With his debut album on Shady Records, Conway the Machine shows that he remains a gifted lyricist and a good storyteller, yet hardly offers anything original.

It is clearly intended to connect with people who aren’t allergic to a straight beat or a straightforward tune. But it’s still, in its own way, surprising.

While the album is beautifully recorded, there's a certain sterility throughout, something approaching caution.

A gorgeous, fully realized expression of her potential.

Nosdam is most similar to the New Jersey trio Dälek, although Nosdam's beats tend to be a bit bulkier and he seems to approach his music with a psychedelic sense of wonder rather than with Dälek's anger.

It's a rarity, though, when kids successfully switch from absorbing listlessness totransmitting it themselves. That's the case for Mikal Cronin, who takes these circumstances and makes something of it that is big and varied and hyperactive.

The n’goni and Cheick Diallo’s flute indicate that Touré is going for a more pan-Malian sound; whether that matters to you or not, they give Alafia a more varied sound that its predecessor without sacrificing the propulsive, calabash-driven feel of its predecessor of its immediate predecessor Koïma.

When drums and fiddle swagger, it feels like a Krautrock hoedown. Still, the harmonium exerts enough of a presence to give the music a devotional quality. In combination with the chanting, this music invites you to surrender to reverence without telling you what to believe.

Goulden sublimely aw-fuck-it delivery makes nearly everything sound sardonic, but there’s a bottom note of pure yearning here. The song [“Southern Rock”] smolders most of the way, and then bursts into flame in a rollicking chorus.

A tremendously satisfying and thunderous effort, and their finest work to date.

It’s a nice way to spend three-quarters of an hour, even if you don’t have much to say about it afterwards.

Despite the confrontational title, Broken Politics caresses like a lost Sade album. Cherry has done a most unexpected thing: soundtracked the Trump era in quiet storm soul.

Orcutt builds musical structures layer by layer, part by part. These compositions are sometimes jaggedly ecstatic – “Or head on” for one, leaps and lurches with joy. As in any congregation, sometimes a delighted, discordant, untrained voice rises in volume above the rest.

R.I.P is Actress continually shifting and exploring, growing and rippling, being himself in the only Statement-less way he knows how. Its 15 songs aren't for everyone and with few overt melodies, it's definitely not for everyone.

Wonderful Rainbow is a brilliant record and has upped the ante tremendously for Lightning Bolt. They managed to take every single aspect that made Ride the Skies such a great record and intensify it severely, all the while showcasing incredibly tight and complex musicianship – knowing when to hold in the reins and when to set them on fire.

Young Enough is a big pop influenced record that rings authentic and hits every mark both lyrically and musically--an album to dance the pain away.

Touch is a surprisingly coherent album, demonstrating the band’s strengths of agile melodic sensibility, nuanced performances, and immersive production.

It’s head-nodding, melody-following joy, which maybe shouldn’t work for a bleak album. But it does.

Tizita, like Lala Belu as a whole, feels like both a victory lap and the beginning of something new. It will be exciting to see what, at 71 years young, Mergia does next.

Really, these songs are dance tunes, and the proper place for them is in a club at high volume. Listening to them at home is, to be honest, somewhat disappointing and perhaps does the tracks a disfavor, because they're not that detailed.

Now two albums on, she’s found a way to transcend and expand upon it and open her solitary music to include us all.

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

The record is better when the music does the talking, as it usually does for Divide and Dissolve.

Now You Are One Of Us is worth checking out for its amazing production alone.

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.

For an artist working with such a recognizable palette, Sadier manages to keep painting in bold and striking colors. In terms of the production, this is decidedly Sadier’s best-sounding solo album to date.

At various points during the second half, the music threatens to take off into a more fiery, chaotic realm, only to recede into questioning placidity. Much like the rest of the music on this album, it goes nowhere and everywhere all at once, creating and re-creating a space that feels intimidatingly boundless.

She’s at her best when sticking to a palette of steel, indigo and black.