The whole midsection of the album is giddily enjoyable.

If the quartet’s debut challenged the assumptions of what kind of music this group of musicians might make, this album shows off their own assurances: not a retread of what’s come before, but a solid follow-up to it.

Beam doesn’t lack wit or inventiveness or honesty, or any of the other things that are good about "conscious rap," but it implicitly disowns them all as impotent or corrupt, as failures before the fact. Its self-loathing is too self-aware, too pervasive, to accomplish anything more productive than wallowing.

It’s lovely, in an effortless, frictionless way that wafts on warm currents and soothes as it passes.

The album as a whole, however, is more than reasonably enjoyable. While still by its nature loosely strung and carefree, Born with Stripes demands your attention in a way that Living on the Other Side never did.

Hippo Lite is a genuine collaboration. Aside from a few glimmers, Cate and Tim’s own distinct sounds are less detectable. They’ve ended up with a batch of songs that are physical in an elementally curious way.

The way this band turns well-used Americana sounds into something frightening is impressive. It's like hearing a loved one's voice when you know that you're alone, scarier in its way than any unfamiliar sound.

It’s about mood here. These numbers would rather glow than soar.

They seem more interested in perfecting what they've already shown they can do better than anyone else.

These songs have a dream-like, airy quality, despite the genuine rock fire power that Why Bonnie brings to the game.

Newman's third album is beautifully put together, well played, slyly and cleverly worded, but it works too much on the surface.

You may not need to be a Fugazi fan to appreciate Messthetics, though anyone can draw lines from the fiery complexities of Instrument to these explosive compositions. The nervy aggression of post-punk joins with jazz-rock’s virtuosity here, and it’s good stuff all the way through.

The album’s 13 insubstantial tracks make no concessions to contemporary ideas of ‘substance’ in pop music: they are exercises in style so formal they’re almost French.

Visuals is probably the most ‘simple’ Mew has been since Frengers (albeit without that album’s jet engine roar), but if it never quite reaches the twisty heights of +--it remains endearing nonetheless.

It is a difficult piece to listen to on many levels.

Hard Rubbish is only a simulacrum of thoughtful, accomplished indie rock of the post-adolescent doodling variety.

Frawley has made lemonade, squeezing out the sour juices of life into a lovely, acid-tipped, unassuming but quite refreshing solo record, Undone at 31.

Every sound fits, without sounding in the least bit fussed over or premeditated. It’s more like a living organism than a band, bringing all systems together to sing its song, once again.

If his last album 2019’s Occulting Disk seemed designed to alienate, Compositions for all its formality and repetition has a far more human aspect. Lugubrious yes, sometimes harsh but its granular beauty has a mesmeric effect that lingers.

A difficult, flawed record that’s predictably too long, making the highs all the more rewarding.

Spooked sidesteps the icy classicism that could’ve prevailed, considering who’s on hand.

I think one can get a much better grasp on the band’s music by seeing the songs as long, somewhat-complex pop songs--ones derived from much different circumstances than The Decemberists’ boring narratives--rather than grand, theatrical gospels

It's hard not to admire the jerky, clean-toned guitar scribbles on 'Cassius,' but most of the rest of the song sounds like a Franz Ferdinand b-side.

Leo was impressive even when he was an unmitigated idealist but now, older and less sure of things, he is even better.

It’s all attitude, baby, and on their second album Blood // Sugar // Secs // Traffic, it’s out in spades, for everyone who remembers when rock music rocked, politics and punk could live together without cancelling one another out (or making one more about the other), and bands could dig into a specific influence without being too obvious about it.

For all the ups and downs, this collection fulfills Martin's goal of continuing the conversation.

North is an album intended to be accessible, and it embodies its time and place more honestly than most records released this year--which is a risky thing to say while also acknowledging that the title refers to a time as well as a place: the Northern England of Joy Division and The Human League.

Ultimately, it's not likely that those who've yet to be Quasi fans will be converted by this album, but it would nonetheless be worth their while to give it a listen.

Love Is All have turned down the sax, exchanging many of their former bursts of spunk for half an album that’s tighter and more heartbreakingly anthemic, and a remainder that drifts into directionless tedium.

Wit's End stands to lose a lot by being judged on a song-by-song basis: there are standout moments, courtesy of ingenious arrangements and lovely melodies, but the album's shadowy guiding principle remains in my mind long after listening.

There’s a lot that could go wrong with this approach on Sun Gangs--but nothing does. For all the arch drama, the big rock songs on here are frenzied, and the small indie pop songs are lean and melodic.

Sandwiched between two of the most towering works of its kind, Greenwood's massed strings can't help but transmit a tad cheeky.

I don't suppose this is an album for the ages, but as tasty trifles go, you could do far worse.

When None Shall Pass drags late in the first act, it's largely due to tracks that seem intended to reprise the contemplative vibe of the Float era. A few Jukie guest spots, brazen as the production, round out the way the album works best.

