Oldham's music, while drawing on familiar influences ' Neil Young and the Grateful Dead are immediately apparent ' is diverse enough that it feels far fresher than a by-the-numbers retread.

Blue Eyed in the Red Room doesn’t fit any hip hop preconceptions. Moving deftly from influenced to influential, Boom Bip defines himself by leaving limitations behind.

The songs on Crab Day are more vivid in memory than when they’re playing. There’s distress at the edges that’s hard to source, but as they spin apart in performance, they lodge in the brain.

This one is as strong as the last one, a shade better for shifting the densities of the drone more. It should be a detriment that they could be shuffled together without notice, yet it isn’t.

'Stardust to Sentience' is the only piece on the album with memorable words and a melody, and it’s accompanied by very interesting instrumental warbles that heighten the song. Most of the other singing is bleached out, a pale ghost of what one wishes it were.

Sonically, we’ve got a pastiche of historically catchy musical styles, with a Lou Reed touch here, a Superchunk riff there, a 10cc harmony under it all.

The title is Norwegian for "poverty," but its rewards are as rich as they've ever been.

Though this is an enjoyable listen and a vast improvement on their debut, the promise of where they could end up is its biggest appeal. Stay tuned.

Rather than erupting with new insights, The Mountain sags audibly beneath the weight of its new strata.

The simple wallops that make up most of Personality suit him surprisingly well.

This album is louder, catchier and more memorable [than King Tuff]. It doesn’t break rules or upend conventions, but it fills its songs with more oomph and pressure than ever.

Daughters of Everything is a fine, fun rock ‘n’ roll record that struggles with a gimmick it didn’t really need.

The best moments on Appia Kwa Bridge stand up to anything he's ever done, and while it purposely breaks no new ground, there's something to be said for sticking to what you do best.

Sonically these songs are crafted out of beautifully thin, translucent textures that brush over one another to create half hues and harmonies. And lyrically, too, they pile evocative, not definitive, images one on top of the other, until a song can encompass two diametrically opposed ideas without any tension at all.

It’s worth making it through these bare patches for the two gorgeous glimmers of light at the end of the album.

The Gathering is weighted in every way, heavy with distortion-crusted guitars, sluggish tempos and an earnest, perhaps even over-earnest, search for meaning.

There can never be too much of this kind of music--so there's a built-in safety in Ways of Meaning for Dunn as an artist and for its listeners. It's automatically successful if you take it up on its own terms, but I get the feeling Dunn is inching his way toward something that elicits a more nuanced response.

Bad News Boys works more as a collection of singles than a continuous listening experience. You’re constantly switching gears as you move through it.

Fields, the third release and first full-length album from the Swedish trio Junip, both meets and defies expectations.

It's hard to think of a more reliable, compulsively listenable formula for new wave guitar pop romance than the one that Wild Nothing has so quickly perfected.

With I Have Fought Against It, but I Can’t Any Longer, the Body have generated a record of power electronics, descending at times into harsh noise, punctuated at points by mournful passages of ambient beauty.

Luckily, the songwriting on Minks' debut hits far more frequently than it misses. It's a solid establishment of a noteworthy sound--the proverbial "encouraging first album."

Caught in the Trees is neither as ranging or as raw as what Jurado’s capable of. While that still slots it comfortably above most records of its ilk, in the context of this catalog, it’s essentially caught in the middle.

For most artists, this album would be a significant achievement--but we've come to expect more from Massive Attack.

A decidedly pleasant listening experience, if not an altogether important one.

A lot of what's contained on this disc reaches for the transcendent and often attains that lofty goal. Even when it doesn't, though, it's still very much worth the listen.

Their debut conveys a unique sensibility that's endearing without being cloying or calculated.

It succeeds, unequivocally, as usual.

There's plenty to like in this abbreviated outing, and hardly anything to raise the hackles.

Kowton’s clarity of vision after eight songs and 41 minutes leaves no doubt at the intent of its creator. You’d be a fool to argue with the results.

It hops around from elliptical soundscapes to bright pop songs to surfy psychedelia to brashly incisive rock, just as its progenitor does, and it’s an engaging if discontinuous ride.

Far Enough is the first of this band’s albums to get a wide U.S. release, and it’s a doozy, no question. ... This is no over-earnest diatribe. It’s a series of party anthems about stuff that matters. One drum flattening call to arms insists that “Anger’s Not Enough,” and that’s right, there’s a lot more here. But it’s a really good place to start.

A graceful, thoughtful, utterly modest triumph, wrapping its twisty modal melodies in layers of fuzz and convening a junk shop orchestra of synths, drums, keyboards and, occasionally, harpsichord to fill out their fragile contours. Like all good pop, the songs have an emotional ambiguity.

