Here’s an album to keep you strong as the lights go out everywhere.

I Love People is over-the-top in a completely different way to Western Cum. It’s less freewheeling, and leaves an uncomfortable feeling, like a Todd Solondz movie soundtracked by Randy Newman.

One of outsider DIY’s best beloved primitives is backed up by a very capable band, for a curious mix of goofy, giddy but locked in grooves. .... The highlight here is languid, lyrical “Lemonade Sunset,” a still clambering, still clanging, still ranting ditty that has somehow been soothed into romance.

There’s not a lot of sand or struggle in these tracks. The vocals never crack. The orchestra never misses a note. .... Only the late album cut “Rust and Steel” has much of a growl in it, and, no coincidence, it’s the track that hits hardest and stays longest. .... It reminds you that even the slickest quiet storm soul needs some fire in it. How about some more of that next time?

More droning tracks like the shuddering, radiant “Silos” or the enveloping “Ash Clouds” feel like you’re in the midst of something potentially perilous. Elsewhere a ghostly horn-like element over the patient cadence of “Spark” or traces of piano dancing above the diffuse background of “Candling” provide the faint relief of a way through the murky surroundings.

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.

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

Responses to Tyler’s previous release, Stratosphere (Merge, 2023), were mixed (more accurately, pretty much everyone liked it but me), but Time Indefinite is so deeply engaging and flat-out beautiful that pretty much anyone with even a mildly adventurous taste in music will be playing it all summer.

What’s exciting about her music, and about this album in particular, is how she slips loose from those guidelines and finds a sound that’s fierce and primitive but also modern.

Raspberry Moon is continuing evidence that instead of Swervedriver, we should be thinking of Semisonic. And as any good karaoke night out can confirm decades on from a release, there’s no shame in embracing the earworm. Right now, few rock bands are better equipped to offer one.

It’s another album from Tropical Fu*k Storm, a good one edging into great.

In these songs, to steal a line from the other Go-Between, “Love Goes On,” and he’s got the chops and faith to make me believe it.

With 15 short tracks stacked tightly into 37 minutes, 2 doesn’t always cohere, but it’s certainly playful, freewheeling, and occasionally inspired.

It’s austere, minimal, and starkly beautiful, but incorporates some of Hidden’s pounding rhythmic heft on “A Season in Hell” and “Wild Fields.”

This is a wonderful album keeps its tender heart up close and its ravaged noise at a remove, but both of them are beautiful.

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.

Hval is unafraid to experiment and let the chips fall where they may. The results on Iris Silver Mist are variable but always intriguing.

One of Deerhoof’s finest albums, something we should have been prepared for, even this far into the rockers’ career.

The spell is strong enough that you can’t help but follow.

Moor Mother and SUMAC are all adept improvisers, uncannily able to gather impulses and sounds that verge on chaos into aesthetic forms that feel saturated with meaning and intent.

You might flash back to 1990s Primal Scream or the Madchester grooves of a couple years prior, to certain Spiritualized cuts or even, in the flurry of woodwinds, a bit of Sun Ra. It’s quite good if you can get beyond wishing it were really Clinic. It’s maybe the next best thing.

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.

There are still songs here with all the hallmarks of a classic Sandwell cut (“Self-Initiate” thumps mercilessly with its UFO synth pulses and “Restless” could slip right in the middle of a live set), but they are the exception rather than the rule.

These songs come on strong, and if you’re not in the mood may seem to push a bit too hard. But when was too much ever a bad thing? The best way to interact with Wasteland is to let its music roll in like a tidal surge and sweep you under, coming up gasping when it’s done.

While I liked it immediately, it took a long time to settle on favorite tracks; there are no obvious bangers. Still settle in, and it’s like having coffee with an old friend, familiar but occasionally surprising, kind but full of raucous humor and very, very real.

The album’s consistent tempo and tone end up making Jellywish feel strangely longer than its concise 34-minute runtime. But, when the band cuts loose a little, such as the lead guitar breaks on “This Was A Gift” and “All the Same Light,” it’s tantalizing to imagine where Jellywish may have ventured given more of a loose rein and a sense of adventure.

Holley finds the direct line between his own, relatively recent suffering and the longer narrative of black people in America. Funky, percussion driven “We Was Kings in the Jungle, Slaves in the Field,” is one of the album’s best cuts, rumbling forward on syncopated drumming, fired by blares of brass and winds, lit by ghostly patterns of marimba.

Stirring stuff.