Jonquil excels at frolicking, but the band can also play it more subdued.

Thailand and telephone love letters might not have been how you spent your summer, but Janssen finds a way to make it all seem relatable.

There are more standalone tracks here, ones with memorable melodies and sing-along choruses coexisting with the band’s fatalistic lyrics and jarring instrumental twists.

As always, the darkness is cut with moments of mirth, even though no one will mistake this for a dance party soundtrack.

The instrumentation on each song, though, is rich and brooding, weaving a distinguishable sound that suitably ties Apokalypsis together.

It’s exciting to listen to an artist just go for it, and that’s obviously what Me Moan is: an attempt to synthesize genres of music that don’t quite belong together.

The best tracks, like Burn Out The Bruise and Wire Frame Mattress, possess the lyrical degradation and sludgy rhythms of the early grunge ethos, if being tossed around with the surfing-a-graveyard sounds of L.A. antecedents from right before grunge, notably the Flesheaters and the Gun Club.

The biggest caveat of this album is that the retro aesthetic mars Grossi's attempts at emotional connection--it tries to resonate, but by tapping into our memories of heartstrings and not our actual heartstrings, it falls short. But as production goes, it's a success.

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

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.

Although the album loses some steam in its second side, it is light-years away from disappointing. Instead, it is proof that this band has aged well.

Even though Yellow Ostrich succeeds at creating catchy, clean-sounding indie rock, that style doesn't dominate the album.

As this particular summer winds down, Family Of Love will provide a comforting soundtrack as it gets chillier on those late-night smoke breaks.

This record feels like a race to an unknowable destination.

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.

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.

An album that, musically, strikes a gorgeous balance between restraint and cosmic expansion, but vocally suffers from just too much control.

TV On The Radio has become less animalistic, less apocalyptic, less conflicted -- and more loving, more comfortable, more soulful.

The album is deceptively simple. Upon the first listen, it feels like a collection of fairly commonplace, but good, indie pop tracks that have a strong tendency towards the, well, radical.

Jarvis finds his stride when singing about the uncomfortable.

Though the production value is still high, the songs found here are less assertive than the tracks that were considered album material.

Despite some sugary moments, Dalliance, mostly ringing with fizzy excitement, is nonetheless a record that toes the line between bitter and sweet lonely dude moments.

Rapping With Paul White is part Afrobeat and/or ambient instrumental hip-hop, part energetic and demented rap, and part scavenger hunt of all the painfully obscure samples that sprinkle through White's beats.

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

The lift isn't too high, but the album isn't meant to be a mood elevator. Instead, Pleasure gives you the smoke and confusion that is left when all extrinsic distractions are removed.

The songs on Music Is Not For Everyone dance the incredibly thin line where they sound completely believable while the sarcasm still leaks through as subtly as a teenager's cologne.

Now we have Street Punk, less than 30 minutes of raw, hasty, goof-garage, with not so much as a coy wink.

Earle's tendency to wander might be more of a problem if the accompanying music wasn't so intimate and alluring.

His ability to craft and tell stories in a captivating way has not gone unnoticed, and while Prisoner Of Conscious will not go down as his best album, it does display how versatile of an artist he is.

Still Corners' debut is full of the deceptively simple and the intriguingly confusing without straying far from its cinematic sound.

It’s an album for a seductive but thoughtful loft party.

This is a solid half-hour of garage-y indie rock that is usually catchy, occasionally great, and pretty much always competent.

The band gathered its instruments for a retreat/recording session at the converted 1896 church Dreamland in Woodstock and produced a more concrete, rock-leaning sound.

The Family Sign finds Atmosphere back on his old level of sharp self-criticism, but the album is also a step forward for the whole group.

If Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix was the band hitting its stride, then it’s likely that Bankrupt! is the music playing during its medal ceremony. It’s not a radical step forward but it’s not a regression either.

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

Wrapped in layers of reverb and nonchalance, the ten-track release steps in a more layered direction compared with the sunny distortion played out on its self-titled EP debut last year.

If there’s something holding the album back, it’s that the band is almost too efficient and unforgiving in its editorial choices.

Through it all, Lekman's wit remains intact.

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

Krug won't make any new fans with Organ Music, but that's not what he's trying to do here, anyway. He's just having himself some fun-or, as he put it, "lurching toward" his musical ideas "impulsively."

Oak Island is an album that gets weirder and more confident as it goes along, slowing down and stretching out as it comes to a close.

Sucre Du Sauvage portrays the contrast between the two sides of Quintron's musical identity but ultimately unites joyful songwriting with his darker mad scientist persona.

There's a lot of heaviness swimming around this album, and though some songs, like "In The Grace Of Your Love" and "Miss You," play it lower and slower than your average dance jam, this is still a lively record.

Paralytic Stalks isn't an Of Montreal album stuffed with steakhouse jingles. But therein lies the charm.

Despite its psych-rock influences, the duo doesn't rely on a variety of instruments to convey the mood. Instead, the band doubles down on reverb, feedback, haunting vocals and doom guitar.

Blue Songs may not have an incredible single, but it does give you a collection of 11 solid songs.

Deerhunter wins more than it loses on Monomania.

2009's Dark Rift had its grating, overarching qualities, but Thee Physical sounds more streamlined; however, this album isn't polished to perfection.

From the first drum hits and piano chords of the opening title track, it's evident that this is a match made in black-light heaven.

Mainly, the band locks into grooves and reigns in some of the cackle of earlier releases, while wisely drunk-dancing in the under-four-minute mode.

Maybe Vampire Weekend is African-inspired indie rock and Fool's Gold is indie rock-inspired Afro-pop, but it's hard to deny their similarities.

