It strikes you that the band’s songwriting, Battle’s vocal command, and the musical muscle is effortlessly melded. Which then has you heading back to the beginning of the record and realizing they’d hooked you from that very first tune.

The Slasher House is like going to one of those haunted cornfield mazes around Halloween time. As you sneak through the maze, things are a little scary, and you’re not always sure what will happen next. But it’s exciting, fun, and once you realize you obviously will make it out alive, you want to keep going back in.

On the whole, So It Goes covers a wide range of ground musically, sometimes making it hard to comprehend as a cohesive piece in its entirety. By doing so however, Ratking has made a rap album that is truly fitting for the modern New York.

he album is as much seductive as it is creepy, with hollow and haunting sonic gestures that together compose an alternate universe ambience.

The ease with which you can get lost inside Range Of Light is no dismissable feat.

There’s a sense of maturity and control present, without losing their trademark edge.

You can enjoy Salad Days for its unadorned flow and easygoing weirdness, or you can stop, reflect and be moved by its fresh honesty. It’s worthwhile either way.

The issue on here is that not enough tracks combine both of these two, cool, newfound elements--Kinsella’s vocal and lyrical growth and the expert jamming that surfaces throughout.

The album’s strongest moments come when Felice settles on his deep, lush baritone and considers using it in favor of poetic lyrics or complex instrumentation.

We know that there’s still plenty of life and love and pain to come, but we’re pretty okay with it. In fact, we’re ready to hit the road and let Lost In The Dream pull us in again and again.

Sonically, the capricious trio has brought about a fresh positive energy while still delving into the darkness that has always been present throughout their career.

Hauschka’s ingenuity to rework his instrument into a entire orchestra is astounding. But his ability to avoid the usual, overtly romantic notions of forgotten cities and instead replace it with a portrait of refined desolation is equally impressive.

Simply put, their sound has organically reached a more developed state. Each song brings something new to the table with few tunes just bleeding together.

Piñata might be long, but it moves fast.

It seems breathy, angelic, and narcoticized is the default setting for indie rock female singers these days. And we may also need to reel in that trend too. But hey, if it ain’t broke... Which it is not on It’s Alive.

For now, this band’s M.O.--Graves’ machine gun mouth racing the bands’s nerve-strung music to the finishing line of each 113 plus/minus-second blast--is welcome in the currently, often drowsy world of indie guitar music.

Float through this album right when you wake up or right before you go to sleep. Either way, it’ll calm you down and make you think.

This latest iteration of gauzy grrrl garage rock does the sound right by tightening the hooks and adding more forceful rhythm.

As a debut album, Eagulls proves that this band has tremendous potential.

Within what the Black Lips claim is the their most rootsy release are sly, glam-tastic details dished out with a sometimes laggard energy. It makes for an album that digs in deeper with each listen, like cool new boots trudging through mud.

With No Mythologies To Follow, MØ has established herself within an emerging circle of powerful pop dominatrixes but with her own distinct sound full of versatility and vitality.

What was once an instrumental electronic project has now, in the hands of Joseph Mount, become an inventive, layered, modern pop act, perfectly capable of standing on its own and defending its place among the genre’s very best.

These songs are Polaroid snapshots of friends, families, lovers, cul-de-sacs and empty highways. Some are perfectly, sentimentally fuzzy, and some don’t quite make it into the scrapbook.

Confidence and a greater level of comfort can be felt all throughout Cosmos.

The home stretch of the album is where the band really opens up, unleashing haunting melodies and intricate movements that create a soundtrack for a virtual fever dream.

It’s not that Schoolboy Q is the best lyricist; and there’s not an immediately profound life lesson here; there are no mind-boggling internal rhymes; but Oxymoron is amazing mostly because it attempts to heal past bruises with more bruises. Schoolboy hides nothing and everything leaves a mark.

If you can get past the (New York-ishly cynical?) temptation to corner this band into an indie frame, you can revel in the depth and intricacies that the band has managed to unearth from and on Manhattan.

With her experiences and experimentation, she has combined and refined her sound to make it something that is similar and yet totally separate from anything she’s done before. St. Vincent isn’t afraid of being different or taking risks, and thinks we shouldn’t be either.

In addition to featuring some creative tongue-lashing, You’re Gonna Miss It All expands on the musical ideas and tendencies that made Sports such a hit.

Gendered pronouns do not appear on the album, thus the record feels distant, as if Rostron is isolated from the listener, a tactic that makes the album intriguingly impersonal yet universal.

Their latest album, Voices, showcases more maturity and focus than their previous work.

Listening to Galore kind of feels like growing up, as it perfectly balances a combo of bittersweet nostalgia, hopeful optimism and an impending sense of something bigger and better to come.

