange times as our new normal sets in, intent on seizing their second chance.

If you're hoping for change here, give up now. Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager is also presented in five acts, and again has no real structure to justify them.

Maybe they don't care, but ultimately, without any variety or ingenuity on any future albums they might make next, Monotonix might be forever stuck in a rut with nothing to do but party hard.

Despite I Break Horses' songs being dense, the range of instrumentation that they use is slim, and therefore the use of these tools repeatedly is going to result in some expectedly less-inspired moments.

Regardless, even the harshest of words are unlikely to stop this album from being a success. And that, well, is kind of depressing.

Trust Now doesn't have the earnestness or perhaps shear quality of songwriting as Shadow Temple, and it feels a bit homogenized where its predecessor felt cohesive.

Ssss is absorbing techno to listen to and proof that well written music outscores clever production tricks any day of the week.

It's their breakthrough album and shows that with focus and confidence, the future could be pretty exciting for The Maccabees.

Pretty much every song on When You See Yourself manages to convey what the past few Kings of Leon albums missed. This is an at times muscular, at other times breezy collection of songs, recorded with care, removing bombast and occasionally returning to the rough live sound of their early days.

No matter who else we see in his work, this record stands on its own in terms of how it plays for the listener.

It's a beautiful EP deserving of repeat listening.

GB City is a solid debut, proving Bass Drum of Death as capable agents of both the blues and garage traditions.

The first Mall Grab album is decidedly too busy and scattered to be much of anything but a letdown for most fans.

As a whole, Lex Hives serves the same purpose as just about every Hives album thus far: dance, let yourself go, and have a good time.

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.

It’s not an album that immediately reveals itself, but when it lets you in it’s hard to find your way out.

Delta Spirit delivers a handful of superb cuts that have the band taking a modest step forward.

Are You Falling In Love? is a difficult record to dismiss, or forget.

In an industry where many artists are content to follow the algorithmic trends, Zayn Malik has done something much more difficult: he has stayed still, looked inward, and built a musical world that finally sounds like home.

It’s a shame nothing about it screams new pop culture staple the way the movie does. There are fine moments, but the highs don’t rise enough to offset the lows.

Where each song on Melodrama felt like rushing into the next room at a wild house party to discover a new scandal or hookup, each successive song on Solar Power feels like returning to the same yoga class day after day; there might be the odd new mantra or position, but there’s nothing truly revelatory.

Like everything else the Cribs have done, In the Belly of the Brazen Bull is a relatively easy album to like, with sharp melodies and catchy hooks. It's just held back by a feeling of indecision that permeates tracks whose parts seem to want to go in conflicting directions.

iTunes Sessions does it again with a rewarding little surprise that none of us were really anticipating, but are plenty glad to add to the collection

All signs of growth are forfeit in an attempt to mimic the simple appeal of the material that got him here, right down to the title of the album; another installment in the Famous series, simply with The Album tacked on.

Despite the label hopping, the independent releases, the decade of time spent away, Wavves still hasn’t changed much.

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.

He may not have superstar charisma on the mic, but his ability to create an enveloping, dungeon-like sphere of sound practically guarantees you'll be seeing his name pop up on plenty of great releases for years to come.

On Sweet Sour, Band Of Skulls show themselves to be well equipped to keep the garage blues/rock flame alive.

The first half of the album is a mixed-bag. ... After “Toni”, we enter the final five-track stretch of the album, and this is where the truly special stuff lies. Put simply, this is the most beautiful music 2 Chainz has made in his career.

They’re wisps and fragments that might leave you feeling nostalgic for the nostalgia that marked Payseur’s past. If only the messages contained within the songs rang as true as the guitars.

Filled with drug-addled bangers and overcast slow-burns, each track on Starz is cut from a single cloth that veils the ever-evolving future of cloud rap, beginning with the explosive “My Agenda”.

There's half a very good album here, the rest is just a few clever musicians having some fun.

The entire album seems either completely uninspired or absolutely rushed.

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.

On the heels of the brilliant My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and the misunderstood Recovery Minaj follows in style by putting out an album interested in both hip hop and music that simply sounds great.