Mountain Battles gets less right than Pod or Last Splash did, but hits the target more often than Pacer or Title TK. Either way, it's probably a bit better than you expect.

They may only be covering a small slice of what they’ve achieved previously here, but they so totally capture their moment that these songs blot out much of the world around them, so that they only exist, with you, blanketing day and night.

On It’s Up to Emma, her sixth album, songs like “My Man” and “What Can I Do” are a bit of a shock--lusher, denser, subtler, their gut-punching intensity smoothed with sustained sounds.

It's to Ejstes credit that he's stayed his course, continuing to pull together nostalgic and post-millennial sounds instead of chasing a mass audience that he probably couldn't have kept anyway.

Bands like Eternal Tapestry ask listeners to slow down, to be less antsy and goal-oriented, and to simply let time and musical texture wash over them. That's fine, but wouldn't you rather have an instrumental psych track grab you by the balls? Let's have more galactic, more derelict, more excitement next time.

As the album thumps on, though, listeners who prefer dynamics over beat matching will lose patience.

If not for the wisdom, lend an ear to these marginal spaces for the sounds within are their own reward.

Falling somewhere between a compilation, a beat CD and a producer showcase, this fails to satisfy on any of those levels.

Ringer is another step forward in one man's ongoing aural self-actualization through refinement of his experiences and influences.

if you like holey-jeans music, BITS is quite good--singer Michael Pace has a great indie-rock croak, and when these guys are loud, there's no stopping them.

Repetitive, psyche-battering noise obscures things--most of the songs sound like there was a jackhammer nearby during recording--yet, after a couple of times through, it’s easy enough to discern pop hooks.

Timbrally, this is just another Nels Cline offering with all of its variety and surprise, but musically, it's his most mature and satisfying.

Though each of its cuts clocks in at less than 10 minutes, Forever Becoming is still largely imbued with Fire’s sense of movement and grandeur.

With The Red River, his best yet, richer, more fluid arrangements tip his songs from straight folk blues into gospel, soul and even hints of R&B.

Space is undoubtedly the place here, and if at times you’re left floating, it’s balanced out by lots of good loopy vibes and a couple of jaw-dropping moments of inspiration.

Devout isn’t perfect, some tracks are superfluous, but as a defiance of white stereotypes and genre clichés, it’s a remarkable work.

Perhaps the most obvious way that this album reflects the COVID lockdown, however, is in its weirder, more idiosyncratic second half, which is, incidentally, the best part of the record.

Unfortunately, Adem’s efforts to take his music to new places result in the abandonment of much of what made Homesongs so appealing.

With this album, NOTS continues to reinvent itself in interesting ways that make sense for them. An experiment, an extension, a logical next step that you didn’t see coming, 3 is a significant move ahead for a band that is always worth watching.

They have a knack for making things just wrong.

It doesn’t help that the production is full of weird echoes and indistinctness.... And yet, there are some genuinely good songs here.

There’s a jump in recording quality, but this isn’t always a boon to this sort music and can be a distraction here.... When they put their harmonies in unexpected setting, it works.

Picking out parts is really beside the point – the album works as a restless, searching, gorgeous whole. Morris and his band have never been better.

The late Steve Lacy arguably attained the deepest degree of intimacy and prolificacy with the pianist’s songbook, but others like German pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach have made substantial strides as well. Smith’s set fits confidently in their company in its balance of original and interpretive material.

Mostly, though, these cuts take songs that you probably already know and deliver them slightly transformed by time and personnel and the live setting. They’re old friends, a little older, a little shaggier, but still magic: “Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog),” “About a Bruise” and “Dearest Forsaken.” If you ever loved them, you should hear them like this, too.

Deerhoof fans won’t be surprised by the sound here — it plays much like you’d expect a side project from the band to do — but they will likely be taken by Saunier’s multi-instrumental prowess and songwriting glee. .... He’s witty and funny and while some of these lyrics may push toward the absurd, there’s a deep seriousness running through the album.

It's obvious that most of the songs have been meticulously worked over, and as a listener you're thankful for it, but as an album it feels like the paint has hit the canvas at random.

Eating Us is still an unqualified success, the pop album that many followers in the footsteps of Kraftwerk have tried and failed to make.

Like the new Spider Bags, the fun seems to be slowly bleeding away. Not that it makes them any less catchy.

Listening to the album, the weirdness is never off-putting, and the pop elements don't feel like concessions to a wider audience.

All of what you might have liked about White Hills is here--the Hawkwind-ish guitar excesses, the free-form Kraut drones that go on and on, a la Wooden Shjips or Bardo Pond. It’s just that this time, all the cotton batting has been stripped off, the fuzz removed to reveal structure and complexity underneath.

The result is a fascinating, successful hybrid.

Spooky Action at a Distance is an album with a lot of footholds--different kinds at that--and it spreads them out in a fashion just as lazy and distracted as the songwriting itself.