Listen and you’ll feel a smile tugging at the corner of your mouth. The music is rigorous but fun.

Tucker brings on an overload of tone, overtone and sonic sensation that swirls and eddies like a rough tide, at times nearly picking you up off your feet and tossing you over.

Nothing exciting ever happens, no new spins on the old-fashioned pop idiom or particularly colorful lyrical images, and the record's overarching lack of adventuresome spirit detracts from the grace of its individual songs.

If you ever liked guitar-driven blues punk, whether in its 1970s first run or the aughts revival, you need to hear this record.

On the flip side, identifiable guitar sounds emerge, with tones sufficiently intact that a sharp-eared listener might be able to tell that Gordon and Nace played them.

During these 18 minutes, you can sense a tension between the darker atmosphere and the pop inclinations. That's a combination that's yielded its share of greatness, but the two don't fully merge here.

On the surface, Tight Knit may sound like more of the same for Vetiver, and thankfully so. While the band reaches a bit further than previously, they are careful not to stretch too far, focusing instead on the continued refinement of their position as rock’s youngest elder statesmen.

All of the transitions are perfectly timed, and the whole is a narrative through which minute but thrilling discoveries become regular events as each listen exposes them. This may not be the game changing statement The Ship was almost two years ago, but it demonstrates a fruitful inter-generational relationship in the making.

The best and most consistent Pink Mountaintops album to date, Get Back mines a deep vein of nostalgia via song references, memory-scape imagery, and musical touchstones in kraut rock, post-punk and new wave.

There’s something off in the way that the euphoria attaches to the chillier depths of his songs. It’s unsettling enough to suggest that it maybe could be interesting if it worked, but it doesn’t quite.

Together, they drag luminous shards of melody out of a boiling murk of possibility, then let it slip back down into chaotic potential. It’s an uneasy, fascinating mix of energies, sometimes beautiful but never entirely at rest.

It's all so tightly buttoned down that the first listen evokes a certain déjà vu; You haven't heard it before, and yet you know what's going to happen anyway.

With Held in Splendor, this group discovers their influences, then surrounds and deconstructs them. At its best, the album achieves bliss and demands attention.

It all reminds you of how great a band Sonic Youth was, even at play, even at home trying out tunings and motifs, tossing one idea out into the amplifiers and hearing it echoed, altered, elaborated by tuned-in others.

It’s the steady pacing of Trouble, the band’s commitment to the thoughtful lyrics and the permission given to influences and early passions that guide Hospitality towards a sound that is recognizable, only richer, deeper and closer what they were aiming for all along.

Kids Aflame is the good stuff, as loosely played as it is meticulously plotted.

While the album stands well on its own, Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors provided an essential scaffolding.

Even now, with this seventh album, the old thumping insouciance remains, while the subject matter becomes increasingly morose. These are the kind of songs that could easily, in the live setting, lead to sweaty euphoria; you realize almost as an afterthought that they are all about death.

The music is vastly entertaining, devilish, solder trickles of white-hot intensity running through cracks in its nailed-down facade.

Even the soccer dads and middle-management types might find themselves nodding along to lyrics like, “It’s losers all the way down, stay undefeated.” That’s from the album’s flat-out banger, “Wage Wars, Get Rich, Die Handsome,” a sing-along celebration of nihilism that pounds and punches and exults in itself.

Far is a bright and gratifying listen; one that doesn’t aim at ideas above its station or flounder in search of unity.

More so than any record I can recall, Metal Dance cuts the widest possible swath through the zeitgeist that was British post-punk. Antichrist, meet then your children's archivist.

This is the very best kind of post-reunion album, the one that allows you to rediscover things you'd forgotten about a band you always loved.

It isn't the transcendental work of which they're capable, but nonetheless taps into a thriving, sometimes exhilarating strain of striated rock music.

While it’s unmistakably a Mascis solo album, What Do We Do Now just stands apart from anything he’s done to date.

If you’re a fan of the Whigs, Do to the Beast will push all the right buttons and even add a few new ones for you to think about.

Whether Ferraro’s singing is purposefully amateurish or not, it puts the album in a particular light, one in which NYC, Hell 3:00 AM is either an awkward misstep or a tongue-in-cheek spoof. Actually, it probably falls somewhere between the two, but either way, this isn’t James Ferraro playing to his strengths.

Their efforts at stretching boundaries falter because they have inscribed themselves within such narrow aesthetic parameters, hitting a fourth chord feels like a massive achievement.

The Eagulls’ album does a fantastic job of funneling the band’s energy. That’s the good part. But as for the subtleties--the way that players interact, the fit between chug and melody, the depth that emerges with occasional negative space--you won’t find any of that here.

Tapestry of Webs is a different creature. Jordan Billie’s vocals can still process a scream as well as anyone, but there’s a newfound fondness for melody audible in these songs. When melodies do crop up, however, it’s less likely to inspire bliss than to accentuate the ominous mood sustained over these dozen songs. There’s a post-punk minimalism and a no-wave crash-and-burn spirit on display here.