It may not be as game-changing or complete as †, but Audio, Video, Disco has the exact same energy, intrigue, ear for melody and air of defiance as the group's glittering debut.

The result is an album that is still adrift at sea, unaware of the musical landscape around them.

While Strange Dance is a rather nocturnal album, those broad and distant lyrics, aided by the atmospheric yet intricate instrumentation, mean there are many more moods and times that it can fit.

These songs don’t posture or peak dramatically; they sit, brood, and occasionally spiral.

It is arguably his most sonically interesting and personal project so far, but its inconsistency punches a few pot-holes in the listening journey. The experimentation here doesn’t always work, but when it does, it shows that Post is heading in some exciting directions for future albums.

In Sickness & In Flames is one of The Front Bottoms’ most interesting records to date; it’s completely them – and obviously so – yet they change just enough to keep you guessing without alienation.

Even if it isn't quite as organically endearing as their past work, Dracula successfully retains the same sensational personality that's made them such a must-hear act.

Ternion is a greatly entertaining album with plenty of replay value, especially in those stand out tracks.

As an album, it's ultimately too bogged down by its professionalism and erraticism to come together very well.

The finished product sounds like a work in progress, which is cool, but here's to hoping that Blunt and Copeland will improve the production quality and fully realize their genrebending sketches next time around.

Cruel Summer might be the worst thing in Kanye West's discography thus far, but it's a success as mainstream rap cabal compilation albums go.

It doesn’t always work as well as an album, but folks will still look back and remember the time Cummings spent everything, went all in, and became Ramona.

Four sounds like an album created by a talented band that finally got back in a room together after a long time apart, and just seemed to put together all the various ideas they've all had without stopping to think too much about them.

As a stepping stone forward and backward, No Elephants preserves her musical legacy while subtly altering her own approach to these sounds.

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.

Like Silica Gel, Sushi isn't a bad album; it's just disappointingly mediocre, and I expect better than that from the psychedelic underground's clown prince of Cool Runnings and backseat-of-grandma's-Oldsmobile Top-40 jams.

Talent, when taken as a whole unit, functions exceedingly well as an album to scratch your daily dream pop itch, but when you try to take it as anything more than that it suffers.

Crawling Up The Stairs should be praised not only for its beauty, honesty and sonic specialty, but also for the way it’s sequenced.

Time and time again The Luyas set themselves up in a soft kraut-like groove and fail to progress the song into something different, allowing it to fizzle out after four or five minutes.

Essentially, Aimlessness is a jovial affair that promises more in its first half than it can deliver in its second.

It would seem then that Let Her Burn is Rebecca Black just flying overhead instead of victoriously soaring above the ashes.

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.

While Comedown Machine drags itself through a number of dead zones (most notably the dud pair of the title track and “50 50”), there are moments where they recapture some of what made them a great band.

These three tracks ["A Broken Heart," "Lysandre," and "Everywhere You Knew"] function as everything Owens could have dreamed this first solo effort to be. But the rest of the album, which aims for similar points of emotional cohesiveness, but due to some ham-fisted instrumental choices, the message can become muddled.

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.

The record is 15 short vignettes about lost, unattainable, suboptimal, or just plain impossible love, and The Fields nail each and every one.

Gloria is a frequently satisfying yet uneven statement of self-love and confidence that heralds a new era, both musically and personally, for Sam who proves that it is just as equally an act of vulnerability to show your happiness, as it is your sadness.

The worst thing I can say about an EP is that it's too damn short, it's certainly a success.

With more ups than downs, Was I The Wave? is a pleasant diversion with a small handful of truly inspired moments.

All through No Sign of Weakness, Burna Boy strikes a balance between catchy tunes and in-your-face lyrics, showing he’s not backing down and is as strong as ever, no matter what challenges come his way.

Reborn often feels like traveling simultaneously to the past and the future in a larger-than-life overwhelmingness similar to watching a film in IMAX. It’s this complete immersion that wraps the record as a whole, rendering it as exciting as the newest sequel of your favourite superhero series.

