Hardcourage is an exceedingly worthwhile release from a producer that’s constantly pushing himself toward new things.

It’s one of the young year’s best all-out rock records, the kind of fantastic full-length that some kid in a garage will one day look back to themselves, maybe when plugging that guitar in for the first time.

The End of Silence is a serious statement that can bring the harshness of war to your ears and occasionally make you rethink how casually you consume the news. It’s by no means an easy album to wander through, but I doubt it was ever Herbert’s intention to make this “easy listening” in any conventional sense of the term.

Such is Krug’s way with words: deliberately or not, he’s weaving a huge tapestry that makes the author clearer to us. Julia With Blue Jeans On is another section in it and is a damned beautiful, it not great one at that.

Here, Lopatin excels at what he’s been doing since his first release as Oneohtrix Point Never, and what first brought us to him: drawing feeling out of the digital realm, instead of just channeling it.

Scoff at them for being a bit too obvious with their name but Fuzz and Fuzz deliver the garage rock roar we’ve come to expect from Segall and Co.

Granted, as they’ve smoothed out the rough edges a bit, some of the rugged immediacy has been lost, but they’ve more than make up for it in a newfound sense of lively rhythmic interaction.

With the triumvirate of googly-eyed rhythms, sinfully catchy melodies and a breeziness that seems only fitting, they’ve served up one of the most auspicious debuts of the year.

The timbre or the texture of the sounds they make is worth noting while working through Smilewound, but hardly worth returning specifically for.

They write very strong songs, but aural satiation sinks in over Bones‘ 48 minute runtime.

Aside from a few inconsistencies, the change in sound is quite revitalizing and proves that there is more to Royal Bangs than a serious case of musical ADD.

Dream River is as evocative a record as he’s ever made and that’s saying quite a lot.

Comparing it to where they once were, somewhere middling between post-rock and meandering industrial ambient, the sound of Factory Floor is of a band that is now confident in their own original and entirely dominant sound.

The limits of Vernon’s imagination and drive have yet to be truly tested, and based on the size of the sounds that he’s summoning here, the ceiling isn’t even in his sights yet.

The experimental mindset is evident in moments of Right Thoughts, but only a select few, and like Tonight, it’s most prominent on the last few tracks.

AM is a pitch black party record, full of menacing pop and grimy, indelible grooves drowned in bourbon.

This album finds them going all-out in swashbuckling revelry for the most part, and it suits them better than anyone might have expected.

With repeated listens though, the tracks on Versions don’t entice you back again and again like the ominous hook-laden tracks of Stridulum or even the wide sound palette of Conatus do. Versions is probably best for those who were there at the Guggenheim concert.

Although working your way through the album can feel like trudging through the shit-stinking mud in the tunnels beneath the streets, there are glimpses of lights that break though from the surface, like manhole covers left exposed.

Loud City Song is a true achievement from Julia Holter. Nary is there a hook on the album, but the richness and vividness that she brings to the songs musically and lyrically will hook you more effectively anyway.

Many of the best rap records are monochromatically single-minded, but then the other half, embrace contradictions as a weapon, rage hiding insecurities, heartless satire shielding weakness, such as Earl’s hero, early period Slim Shady.

Mindlessly hummable and pure of vision, Howlin’ sounds just as good coming from your headphones as it does from Marshall stacks.

Nepenthe isn’t The Magic Place, but it certainly sounds like she’s found another special site of inspiration. Thankfully for us it’s just as prodigious and marvellous as anything else Barwick has put out before.

RocketNumberNine should be commended for the killer tracks that they’ve managed to pack into MeYouWeYou.

On Bitchitronics, Bitchin Bajas make the journey from unconscious creation to physical expression in a way that few of their electronic peers would understand. Brian Eno and Robert Fripp would approve, I’d imagine.

Even though Supermigration is constructed as a whole, it doesn’t always work best in one sitting.

At the very least instead of sounding like he was curling up into a melancholic hibernating state as on Exercises, here he sounds like he once again wants to fight the boredom and start actively engaging the listener on all levels.

Though it’s hardly labyrinthine--these songs proceed in pretty much a linear fashion–Slow Focus immerses the listener in an aural landscape that offers so much to explore.