Nothing on In Evening Air quite achieves the slow-burning power of the title track to their In the Fall EP. But as a distillation of Future Islands' textured, unpredictable approach to pop, it's a fine starting point.

This third Zomes album is far more static, yet the statis itself is arresting.

While some may regret Barnes's toning-done of quirkiness or ambition, False Priest plays to his best qualities while minimizing his weaker ones.

Home Acres, on the other hand, is immediately likeable, suitably complex, and not really very adventurous at all. Instead of reinvention, it commits to recombining old elements in a thoughtful, thematically precise way.

Presley works quickly--he says he went into the studio with more than 100 possible songs--and without much intermediation between idea and finished piece. This process seems to allow him to absorb many different influences (1960s psych, freak folk, children’s stories, his life), filter them through some subconscious prism, splitting them out as almost but not quite recognizable rainbow colors

In short, Efterklang could've made this entire record, and certainly that trio of great musique concrète songs, in their bathroom. Easily.

Nightshade's 10 songs unpack desire and affection and come up with the notion that disappointment is every bit worth savoring as joy because a romantic betrayal might acquaint you with real (not necessarily romantic) love. So while this record sounds pensive and lingers on experiences of loss, it's not depressing.

That contradiction between the wistful and the prickly was one of the really fascinating elements of Green Lanes, and it’s gone now, but weirdly Dusk is none the less for lacking it. In fact, this third outing outdoes the second in an unambiguously soft indie rock embrace.

The music is progressive as hell, but this feels less and less like the right thing to be concerned with.

While it wouldn't be fair to hold Obscurities up to Merritt's 1990s albums with The Magnetic Fields and others, the material here certainly makes a strong claim for achieving next-best-thing status, providing a welcome nostalgic reminder of the many pleasures offered by what has already more or less become a nostalgia act.

Tempting as it is to try, given the linear nature of both the album’s first half and the journeys it references, Raft resists being poured into any one narrative container.

A visceral and intriguing record, and one that doesn’t always gel, but it at least stands by it’s own convictions.

Islet have lovingly crafted their own kaleidoscopic little world. It’s easy to step inside and get lost there for a while among the colorful flora and fauna.

An album full of cover versions is not really essential listening, although there are a few songs here reminiscent of the better covers from past Yo La Tengo albums.

As usual, band members pile multiple textures onto one another in baroque, overpopulated juxtapositions.

The Sound The Speed The Light is as good as "Obliterati."

As one comes to appreciate them through repeated listens, it becomes clear that what initially sounds like a letdown is, from another vantage point, an impressive achievement.

Each taken singly can easily be appreciated, as they’re all gorgeous. But Mellow Waves as a whole is ultimately difficult to recall. Cornelius has certainly achieved the waves he was after, but the mellow winds up needing something more.

Jurado’s ambition seems to have outpaced his execution this time out.

Most of Tom Vek’s influences are at least fifteen years old and easily triangulated. But he’s unencumbered by nostalgia. We Have Sound is so difficult to isolate from Vek’s ass-backwards charisma, I wonder if the man might be a visionary.

Surrounded as a minor spit-polish improvement on Our Blood is sure to please Buckner’s cultish devotees.

These 40 minutes for maybe the most well-rounded Los Campesinos! record yet.

It's as wild and heterogeneous as the rest of the band's work, and manages to bring all the elements at play in their music into the tightest, most carefully balanced equilibrium they've achieved yet.

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.

The guitar throughout the album has an unusual approach which certainly helps PGMG stand out from the crowd.

Over its 23 songs, Iron & Wine’s sound changes, from scratchy sparseness to well-appointed sparseness and through to the jittery clamor that marked The Shepherd’s Dog, but the underlying world doesn’t.

This isn’t Black Eyes, or Public Image Ltd., or even the Mi Ami you knew, and it sure as hell ain’t Bob Marley. This is just a band at their very best pointing a fresh way forward for anyone lucky enough to listen closely.

Mountaintops certainly isn't radically different from Mates of States' other albums, but when the band has this kind of rapport, there's no need to deviate.

True with its fey, reverb-soaked vocals, its synths and the jangle that recall the late 1980s/early 1990s when college rock started to segue into indie rock, is fun and catchy and worthy of an audience.

Skullways settled into a sound that's unstuck in time, and works for both the brain and behind.

If the first half of Chiaroscuro is tragedy you can vogue to, then the ending is just tragedy--pure, simple and affecting.

Dereconstructed poses a challenge and stands defiant, and it works surprisingly well as the unexpected convergence of a number of long-running cultural traditions.

This is a four-way conversation rather than a competition for attention and the musicians display a depth of mutual understanding that belies the fact that they are playing together for the first time. Urselli’s production gives each instrument room to breathe and the tracks swell and recede at a relaxed pace as layers of guitar, synth and sound effects form palimpsests of sound.

If you like jagged, body-moving beats and clever kids slinging dissatisfaction, try Silverbacks.