If you were someone who felt stood-up by Yuck’s follow-up to their self-titled debut, Cheatahs will follow through on the promise that great rainy Saturday afternoon shoegaze isn’t all gazing into a rearview mirror.

Despite the loftier academic allusions, the band’s music is most affective when dancing on the peppier side.

There might appear to be a hodge-podge mish-mash of genres here, with artist credits ranging from U.K. funk producer Lil Silva to hip-hop’s heady Ghostpoet (who’s Season Change with Doucoura is another album stand-out), but the blending of these somewhat disparate sounds is seamless.

While Divine Ecstasy may not satisfy all your experimentally complex tastebuds, it will satisfy some of them, mostly because it does so much.

While the production and moodiness of the record are strong, the emotion that made much of their previous records such a pleasure has been a bit sapped.

July’s strongest points come when Nadler has the most room to stretch her vocal muscles.

Altogether, it’s some irresistible glitter-on-the dancefloor delirium.

On record, there is an irresistible sprightliness in the songs that says these guys haven’t worried once about their near-tribute sound.

Even though After The Disco lacks some boldness and experimentation, the record most definitely has its strong moments and, like its predecessor, it’ll please fans from either party who will most likely feel content from the first listen.

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra’s proto-punk only gets better with age and maturity, but Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything believes that today’s youth are everything for tomorrow.

Through it all, the energy and attitude is unchanged. And although the band’s themes seem even more specifically focused, this album is really for anyone who’s ever felt held back.

Painted Palms’ strength is in their balmy, unhurried melodies. But even such melodic virtues are no match for the sexless nothingness that permeates this record.

The Dap-Kings prove once again to be an almost mind-bogglingly crisp backing band, with tickingly taught percussion, sticky bass lines and sweat-inducing brass. But it’s Jones, of course, who holds together every song with her now-classic vox.

Haze proves that she can write, rap and sing really well.

For all the cutesieness that can subsume this sub-genre, it’s refreshing to see a band that can play it with a little R’n’R swagger and not just as a set-up for condescending kvetching and pink-hued album covers.

Much as it is a thrash-and-burn album, the self-titled release also hints at subtly sensitive undertones.

This EP, while a little inconsistent with the “usual” sound that a club record should have, speaks volumes of the deftness that Halo possesses.

This is why Blue Rider is so enjoyable: even while it pulls you in, you’ll still feel like you’re listening to it alone. That might sound like an aloof move by Cale, but it’s really just an expression of that feeling that comes with being en route.

Even though Because The Internet is kind of strange and kind of a bummer, it does show Glover’s range as a musician.

And things simmer along just fine like that right ’til the end with 3 Seconds To Cross, a breezy, snare rim-tapping rumination on sunny California.

The trio proves it has a fat bag of tricks: floaty fast rhymes (Get’n Drunk), high gravity boom bap (Troublesome) and haunting alien lullabies (Nobody). But the fact that it’s Earl Sweatshirt’s heavy-lidded guest verse in Cold World that’s still stuck in my head probably means MellowHigh still has a few kinks to work out.

Surrender To The Fantasy is a reminder that Magik Markers is sort of an absurdist band at heart, willing to moon their audience and then have an intellectual conversation about it.

Despite some loopier diversions, DeGraw’s solo flight is more precise than GGD, and the appeal of his technicolor melodies rely on that cleaner simplicity.

Those with some patience will eventually get a smattering of the heavy, grainy goods on This Song Is Over, Warble Womb‘s tellingly penultimate track. This certainly doesn’t make the album a wash--the swampy tunes are still fairly enjoyable. But it does change the formula for the band.

Detroyer missteps are rare, and while Five Spanish Songs won’t go down as one of his most memorable albums (even the title implies this is a somewhat tossed-off diversion), it shows that he can continue to take risks and create albums that both placate and challenge his listeners.

The only mild complaint would be that some tracks feel a little too long (even for the genre) and sometimes a tad repetitive.

This impatience turns into a tension, and this tension is what allows for ten tracks of what are essentially love ballads to remain interesting after repeated listens.

A little more daylight would balance out the vibe. But that’s a minor complaint. In fact, on further listens it becomes the album’s appeal.

Fulvimar has, all at once, figured out what works and built up the self-assurance to do just that.

Frustratingly, the album’s lowest point comes directly after one of its high points.... That’s not to say that Surfing Strange isn’t impressive as a whole.

Matangi‘s top moments aren’t riddled with thumping bass or explosive mania. They are steady builds, relatively simple and not of a too specific trend moment, plus they have feeling.

YT // ST is not subtle, yet it’s still simultaneously visceral and generally accessible, while maintaining its unique voice.

It’s stickily saccharine with spiky edges.

