Arab Strap successfully juxtaposes songs that deal with the fallacy of human interaction, while maintaining a singular Scottish sound and mindset.

Rage, speed, and math are still here; but there’s a cinematic scope and a real attention to mood and texture that’s new.

Carnival is far more subdued than Shanghai, simmering with supernatural menace, but never quite breaking into frenzy.

Every sound is thrown like a punch, rocking you back with sheer bludgeoning impact. The sound is instantly familiar, though surprisingly hard to pin down with punk antecedents.

Approaches to guitar rock that are generally better segregated sound great together here, as they jump from '90s indie to shotgun at yr face drunkfuzz. I've got no idea where they can go with this. For now, they've made a record that leaves me spinning after every spin.

“Is it making you feel something?” the band asks, in the song of the same name, and yes, yes, yes, all kinds of things. That’s what’s so great about it.

It's good to hear a group continue to challenge themselves without kicking their strengths to the curb.

What makes Album so good, however, won’t be a consensus opinion on whether or not it’s culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. It’ll be the personal associations brought to it by each person encountering Girls for the first time.

This is a prickly, buzzy, invigorating record from a songwriter at the top of his game.

Romantiq is a strong addition to Popp’s compendious catalog, one that unifies certain sound selections and approaches while providing ample variety.

In gaining power and speed, Secret Machines seem to have lost a sense of pace. Now Here is Nowhere rocks hard, but compared to the EP it contains half the ideas in twice the running time.

The layered caramel of [Brett's] voice stays thick from track to track, but finally, it's Rennie's poetry that gives Last Days Of Wonder its legs.

A genuinely engaging and fun album.

Polizze is in no hurry to make an impact, allowing the music to grow organically, often spreading out into long-form improvisations. ... Worth the wait? Absolutely.

She returns with a more personal album, the tragically influenced yet unbowed Untame the Tiger.

Breaks in the Armor may, with a few slight tweaks, find Bachmann doing more or less the same thing as he's done on his past few albums, but when he does it this well, there's little reason to object.

Listen to the second album next to the first, and it’s like when the eye doctor finds the right lens strength and all the letters become legible.

The music (which is credited to the Cairo Gang) is in a soft folk vein and sounds as though it were designed to be complementary to Oldham's lyrics rather than to showcase the Cairo Gang's own talents.

With Hey Mr. Ferryman, Eitzel again distills a brutal, nonsensical world into beauty. It’s a feat worth observing.

It’s somewhere between 2011’s Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill and, say, Peter Jefferies’s Last Great Challenge For a Dull World; there are discernible melodies here, but above them is an overwhelming sense of loss, and the musical chops to channel it.

It is in the spaces between words and drums, and in the general structures of the songs... that El-P most clearly exhibits growth. And it is these points on the album that make I’ll Sleep an intriguing release.

Martha’s music may be good for you or good for the planet or good for society, but at its heart, it is just damned good.

She succeeds in a rare feat here, making a mood-sustaining record comprised of songs that only improve when listened to in sequence.

This one, the first all-Segall live recording (he split a 2015 Live at Pickathon with King Tuff), manages to increase the intensity. It documents a monster tight, no-frills session from 2018 in obliterating, over-the-top style.

Though it's well produced and confident, and goes deep into its web of influence, it seems so rooted in this moment that it feels transitory.

It’s all a challenge, and it doesn’t always work in Morby’s vision. ... Morby might be digging through a city’s musical landscape, but he’s reaching for something that persists, and the people to persist with him.

Future Islands clearly wanted to tug some heartstrings this time around, and in the respect, On the Water is an unqualified success.

Mostly, it reminds you of what you liked about both Comets and Six Organs, and takes that good stuff a few steps further.

Matt Pike has changed over the years, though, and it hasn't hurt at all.

Only after the shock of genre and time warping wares off does the album’s real beauty become apparent.

While Jenny from Thebes is a self-proclaimed rock opera, it defies the expectations of that genre inasmuch as it’s not a sprawling, self-indulgent double album. Moreover, it stands on its own.

In Hex’s 34 minutes Mckiel ventures far and wide, but always brings you back to the strangeness of seeing something familiar in a new light, wondering at the possibilities.

You could easily call this the sequel to Secret Wars - it has the same mix of baked acoustics, crushing organ and electric guitar lines, staccato vocals, and a meditative finale built around interlocked piano and drums.

The difficult thing about Fun House, which by this point becomes apparent, is that musically it primes you for a very different experience than the one it delivers. The middle section’s prolonged, sedate atmosphere feels like a slog following the album’s energetic opening. Not that the material doesn’t reveal its own strengths over repeated listens when given the chance.

The energy ebbs and flows between these two poles, so that intellectual inquiry becomes a gateway towards straight-on freakery, and wild intuitive leaps make sense of complex formulae.

The Witness is definitely a grower, an elusive listen whose understated charms define its mystique — and also its flaws.