Their sound is more pop than R&B or electronic, more domestic than futuristic, and more formulaic than innovative. But it works for them. It’s accessible electro-pop music that you can’t help but be smitten with.

If there’s anything missing from Goddess, it’s something that could set Banks apart from the lanscape of beats + vocals that’s so saturated today.

The Invisible Way may not be the most significant brick, but its sturdiness is something to be admired.

Musically the album is a quick burst of 11 bubbly songs that never take a dark turn or venture into a minor key.

There are enough outside influences here-kraut, new wave, post-punk-that the album, for the most part, manages to mark itself as a smart, sleek dance record.

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

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

When Smith gets a little feistier (his last resort), the songs feel more ambitious; but it’s the more minimal, quiet ones that hit home emotionally.

Decimation Blues has undeniably strong songs on the more experimental end of the spectrum and undeniably strong songs on the folky end of the spectrum. However, their placement together on one album (alongside a number of less successful songs) results in an extremely uneven listening experience.

The album, however, cannot shake off the feeling that it's a melting pot of Segall's previous albums from this year.

Overall though, there’s more comfort than debauchery on Alvvays.

Spiritual-Mental-Physical is occasionally slight, and there are fewer developed ideas than a real album release; for every punk etching on the wall, there is an aimless jam that was undoubtedly more fun to play than listen to.

Despite its inconsistencies, La Liberacion undoubtedly mixes it up.

You may find yourself cringing along to these missteps, but the album also a pretty fair split between between good and bad.

Despite V’s evidence of growth and energy throughout the first half of the album, excitement drains during the latter half. Kastlander’s vocals are still emotionally pinpricking on each song, consistently dwelling on the subject matter of relationship/post-relationship difficulties on tracks like Full and Be Here Now. Eventually though, just like hearing a friend complain about their ex for three months straight after the split, it gets tiresome.

Dedication, while a great exercise in atmosphere, doesn't get anywhere past where it started. It begins in gloom and minimal electronics, remains there-hell, it wallows there-and finishes off its life there.

Still branded with his punchy, pop-punk melodies, as well as venturing back to the fuzzier roots in several instances, the real issue with Afraid Of Heights is a lack of constraint.

Forming an identity is a difficult task, and Reasons To Live is honest about the painful and revelatory nature of that process.

While the band’s return to its gruffer roots on Desperate Ground has its redeeming qualities, the reliance on pop-punk catchiness feels like a crutch.

It seems like in each song Wiley is talking about a million different things all at once, but there's always the possibility that it's totally focused and you're just not keeping up. It's hard to tell.

After so much rapid reinvention, he’s found himself stalled in the middle of a transformation. In his constant quest to learn new tricks, he’s only ended up chasing his tail.

At every turn and every track the album is pushing up the RPMs to the point the engine begins to whine, smoke and threaten to explode.

Ab-Soul puts out a solid release here, helped along by some big name features and big performances from his TDE labelmates, but at times These Days feels too generic or just flat out stale, ultimately failing to carry the Black Hippy torch in the ways that good kid m.A.A.d city and Oxymoron did for the crew.

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

So this is the real Temper Trap: less fuzz, more grit.

It’s equally as innovative as it is mundane, equally as ambitious as it is safe, and equally as fun as it is tedious. Well, the last one isn’t quite true, this album is a ton of fun.

If this album were condensed into an EP, it would be great, but as an LP, the Aussies seem to be stretching the good stuff too thin.

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.

On Skying, the group has definitely matured, jettisoning much of the divisiveness that marked its brash origins, but it feels like some of the edginess that first made the Horrors notable might've been discarded with it.

While D is undoubtedly a grower, it's unfortunate that White Denim's experimental tendencies don't always lend themselves equally well to good songs.

On this album, it feels like she had been groping for some sense of direction after an exhaustive smackdown. And she decidedly chose the feminine end of her musical ying-yang, opting for quiet, confounding introspection.

If the album has a significant weakness, it's that despite the impressive attention to detail and the impeccable production work, the record can't quite shake that side-project feeling.

What results is a satisfying but somewhat uneven listening experience.

On the whole, there is a lack of connection that makes it hard to qualify Synthetica as an entirely memorable album.

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.

While the xx allowed itself to get mildly playful on its debut album, those moments are stripped out on Coexist as the band further minimizes its already minimalist approach.

The music is smart, diverse and tuned to perfectionist standards, but frequently the lyrics leave the listener wondering, “Where is White’s gut on this?”

Acousmatic Sorcery is an occasionally iridescent collection of songs, but at the end of the day it feels too tasteful, too self-consciously curated.

Instead of making the more personal record that he intended by telling his side of the tour story, Owens has created his most detached album yet.

Some tracks are wildly successful on an individual basis, but they're cut short or steamrolled right over as Riggins whips through what seems like every sonic concept he's had in the last two decades.

Smoothing an epochal shift with a sonic mix of new and old isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Arguably, the band did the same thing when it cast aside the spacey sounds of Leave Home for the alt-leaning Open Your Heart. But on New Moon, the transition is rocky, more of a cop-out than a compromise.

Perfect Darkness becomes half a dip in lukewarm water, when it should be a moody walk on a cloudy day.

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.

Neon Icon is the weight the internet has left us with. It’s a much-delayed product of Tumblr art, Big Brother reality TV, corporate worship and urban fetishism. Or, maybe it’s pushing against these things. I dunno, whatever, at least it’s pretty fun.

Over the course of 14 songs, when the emotional range is the difference between singing, "I just wanna get really high" and "I feel like shooting up," the content [getting wasted and having a good time] can wear on you--or, much like Andrew W.K.'s party music before it, it can fuel you.

The band aims for epic heights but all too often goes with the assumption that grandness is necessitated solely by noise. That said, there are glimmers of great things to come all over this record.