Plan The Escape and No Crimes are largely uplifting, though the descending bass line and drum combo on Crimes sounds like Queens Of The Stone Age doing Go With The Flow Light; and pseudo-ripped Depeche Mode lyrics like, “All you ever wanted, all you ever need” make for the album’s most clichéd moment.

My Night, My Time is a pop album that’s offbeat in its self-awareness and on point with the steep hooks and expansive beats that make pop music pop.

Cut 4 Me ends leaving the listener with a dizzying feeling and a cooly slowed pulse. Now we have expectations.

The album a treasure, yes, but unarguably generic too.

As its title implies, the record is full of a dynamism that sometimes sets it apart from others out there, and will undoubtedly show listeners a good time.

At 19 tracks, Old can get a little taxing, as if Brown, in an effort to be expansive, just decided to be everything all at once.... But you’ll forget about that once you realize that Handstand‘s beat is a dizzying tornado of synth and buzz that’s unlike anything you’ve heard before.

Its stargazed, overly ambitious arrangements sometimes become so intricate that they deplete some of the fun. That said, multiple spins produce a mind-numbing experience that echoes the duo’s desired midnight, candlelight aura.

This sixth, self-titled album shows a noticeable maturation.

[A] fine new Joanna Gruesome record.

His delivery is raw, at times off-key, almost too rugged. Despite those lapses, the song retains the album’s overarching concept, which favors music in its most natural form.

Enough of the sticky, fuzzy guitar rush remains (“Middle Sea”), though often only sneaking in and out of songs. Overall, the band continues towards an unfussy clarity to the instrumentation.

There’s no doubt that Royal Bangs are fully capable of splicing a broader set of influences into their quixotic mix, and Brass offers several great glimpses into a sonic evolution in progress. It’s just a shame that the metamorphosis isn’t quite complete.

“Organic” seems like the best way to describe Alexis Georgopoulos’s MORE. But paradoxically, it’s also an overstuffed, satisfyingly bloated fantasy as well.

Hell Bent is one of those debuts whose effortlessly-evoked sound kind of shocks you.

For the most part, the album stands as one of the stronger reunion records in a year that’s been practically overrun with them.

Smilewound traipses all over the place, sometimes tripping as it finds it’s path. But when it does, it surges with moments of delicate finesse and threatening omnission.

For the most part, songs come off as vapid and barely take a knife to the surface of his earlier work.

Too much of the album feels as if she’s chosen the comfort of being back home, retreating from the brief spotlight she’d been slowing stepping toward since 2008.

Though the Stepkids themselves seem undecided on their signature sound, they boast a refreshing reluctance to limit possibility that ultimately translates into a truly original style of their own.

The Silver Gymnasium has Sheff getting increasingly personal, though it sometimes seems as if he has no more personal secrets left to reveal. The new experience is stunted by the fact that everything really just sounds like a memory.

Other Voices EP is a concentrated dose of American teen fun.

Maybe Khan is excessive in the thought process of his message regarding the world; maybe he is in fact understating the necessity of awareness to the problems our world faces; maybe it’s somewhere in the middle. Regardless, all of us could use a little bit of the soul the King Khan And The Shrines is willing to share on the record.

A listless cloud of heartbreak penetrates every crack and many moments teeter on the maudlin, but The Worse Things Get has fight, too.

At this point, Marshall is one of the most naturally gifted songwriters on the scene, and 6FBTM is solid evidence of that.

Sleeper will probably be viewed in hindsight as "That kinda boring Ty Segall album."

Earl’s skills are incontestable, but at times, it feels like he has nothing to prove. Doris could have resulted in one big shrug fest, if it weren’t for the ferocity in Earl’s bars--which is probably all the leverage he needs.

The album doesn’t bring anything new to the table, opting instead to build on established structures.

Like the previous three Crocodile outputs, Crimes of Passion is forgettable like a party might be. Some may get sick of it and leave early, and others may find the album similar to a one night stand who says all the right things.

It will give you, near exactly, what you put into it. That’s what makes Nepenthe relevant: its masterfully complex compositions come across as simplistic; they’re accessibly intellectual.

The album seems like it had the fat trimmed off in the studio and leaves the listener with a leaner-than-usual, but still enjoyable production. You’ll leave feeling full, but not stuffed.

I Hate Music isn’t a missive on being an aging rocker as much as it’s reflective of the wisdom and maturity garnered as a touring band in what is too often--and outright mistakenly*--only considered the realm of the young and starry-eyed. Only Superchunk does it with the same unstoppably jaunty bounce and screaming guitars that defined (No Pocky For Kitty) and redefined (Majesty Shredding) their still palpable sound and made them leaders in their genre

It’s an admiringly unorganized attempt at turning it up to 11, where both digits are represented by a middle finger.

It’s that sonic gluttony that makes Holter’s production an alluring tryst that’s hard to let go of come curtain call.