The version of Low that helped define a subgenre remains recognizable throughout, but their sound has expanded.

A juicy amalgam of West African rhythms and soothing electronic sounds.

The whole thing took shape with hardly any notice and minimal rehearsal, across language and cultural barriers and in front of an audience, but nonetheless catches a wave and holds onto it in a very intuitive way. Probably if the players thought too hard about what they were doing, they’d lose the thread, but they don’t. It’s a fast ride and a jam and well worth experiencing.

The final rush commingles anguish and ecstasy quite powerfully, glorying in the significance Mapplethorpe held for Smith and resonating for anyone who has lost someone and is willing to be taken to the water.

There may be an idea at the center of the record, but it’s overwhelmed by the sheer visceral quality of the songs. You listen and your guts shake. The whole room seems to shake. One is reminded of a clause the Body have quoted from Hrabal’s foreboding writing: “my whole room hurts.” If that’s akin to the affect the Body are seeking, they have succeeded.

The album’s first half is its best half, a rollicking set of surf/rockabilly/garage rock ragers, all tied loosely to Powers’ awakening to gayness, to underground music, to drugs and to a very alternative lifestyle. .... After that, things get slow and weird and, honestly, a little dull, though there are spooky, mystical, reverb shrouded moments in “The Smoke Is the Ghost.”

With this latest liveliness, Pollard and company continue that relentless growth. And remember, they’re leaving the breathing space for you: no one said they needed it.

It’s good where it has to be good and it hits the notes it’s supposed to, but other than that it’s tough to find Furr inspiring in any way, especially with such a specifically backwards-looking strategy employed.

Eleventh Dream Day are living in the moment, and they have never sounded madder than they do on Works for Tomorrow. They also sound, on their own terms, quite superb, and not at all like they’re trying to keep the past alive.

The low tide image on the cover Black Sea suggests that this process of covering and uncovering is cyclical, and the music bears it out by adding a welcome bit of noise and depth to some stately and slowly evolving melodies.

You’ve got death and exaltation, followed by a sly wink at rock history. Not a bad set of tools for making smart, defiant music.

It seems often as if the songs come to life more through sonic detail and aural shape (a variety of distortion tones, drum sounds, reverb ranges, and the like) than in compositional changes of direction, harmonic depth, or hooks. This doesn't, however, make the music dull. Instead, there's something compelling about the way Young Widows use these details--a shimmer, a hum, a scrape--for drama rather than relying on the often cheap dramatics heard in "heavy" music.

Without being especially political, the album is resolutely female in the strongest, most self-asserting way.

Don’t be put off by the glossy patina; there’s a lot to hear on this record, as repeated listening makes plain.

Sleeper is a large, though not radical, departure from the bulk of Segall’s catalog. But in dialing down the fuzz and eschewing girls-and-partying songs to dig deep into his own personal demons, Segall shows marked maturity as a songwriter.

Fleeting is therefore more intimate even than your average American primitive album, with the sounds of nature adding to the authenticity and naturalism of the music as opposed to intruding upon it.

These songs still jangle, still twitch, still pulse, but there's an undertone of serenity and philosophical acceptance that makes them resonate, too.

The most astounding thing about Lord Quas is not Madlib going against the grain, but that it’s basically The Unseen 2005, completely devoid of hits, and still ultimately compelling.

Where "Arm’s Way" was mostly excess without limit, Vapours is tightly-controlled, yet still roiling beneath the surface.

I feel like Flight of the Conchords could do something interesting if they embraced the absurdity of their act and didn’t stand aloof from it at an ironic distance.

Tromatic Reflexxions is a great record for all of the reasons you might suspect – unless you don’t like MoM, or MES, or either.

This collection stands as an odd object--somewhere between a historical document and a fresh statement. Of its two components, Dethroned makes for the stronger half, and that's reassuring in its own way: in a work that weds older material with newer contributions, it's encouraging to find that the high points come from the latter.

Sometimes he continues with the same train of thought; sometimes he changes direction completely. This isn't technique on display. It's more like improvised self-analysis in musical form.

Full Upon Her Burning Lips isn’t Earth’s best record. ... However, it might be the definitive Earth record, the one that, in its mystery and directness, comes nearest to whatever it is Carlson has been seeking in the drone and riff for almost 30 years.

Trouble is a grand survey of deconstructed rock which achieves its greatest highs via the winding routes it travels. Not all those who wander are lost, indeed.

It's a difficult accomplishment, encompassing pop and the avant-garde while also featuring a particularly striking element (in this case, Hegarty's voice); all three are well-represented here.

On Your Own Love Again is something else again, at least a personal landmark and maybe a classic. Simple, straightforward, but more than it seems, this is one of the best albums of 2015 so far and marks the emergence of a very distinctive songwriting talent.

The Psychic Paramount's music lacks words, but not a voice. These songs have a lot to say, and I'll be surprised if I hear a rock album this year that packs as strong a punch as II.