Chopped & Screwed is an interesting concept that would certainly be fascinating to witness live. However, on record, it does not reach more than a curiosity frequently enough to make it worth many repeat plays.

The Wilderness isn't really a sum of its parts in that songs might sound okay, if not good on their own, but taken altogether it makes for an album that fails to make it off the ground.

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.

Though the rest of the EP features both highs (the delightful "Bug," which sounds like it could be the prototype for which Williams bases all of his best material) and lows (the Weezer b-side material of "Poor Lenore"), the overall affect of Life Sux feels innocuous; an effort that will neither convert detractors or drive-away die hards.

The strange, yet awfully satisfying, collection of tracks certainly won't attract new listeners to the Gorillaz catalogue, but synth-infused pop tracks like "Revolving Door" or "Hillbilly Man" will appease most listeners.

To the Ghosts both romanticizes life and love while also providing a reality check that is much needed and somehow manages to be jarringly comforting. The album showcases all that we have come to know and love about Cults, while also allowing them to explore other sides of their creativity.

Iradelphic is the sound of an artist who already had a trademark sound coming into his own while still breaking out of his crackly IDM shell.

Van Weezer is the definition of a modern Weezer album: if you go in expecting it to be as dumb and forgettable as other recent Weezer albums, you’re going to get exactly that.

Much like the way the organ music builds and builds, Krug seems to open up more and more, making the end result most definitely worth the effort.

What Did You Expect has its moments, albeit brief ones.

The end result is a quieted, more suppressed record that steps delicately from one note to the next and shines even more of a spotlight on the twin vocal sentiments of longing and crumbled romance.

For everyone else, the predictable melodic twists and some truly awful lyrics will likely prove too much to endure.

No Witch might not be a particularly ground-breaking album, but it is a significant leap forward for this band, and that's most definitely a step in the right direction.

Should you desire to be kind, you can call the album mood music. In theory, it’s an astrology themed LP, with ‘Wunna’ representing an alter-ego, but none of that comes across. ... Even his voice lacks any distinction, a hushed, fatigued monotone that could belong to anyone, with so little presence that it hardly registers over the beats.

That two of the five songs are covers isn't a bad thing, but it does give the impression that this record's a bit of a throwaway: there are some interesting directions pointed out by the denser arrangements, but we'll have to wait to see how they'll realise them more fully.

Javelin’s sound has in fact undergone distilled changes, but the result is still a fun album that once again brings up the question of what could be next for the duo.

With some great tracks, and some tracks that are only just okay, Brilliant! Tragic! is definitely worth listening to at least once or twice this summer.

As brief as the moments of goodness may be, they’re lost in a sea of noise that becomes near indistinguishable when taken in one sitting.

Arcade Dynamics still might not be for everyone, but singles like "Hamilton Road," "Art Vandelay," and "Killin' the Vibe" should not go unheard.

The songs are so masterfully constructed and the mood throughout so consistent that the key complaint must be that it has to inevitably come to an end; a sure-fire sign that an album is doing something right.

This album will make for a perfectly amicable spring soundtrack, but in terms of a long-term shelf life it's be hard to imagine Candy Salad making it through the sweat and debauchery of the summer festival circuit in one relevant piece.

A big collection of tracks that is sure to please some undemanding fans, but just misses the mark as a great release.

Garden Of Arms is a disappointment, but by no means a failure; next time Peter Wolf Crier need to not only focus on how to make interesting-sounding songs, but how best to execute them too.

Although Dreams Come True is prone to fading into the background at points, part of the beauty is the understated nature CANT upholds.

They still may not make an incredibly fashionable brand of music, but this new record shows that they're pretty great at it.

As it stands, these songs represent a promising new direction for Lightning Bolt, but one that they have yet to fully prove themselves adept at.

In the increasingly crowded corrido field, Peso Pluma’s calling card is his raspy vocal and he uses Éxodo almost like a shop window to showcase its possibilities (or limits).

There are moments where the album drags, and there's no one that's going to be declaring this a modern classic, but with this strong debut, Young Magic have cemented themselves as a band to watch in the coming years.