The key is minor, the tone is melancholy, the concerns are callow, but the leitmotif is redeeming.

There is no ideal on-ramp for the Sparks canon, but Exotic Creatures of the Deep once again re-energizes this weird little alternate universe.

Ultimately Beware’s designation as a "big" record feels arbitrary--it is polished and competent, but at the same time disappointingly bland.

The end result is an album that would be fine as a first effort--that is, if it did not naturally have to be compared to previous Tunng albums.

The Guilty Office feels different; it sounds quite a bit like its predecessor (which in turn sounded quite similar to early ’90s efforts like Fear of God and Silverbeet), but like a new eyeglass prescription, it renders the familiar in sharper detail.

Owl Splinters is a testament to what practiced musicianship, studio know-how and an ear for textured complexity can accomplish.

This is one record that gets better when you play it on shuffle.

With Crush, these kids found a way forward, and strangely enough, they found it by looking back.

Nothing quite so interesting develops; instead, heavy generic riffs create the impression that Dave Grohl may be waiting in the wings to launch into an anthemic chorus. ... This is music that would sound best after the third beer. I hope, though, that Tyler is preparing to offer up some fresh, forward-looking music soon.

As interesting as Heretic Pride already is, it misses an opportunity to pick one direction or the other.

An album that is easy to listen to, but hard to grasp, Everybody wraps its complexities in bright soap bubble diaphanies.

It’s a solid album where both songcraft and the estimable loud-quiet-loud dynamic can share the spotlight.

The Atlantic Ocean is impressive, at times even masterful, yet falters in reminding us more of what it lacks than of what it possesses.

Ex Models are not afraid of the gaps created by their minimal approach; they use the silence to contrast the unholy racket they can make.

Breakdown is gleeful, digestible, and eminently enjoyable.

Saloon might not attract the same short-term attention as some of their higher profile rock and pop peers in the UK, but this second album affirms that they have more to offer than many of their compatriots.

It is perfectly pleasant, mildly intelligent pop, perhaps a cut above the vast majority of songs with "la la la" choruses. Yet it has none of the elegant non sequitur of Bejar's best work, nor the barbed hookiness of Newman's, nor even the sheer musical sensuality of Case on her own

While it’s a solid follow-up to "Neon Golden," The Devil, You + Me falls short of its predecessor in that, taken as a whole, it doesn’t amount to more than the sum of its parts.

It’s weird (great album art), lush, hypnotic and impossible to grasp, a dreamlike futuristic soundtrack that only exists in the combined imagination of those willing to follow Steve Hauschildt’s gently commanding vision.

By repurposing this music with a child’s lack of regard for history, they make it fresh.

Despite their courage for bending genres to the breaking point, this self-titled debut of live hip hop could use a little more reigning in and little less rocking out.

These songs aren't particularly denser or busier than their predecessors, but their burbles and whines serve less purpose than before; instead of sounding overzealous, they sound affected, voluminous for volume's sake.

Ultimately, this album probably won’t be the critical sleeper hit that its predecessor was-–it’s hard to find fault with the band’s playing, the choice of songs, and the overall premise, but Thing of The Past only nudges their art forward a bit from "To Find Me Gone."

Back to Reality's themes are pretty simple: having fun, getting laid and falling in love, all on the dance floor. It has just the right mix of crassness and manners, in a proportion that seems more than a bit quaint by today's standards.

The music’s depth, and it is deeper than any other Q/C/Kluster album, encompasses myth and poetry while eschewing assumption and pretense. It walks a fine line between accessibility and the intrigue of novelty while never allowing timbre self-satisfying supremacy.

Caught between abandon and damming the stream of consciousness, Hopkins’ work seems to require a commitment from the listener that is not always reciprocated. It’s often beautiful passages feel somehow manipulative. But, when he lets loose, Ritual becomes, for 13 minutes, extraordinary.

It’s hard to tell if these songs celebrate youth and beauty or mourn it from a remove; there’s a bit of both in every track. And indeed, that combination of surface and undercurrent, rave-up and desolation, dance beat and aria, is what makes Orchestra Hits so compelling.

The power of Carpenter’s best soundtrack work, the title themes to Halloween and Assault on Precinct 13, comes from their relentless, single-minded drive. But when this approach is stretched to full, eight minute tracks as it is on Lost Themes, it can wear thin. This being said, there’s still some fun to be had on Lost Themes.

All told, Light Divide is a pretty thing, transporting and enveloping and full of glowing tones. Yet even as you’re listening to it, it slips away, and when you’re done, it’s like you’ve been asleep.

It’s undeniably pleasurable, but dangerously close to being superficial and meaningless.

Deerhoof have moved away from abstract rock noise and toward more familiar structure, without losing the spontaneity of their genre-clashing sound.