Even more striking is the way she folds all this talent into her songs, keeping all the bits distinct while shaping them into a complicated, intricate whole that breathes like a living creature. Nicely done.

This fourth Purling Hiss album takes a lot of what was exhilarating about the self-titled and Hissteria and adds some structure and melody.

This disc has all the ingredients that made Faust the force it once was, plowing headlong through rock establishment and leaving us to reassess the wrecked landscape.

This is punk rock that's both intellectually challenging and young at heart.

The results are quietly remarkable.

My Light My Destroyer is a transformational record for Jenkins. However daunting the path forward may seem, she has a lot to say as she overcomes successive challenges.

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

Darkness at Noon thrives on pushing and pulling the listener from emotional peak to valley.

It’s been a while since an album surprised me, not just the first time through, but continually, throughout the listening experience. Everyone’s Crushed keeps you guessing, all the way through, and that’s kind of a miracle. Bravo.

They’ve never interacted quite like this, and the results are correspondingly different from anything else they’ve done. ... Clocking in at just half an hour, Made Out Of Sound makes its points and moves on.

For completists and anyone else paying attention, it is the most expansive and rewarding route to the band's elaborate genius.

The Money Store is Death Grips's next move, and they sound surprisingly ready to engage a wider audience.

He never makes an overt argument that these things belong together, or are parts of a whole (even a whole as nebulous and encompassing as the human experience), or should be taken as equally important, or that all the good and bad therein are equally a vital part of life. He simply does it, and for another 43 minutes the world feels like it makes a little more sense.

Far from snuffing out, Windsor For The Derby sounds like a band with a new lease on life.

Although there are a few ever-so slightly awkward moments, Portrait bears the marks of a perfect collaboration, one in which two very strong (and very different) personal aesthetics merge seamlessly together into one unified 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.

Epic pulls from more corners. The voice at the center isn't arresting, exactly, but in the end that's unimportant. You'll want to stay.

While Cedars probably won’t appeal to listeners not already immersed in the Britpop canon; it will likely prove rather impressive to those who are.

Bold and exciting, the project demonstrates the infinite possibilities available to modern producers, if only they look in the unlikeliest of places.

The density and rushing tempo are balanced by more laidback, acoustic numbers such as “Snow” and “Who We Used To Be.” And there’s also a couple of unexpected cover versions — Neil Young’s “Red Sun” and Lovers’ “How the Story Ends” — that integrate seamlessly into the tracklist.

Have We Met is Destroyer at its inscrutable, poetic best, its elegance poised on a rip-tide of violence.

She writes amazing, heartfelt songs, interesting in tone and composition.

While albums and concerts get to end, the knowledge that real lives carry on scarred by real-life tragedies like the one related make The Glowing Man a fraught record to hear.

Wham! Bang! Pow!, with its extravagant punctuation, is as brilliantly self-absorbed, as needlessly clever, as tightly wound and tautly played as the mid-aughts debut.

Higher-end production values and a handful of famous rock guests have little impact upon their fundamental sound, which is a swirl of unfurling guitar lines, massed voices, and clip-clopping percussion. Elwan is not a soundtrack for defeat, but perseverance.

Innocence finds Pontiak as hefty as ever. Its opening salvo finds the band in particularly fine form, carving out melodic passages from a tempest of fuzz and feedback.

The balance--between groove and experiment, organic and synthetic sound--shifts constantly on this very strong album, sometimes prodding listeners to think, other times comforting them with familiar sounds and, occasionally, overwhelming them with ephemeral beauty.

As a literally small record, the EP can seem like a diversion. But it is an immensely enjoyable one.

Even if the record had been inevitable, it didn’t have to be so engaging; fortunately, it is.

There is an introspective quality to Personal Space.

It's full of complexity and contradictions, and trying to grasp it is impossible. But what a joy to attempt.

This is a big album with quiet moments, and if you like your alt-country dialed up and unapologetic, go find Brown Horse at your local Total Dive.

Most surprising here, though, is Nolan and Ambrogio’s wildly successful approach of ballad forms.

Though a newcomer to The Clientele should not start here, it's strong throughout, with the exception of the aberrant (if mild) guitar freakout in "Jerry" and a creepy piano solo, "No. 33," which, if unobjectionable, seems unnecessary.

Don’t worry if Smith’s quirk is your main draw, though, because Slime & Reason only furthers his evolution into becoming a mad scientist of digital dub production (with excellent contributions from Toddla T and Metronomy) and vocal menace.

So, Offend Maggie doesn’t offer much in way of change. As cynical as the times we live in might be, that could be taken as a polite rebuke, but it’s not meant that way. They’re a creative band.