Wavering Radiant is strong enough on musical merit that decade-strong devotees deservedly ought to join new converts in welcoming the latest Isis album into the world.

Out of the Shadow's blissful indie-pop tunes are as affecting as they are catchy.

It’s hard to know what to make of such attention to individual moments in an album so devoted to the overall spectacle; it’s harder because those privileged moments are spread so sparsely throughout.

The songs are abbreviated, but nonetheless complete, coherent and fully-fleshed.

As Long Island is the most attractive and consistent Boog release to date, it is still a difficult proposition to say “hey, this band is for you.”

Contradiction proves mesmerizing across Space Heavy’s tightly executed 45 minutes.

Too many records are boring. This one is visceral and scary, which is an improvement.

The spiraling, distortion-drenched guitar solos, the cracked and ruined moan of Mascis, the passive-aggressive romanticism, the relentless beat, the pedals, the sheer turbulent volume...it's just like Where You Been? all over again, with all the positives and negatives that the comparison implies.

Vertigo may be the Necks’ best studio album yet, but they are still far from recreating the magic of their live shows.

As often, Dulli brings the devil into lurid though realistic scenarios of decadence. Sex, drugs, damnation and witchcraft, along with ruminations on lust, aging, memory and oblivion, live in disturbing proximity and maybe account for the daunting scale of In Spades. It’s the right amount of too much.

It has a warm, uncertain humanity that its predecessors, for all their depth and beauty, did not: it scans as genuine, music made from necessity rather than from the impulse of an extraordinary showman.

The songs are simultaneously more richly detailed and more succinct than those on Segundo and Tres Cosas.

For the first time in his career he has made an album that is clearly not a product of “Beck”, the single-syllabled entertainer, but rather that of “Beck Hansen”, the person.

An intriguing record that never repeats itself.

There are certainly more fun moments than not, at the very least rendering The Grey Album enjoyable, but it’s hard to argue for any reason other than its novelty.

They have built up a group of songs so restless and unsatisfying that a group of teenagers with the proper training could have made them, or likely something better.

The world is crawling with Fahey-loving acoustic guitar players these days--in large part thanks Tompkins Square--but ones as good as William Tyler are rare.

With no connecting thread or great songwriting, I Am Very Far is difficult to engage with. It has its moments, of course, but the more I listen, the more I think of it as a creative palette cleanser -- a chance to try out a few ideas while planning the next big song cycle.

So while In Prism at least sounds like a Polvo record, it’s not until the second half, starting with the eight-minute opus “Lucia,” where it actually begins to feel like a Polvo record.

Unlike the dark, industrialized beats currently populating many dance music playlists, Woo is light on its feet--more the soundtrack to an evening of beachside serenity than a 5 a.m. scream from some Mancunian warehouse.

The results may not be as jarring as its predecessor - the excitement of their original experimentation is gone - but ultimately they’re more satisfying, indicative of a duo much more comfortable with their vision.

While Sky Blue may have the most appeal for those who are already immersed in Van Zandt’s work, it’s good enough to rank among his studio albums. It distills what makes Van Zandt a compelling figure and shows him using his delivery to match the strength of his material.

There’s a minute-to-minute emotional immediacy here that, even if you don’t understand completely, you can feel like the weather, always changing.

There is an aura of immanence, of something more than banjo, bass and drums, that infuses these mystic tracks. Many things are possible, too, when you put together three such capable player and give them time and space to transcend themselves.

While I'm not convinced Biophilia overcomes the slump as an album, every song has something going for it.

With Intoxicated Women we don’t get starlets and a known bad boy tussling in the spotlight. We get Harvey and his cast of players dusting off old scripts of prior perversions, delivering them to a world that fancies itself jaded, but is just as confused as ever.

Arguing Frisell’s stature as a national treasure is nearly effortless with albums like this one.

Garden Party is full of good feeling. Put it on and you can smell cut grass and barbecue. You can hear the pop of the can on your first outdoor beer of the spring. There are bluegrass-y runs and two-stepping rambles, all blurred on a microdose that makes everything brighter and more beautiful.

It’s not jazz, not rock and certainly not Fahey-style picking, but vivid and exciting all the same.

Runner signal a return to the "heritage" S&C sound, balancing motorik pulse and unbridled delicateness, regaining some of the spirit and intention that had begun to flag in the process.

Hold Time, Ward’s latest batch of songs, seems slighter, happier and louder than those on 2006’s "Post-War," but also distinctly complacent.

The Unfairground features ten strong songs without filler or flab. All have melodies that rapidly lodge in the brain, the kind that the paperboy could whistle on his round.

Her narrative sees all, experiences all, but keeps a remove in the dry, mechanical beats, the tamped down drama of synthetic accompaniment, the vocal lines that only once and a while slip past a murmur into wilder swoops and yelps. This is a cerebral, abstracted album about the physical, one that deals in potentialities and implied trajectories, rather than the immediacy of pulse and sweat and organ functions.

Desperation may prove to be the best rock record of the year.