sketchy. may not be their out-and-out best work, but it’s proof that they still have the guts and the songwriting ability — as well as their ever-present, obvious earnestness and candor — to do what endeared their work to so many in the first place.

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.

It’s clear that OH NO will not be remembered as one of Xiu Xiu’s most stellar records. Yet, as usual with collaborations, it’s likely that each listener is likely to find their own tracks they ditch, just like different ones will stand out, given the varying degrees of artistic touches these additional musicians bring with their own aesthetics and histories.

Most of this review has been spent trying to use genre to back the record into a corner, but there is still so much ineffable that can’t be captured in words. Menneskekollektivet is impossible to pin down. That’s the thrill.

“Movement 9”, at just two and a half minutes, puts a resplendent cap on proceedings, the LSO’s strings tying things off with forlorn grace and pomp. It’s like an echo of what’s come before, the tremors from the encounter between Sanders and Shepherd resonating out into the infinitude. It leaves us in no doubt that we have just witnessed a meeting of monolithic proportions.

Benny and the rest of Griselda are a force so reliable and prolific that they should be boring by now. But The Plugs I Met 2 suggests that we’re just getting to know them.

There’s some pleasure to be had here, but for all of those except those of us pawing the floor with anxious, somewhat embarrassed memories – and as the album cover even seems readily to acknowledge – this is perhaps a pill best left unswallowed.

It’s effortlessly buoyant, especially now that he’s reclaimed his image; he’s not the sad and desperate crooner he was once made out to be. Wise sounds more liberated because he is. This serpent is brandishing new skin, redefined and transformed, not by the will of others but by his own love-led volition.

Most of the takes on Songs From Isolation are engaging, if not provocative alternatives to the originals. Some are less successful, even if they constitute an ambitious undertaking. It might have been worthwhile if Williams had picked at least a couple of tunes more essentially divergent from her own style and energy.

More often than not, this album is deeply enthralling, providing interesting textures, head-swaying grooves, tight rhythms, and an awesome display of synchronicity amongst the bandmates at almost any turn.

On one hand, Muddy Time is clearly a love letter to Doyle’s beloved predecessors, most readily perhaps Robert Wyatt’s Rock Bottom as well as Eno’s earlier vocal flirtations. But it’s also perhaps the most complete vision of Doyle’s works yet.

On World’s Most Stressed Out Gardner, Chad VanGaalen indulges his inner experimentalist more than on its more recent predecessors, albeit with the same giddy, goofball disposition we’re used to.

For better or worse, Chemtrails Over The Country Club is 100% a Lana Del Rey record that fits quaintly into her discography. Anyone following her up to this point shouldn’t bat an eye at how sharp of a left turn this is compared to her previous album. She’s absurdly contrived, but the allure is far too captivating to look away.

Even though there are only three tracks here, and a total of approximately 12 minutes of music, Lout represents some of The Horrors’ most expressive, uninhibited, and memorable work – a potential indicator of what might be an entirely new trajectory for this band, including, perhaps, their best creations yet.

Clocking in at a hair over half an hour in length, Driver is similarly brief in nature as the albums which preceded it, but it stands apart from Adult Mom’s first two records in that it’s a more polished, bigger and brighter collection of songs, in spite of how its lyrical content may seem.

The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers is June’s strongest whole document so far; it has such a crystalline, atmospheric take on her favored genres that it seems to exist both within and without the confines of those styles. Her singular, moving, astral take on songwriting appears fully formed with this album, and it’s as exciting as anything to see a promising artist truly deliver.

Moffat’s storytelling is utterly masterful throughout, tragic case studies abounding.

Poster Girl is a step forward in a somewhat more concise direction for Larsson, but it could have used some fine-tuning to fully commit to its vision. She has created an album that is unapologetically romantic and fun but lacking in consistency production-wise.

Only on a few songs does the album bear some weak spots, the most obvious being “Here For Now, For You”; with its under three-minute runtime and lack of evolution, the song feels like an obvious breather. Overall, however, Johnson and company sound completely comfortable throughout The Pet Parade, as if they’re working from a home-field advantage.

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.

The music of Angel Tears in Sunlight is in no hurry, but stick around and it will take you to zones that breathe with ancient life.

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.

Show Me How You Disappear may not hit the highs of her previous work as far as aesthetically pleasing noise, but it is a clear step-up for Medford’s songwriting talents. This may not suit everyone’s fancy, but for Medford it seems she’s finally found her footing.

Usually, Blanck Mass records should be listened to at intense volume, whereas In Ferenaux is so densely packed and beautifully mixed that headphones whilst walking alone late at night are your best option. Trust me, you’ll thank me for it later.

Across the eight tracks of the album, she shifts between intimate personal reflections and extensive ambient meditations with the elegance of tides swelling and settling.

While Balsams was supremely confident, something special, The Cinder Grove reaches even further forward and inward at once, arriving on some far-flung shore that is entirely, supremely Johnson’s own.

With All Bets Are Off, Tamar Aphek has crafted an impressively eclectic project, forging elegant balances between minimalism and maximalism and coalescing her affinities for a variety of musical styles.

For an album called Carnage, on the surface it appears to have none, but the inner turmoil of Nick Cave’s psyche is full of it. He fantasizes about long lost loves, but also about shooting you in the fucking face, and it’s this toying with our emotions makes Carnage one of Cave’s most maddeningly beautiful records.