You can hear the impact of the pandemic in this latest album from No Age, not in the recording, which sounds as assured as ever, but in the bouts of introspection, the intervals of lyricism, the sweet haze and jangle of home-cooked rock. Spunt and Randall went inward, not out into the world, to find a different way to sound.

Reid’s rolling, sweeping, ever-present groove takes on colors and textures, courtesy of Hebden and his suite of gizmos (real or imagined), but it’s always the same hard road, the same track of tandem steel rays that cut through every borough, every station, every hall and every mind.

Companion Rises is straight-down-the-middle Six Organs, not as loud and abrasive as the first Hexadic disc, not as reticently wisp-y as the older folk-derived records. It tucks its wilder, more distorted guitar forays into the interstices of verses, so that the steady jangle of acoustic guitar runs into tempestuous squalls of sound.

The slow buildup provides a sense of valediction, with distorted layers reminding us of Mogwai’s love of volume, only to have a slow fade cap things off. The Bad Fire is a satisfying listen from disc to double disc.

No Elephants is a gorgeous album, but maybe the most interesting thing about it is the way it bites through the beauty.

The squalling sax that wends its way through most of these tracks and Josephine’s joyful, yet solidly unsettled yelps temporarily brings to mind a more professional and spacious Mika Miko, but that similarity mostly traces back to a common debt owed to Kleenex/LiLiPUT--all three bands make the ennui and alienation of second adolescence both incredibly vivid and, strangely, a lot of fun.

This second Quade album is lovely and strange, fed by crystalline streams of rustic sound but not limited to them, and indeed, reaching into post-rock and symphonic art rock with its haunted melodies.

It's decidedly a Pallett album, just breezier. I like it.

It is a challenging and humorous album that works like a society brave and wise enough to allow dissent.

It's the kind of recording many people can enjoy and want to have in their collection. You can throw it on in most any circumstance. It has the sensuality to seduce, the edge to agitate and the style to inspire.

Oh Holy Molar is a subtle album, but its impact is hard to shake.

This is no victory lap around the baptismal fount, but rather a document of spiritual struggle and hard-won artistry.

Pine is deft with a bow. She’s also a skilled arranger, layering violin, viola, cello, and bass elements with a photographer’s eye; the depth of field expands and contracts as each piece unfurls.

It affords Van Etten the space to really lean into the role of frontwoman, at times reaching into an almost operatic register. It’s a dramatic and unexpected new chapter for an artist who is rarely less than compelling.

The songs on WOT are about as accessible as any Donovan has ever written, with bright clear melodies, relatively tight structures and minimal instrumental embellishment, but they still resist easy analysis.

When the mood allows, and there's time to let it all sink in, an album like ( ) is indispensable nearly from beginning to end.

Occupied With the Unspoken can be challenging and obtuse. It can also unrepentently beautiful. And, at its best, it's both.

Smith’s tracks are both banging and self-effacing, yet the two opposite impulses never seem fully at odds with each other.

The longest track on the recording, at 7’21”, is “Sadder than Water,” where the stasis of basslines found elsewhere are broken into an angular melody overlaid with oscillating chordal material. This, along with the outer two tracks, points to a promising way forward for Shenfeld, in which her skill at creating textures is matched by her ability to develop them.

The music has a spaciousness to match the timeline: jangling steel strings slide over martial drums while fuzzy synthesizers burst and Rigby repeats the title phrase. She sounds both invigorated and uneasy; a little bit triumphant and a little bit daunted by her arrival.

He sings in a voice that makes everything sound like an indecent proposal (and honestly, some of it is). A younger, less whispery Leonard Cohen with a slightly wider range might be the best point of reference.

Despite their darkest moments and constant shifts in tempo, tone and style Being Dead sound totally in control. The kitchen sink maybe threatened with an unmooring but Where Horses Would Run is greater than its many parts, held together by sheer joy of music making and the commitment of the trio to give free rein to their instincts.

Here are very lovely songs, tempered by oblique though evocative lyrics; here are rustic landscapes juxtaposed with computer sounds and eccentric field samples; here is violence couched in the gentlest possible terms.

Almanac, on the whole, is warmer, more confident and polished than Widowspeak’s self-titled entrée. Enthusiasts along with those on the fence may well find themselves bewitched.

When the Mekons are operating at full strength, their music’s undeniable vitality is somehow in tune with the struggle and suffering they sing about. Not every song on Deserted achieves that level of intense commitment to an emotion or an idea. But most of the songs do, to menacing or to magisterial effects.

The first four songs on Are We There don’t work as well as the later ones. Ultimately this doesn’t hurt, because the later ones are among her very best.

The record proves that Lightning Bolt are still very much a force to be reckoned with.

While it sounded on 2003’s Promise of Love that the American Analog Set were turning themselves into a shoegaze-revival band, Set Free sounds more in line with the gentle atmospheric rock on their finest album, 1999’s The Golden Band.

