We Cater to Cowards is a satisfying and sometimes thrilling record. Particularly in its final third, it finds a snarling, crunching groove that slots alongside the general feeling of our current socio-political conjuncture.

It’s a very good set of songs, sleek and wrenching at the same time.

Prog may still have its detractors, but This is BASIC is a case study in why it deserves another look.

It might not be indie (whatever that means these days), and it’s certainly not rock, but The Flying Club Cup is consistent in its idyllic, perhaps idealistic charms.

End Times Undone is another exceptional album from an artist who doesn’t seem to make any other kind.

They’ve upped the speed quotient considerably on this outing, forgoing much of the Melvins-inspired slack of previous efforts in favor of ugly, rapid-fire riffing.

For as strong as much of the material on You’re Nothing may be, it is an uneven record, without the focus or pacing of its predecessor.

Hundreds of Days is proof that Lattimore has come into her own as a composer and that her career is taking on the contours of one of her pieces: from stark beginnings something rich and wondrous has emerged.

Rolling Golden Holy is more comfortable and assured than its predecessor, but not as eerily evocative. If the self-titled was a twilight vista full of mist and longing, the follow-up ambles through sunny backroads. It has a bit more Johnson, a bit less Mitchell in its mix, though the two artists find intriguing common ground on multiple occasions.

The main problem is that the songs are so quietly pretty that they slip by without friction, so that you're halfway through the album before you've registered a shift in mood or tempo.

Transference is the victim of an unfortunate irony--the more honed, the less it cuts.

In 27 short tracks, Flamagra creates a vivid, memorable collage of L.A. life circa 2019, speaking to both the complicated present and the imaginative future of the city Flying Lotus calls home.

The Snake displays many of its predecessor’s strengths--good songs, that emotion-laden voice, the amorphous blend of pop and jazz--without trying to be an action replay

Despite all these potential distractions, Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill remains, quite simply, a beautiful album, possibly because. Harris feels so comfortable in her own skin.

The new record is less political than its predecessor, but seems to share the same, more expansive perspective.

It's just a smart encapsulation of underground dance music's better qualities, but not so showoffy that it can't work as an hourlong immersion tank.

Not all of the songs here find their mark, but it’s a fun ride nonetheless.

Thanks to Sherwood’s production, all nine songs on Rainford are engaging on the macro level; you won’t have to work hard to enjoy them, and you’ll remember how they go later, and the micro; they are, in the classic dub tradition, rich with bizarre surprises.

Songs From the Year of Our Demise never achieves the crunch or the sugar highs that still makes Posies records so addictive, but it never really needs it. This is pop for adults.

A potent mix of performance art, avant-garde tactics and imagined folk practices, O’Dwyer’s music feels adventurous yet also personal, as if she is examining not her own self but her body and its (temporary) presence in space.

It is awfully difficult to bring audiences out of themselves without stacks of speakers, massed bodies and the possibility of timing things just right, all of which only the right context can provide.

It wildly exceeds the expectations generated by Malkmus’s first solo shot.

Oneida have never sounded more ambitious, yet they’ve kept their proggy impulses on a short leash; the flourishes serve the music, not vice versa.

An album that, without lyrics, tells its stories with many voices and in a poetry that feels tangible, even as it transforms in front of us, catching more light in its sound as it blooms.

Everything in Between is as fine a monument to imperfection as they've built so far.

This is mom-and-dad rock, no more ready to pack up the fuzzboxes than it is to become a grandparent.

It wouldn't be a Low record without plenty of unease, but the soothing, uplifting music works at cross purposes to the lyrics.

It’s this balance between distortion and purity, between chaos and clarity, that makes Red Sun Through Smoke a compelling listen. There’s urgency behind these compositions, reflected in both the intensity of IWC’s vocal delivery and the severity of signal degradation applied via his tape machines