Only “Travel Fox” and “RocMarcable” in the second half come close to the usual Marci in his macking mode. But even they won’t warrant revisiting this EP in a couple of years.

Le Bon’s production approach has shifted her musical universe far from the brittle, guitar-driven sounds of earlier, post-punk indebted records like Crab Day (2016) towards a distinctive sound that seems to reach backwards and forwards simultaneously. This feeling of being held in suspension characterizes many of Michelangelo Dying’s most affecting moments.

Inland See is the kind of record that offers multiple layers of riches: the rich sound of the analog synthesizers, the mellifluous wind instruments, the subtle use of evolving rhythmic elements. It’s an addictive listen that rivals Totality for its elegance and depth.

At just five tracks, Orcutt Shelley Miller is lean but still intense. It’s a record that burns hot and fast and benefits from multiple listens.

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.

Some vibrate with a ghostly blues — lovely, haunted “This” and the bent note mirage of “June Bug”—while others swagger fancifully like barroom tall tales (“Monkey”). Older songs, like “Abominable Snowman,” first recorded for 1995’s Parsnip Snips, and “Indian Chiefs and Hula Girls” from 1988’s Water Tower, sidle casually into the present moment, sounding well-loved and unbothered by the passage of time. They sit right next to newer songs like “Fava,” with its transfixing twang of guitar.

The Beths are bigger, better and more complicated than they’ve ever been. This is the record to beat from now on.

For an album with such a grandiose title, Big Thief’s Double Infinity is bafflingly mediocre — especially since it arrives on the back of a string of good-to-great albums.

It’s such a blessed relief that I Wonder When They’re Going to Destroy Your Face is not just extremely good, but that it is so in the way that Prolapse has always been great. Steelyard and Derrick are in classic form.

The Welsh guitarist hammers at her instrument, unleashing a percussive rain of notes that fray and change as they linger. She plays fast and hard and with assurance, whether in the blue-grassy “Cattywomp” or the mystic drone of “Jack Parsons Blues.” And then, just for the beauty of it, she dips into languid lyricism for “Dreams of Rhiannon’s Birds,” letting the notes drip like warm honey, catching the light as they go.

At 16 songs over 74 minutes, Interior Live Oak is surprisingly low on filler for an artist who seems to take mischievous glee in tripping up listeners.

Despite a few good moments, this isn’t a record where you feel rewarded by sitting down and sitting through the whole thing. Let’s hope that next time they exercise a little more discipline in putting together a finished record.

DJ Haram is all jaded Brooklyn sophistication and all wide-eyed exotic transcendance, all at the same time, and it’s wonderful.

“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.

With Trampled by Turtles is indeed closer in the sense that these are verse/chorus/verse songs largely performed by acoustic instruments. Anyone familiar with the sometimes-bluegrass, wide-reaching folk band Trampled by Turtles might guess, though, it still doesn’t sound much like Low. And the record is better for that.

There are no singers here or elsewhere, but Gunn has nonetheless found a distinctive voice.

Even after listening to this album on repeat for the past month or so, it still feels like there’s plenty of corners to explore and riches to uncover.

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.