Viewfinder works because of the way it sounds, at times bright and harsh as neon, at others soft and ambiguous and elusive. You may not be able to discern exactly what it means, but the colors are bright, the edges sharp and the turns often surprising.

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

One of its strongest allures was its comfort and maturity.

Gardner and Hammel haven’t come close to exhausting their songwriting prowess, and Re-Arrange Us is probably their most appealing album to date.

Even if Speech Therapy, for all its dour resignation, seems a rather surprising Mercury Prize winner, the gentle, pretty sounds behind the quivering sadness of Debelle’s voice remain true throughout.

Drahla clearly knows their progenitors, but one needn’t focus on this legacy when listening to angeltape. It is a singular document by a distinctive and up-and-coming group.

Decidedly not for the faint-hearted, -io couches existential terror within ritualistic performance and orchestral musicality, and is often a challenging listen. With that in mind, approach -io with a brave heart and you’re in for a thrilling ride.

Throughout, Sylvian's songs retain their peculiar emotional coloration, of tension bubbling just under the surface.

We're on familiarly bleak and gloomy (although not entirely unironic) Tindersticks ground here and, in the case of this band, familiarity certainly doesn't breed contempt.

This is for certain, no time is wasted listening, likely again and again, to Rosali’s compelling emotional journey on Bite Down.

The wild humor and slash-and-burn methodology of Comets on Fire have outlived any pretense to trend; Blue Cathedral makes a strong case for the permanent re-emergence of undiluted psychedelic rock.

File this one alongside Fabulous Muscles, Angel Guts: Red Classroom and Forget as one of Xiu Xiu’s most gratifying albums.

It's easy to hear why Rubin swooped in to release this.

The album may not set the world on fire like "Ladies and Gentlemen," but it stands as the best Spiritualized album since that milestone, and a worthy successor.

Iceage cleans up its sound, slows down the tempos and adds instruments like strings and piano on this third full length, but none of this takes the rawness out.

The mixture of the mundane and the otherworldly is powerful. The writing is exceptionally good. You probably forgot about The The (I did), but it’s time to take notice again.

Cerulean Salt is a very strong album, frank and blunt and vulnerable.

Sound is bright and immediate, even on tracks extracted from less than optimal vinyl sources.

Though none of these eight songs are anything less than fun, dynamic, and intensely listenable, lead single “Housefly” is probably the pick of the bunch; it arrives early, hits hard, and is the most economically arranged of all the songs.

Like The Disintegration Loops, A Shadow in Time is not sentimental--it just is. Basinski’s music exists to make us feel, but won’t take the easy route in doing so.

Everything Was Beautiful isn’t some showy highlight reel, though; it’s an example of how keenly Pierce has honed his inner space rock and how much room it still has left to soar.

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.

While Long in the Tooth offers more or less what you expect, it does so at a very high level. The band has never sounded tighter, more collaborative or more sure of itself.

Prog may still have its detractors, but This is BASIC is a case study in why it deserves another look.

The hooks are nearly endless, each catchier than the last, and each song features a Technicolor array of instruments that create a perfect sonic version of the mildly psychedelic album art that comes with every Danielson release.

he's made one of his strongest, and certainly his oddest, albums.

Despite all these potential distractions, Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill remains, quite simply, a beautiful album, possibly because. Harris feels so comfortable in her own skin.

Some feature Morteza Rezâei on dohool (cylinder drum). Heydarian’s playing is so full and out front in the mix that it is difficult to distinguish the two instruments, though sometimes, as on “Nishtemân,” their interplay is heard clearly and to great effect. The longish tracks, ranging from four to 11 minutes, give Heydarian ample space to develop his ideas.

These are rather beautiful ambient sound worlds, however she created them, full of dread, anticipation, joy and peace. Perhaps it’s best if you can’t see the wires and knobs and plugs that make them possible.

Laughing Matter is a Major Statement in the classic style, which might have been irksome if Wand hadn’t pulled it off. Successful gestures of this sort can serve the purpose of reminding us why those tropes were satisfying in the first place, and if this album doesn’t quite boast the succinct charms of past releases its makes its own, compelling argument to turn on, tune in, and just let it all wash over you.

Halo on the Inside may be yet another temporary expedition or truly be a metamorphosis of Circuit des Yeux’s aesthetic. Either way, Fohr’s songwriting is as strong as ever and her singing voice is singular. Recommended.

Even given all those evocations and tonal shifts, Old Star feels cohesive. That’s down to the assured musicianship and the precisely engineered sound the band has mastered.

When it comes to the spiritual, Bad Debt is a worthy addition to a lineage that preaches the complicated records resonate strongest.

His complexity comes through more clearly than ever on Alasdair Roberts, his most stripped-down solo side in years.