Music for the Age of Miracles is rather beautifully arranged by MacLean and long-time drummer Mark Keen, scored by Chris Taylor with the strings and brass conducted by Anthony Harmer.

UK Grim waxes artfully dyspeptic, its words a palimpsest of layered, complicated reference to current events and contemporary culture. ... Still at it, still hitting hard, all hail the Sleaford Mods.

Maybe Xiu Xiu are sometimes ridiculous, but human beings are ridiculous creatures; that’s why these songs feel so real.

Political protest was baked into her music, often in very explicit ways. Performing “prayer for amerikkka pt 1&2,” from 2019’s FLY or DIE II: bird dogs of paradise in Switzerland, she reminded her audience, “it’s not always time to be neutral.” Speaking truth to power (or audiences, anyway) is one thing, but branch engaged in the arguably more difficult political project of community-building.

Torche’s strongest effort since 2008’s breakthrough Meanderthal.

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

This third full-length, written around the birth of his first son, takes that bouncy castle exuberance to even greater lengths, channeling the euphoria of sleep-short early parenthood into woozy, optimistic grooves.

Pearls and Brass have your ultimate Friday afternoon "just got paid today" soundtrack right here. Turn it up loud and enjoy.

Breaks in the Armor may, with a few slight tweaks, find Bachmann doing more or less the same thing as he's done on his past few albums, but when he does it this well, there's little reason to object.

Farrar, with his ever-changing band, has been doing this decades, but it seems like by looking back further, he’s found a way to energize himself going forward.

This is arguably his finest work, at least since The Gasoline Age, his '99 ode to petrol-guzzling beaters and strip-mall deadbeats.

That this focuses entirely on the unadorned piano may feel like a step down from those who embrace his more adventurous works. The instrumental chops heard here, though, stand on their own very well, and reveal another side to Hauschka’s music — and, perhaps, create some ambiguity as to where he might head from here.

Their potential is the wrong thing to appreciate: it's their immediacy, their unstudied and unfocused energy, that hits the spot.

Even though this is Blackburn and Hartley’s first record as Higher Authorities, they’ve had this psychedelic, dubby feel nailed down for years now. Making it more prominent is just a nice touch.

Though he’s not in any hurry, he’s also showing no signs of slowing down. There are 11 songs on The Time of the Foxgloves, some jokily lighthearted (“Blondes and Redheads”), others hauntingly spare and beautiful (“Se Fue En Noche,” “Jacob’s Ladder”).

It’s the kind of album you can listen to many times without wearing it out, without even getting much of a grip on why you like it.

It's hard to believe at first listen, but they've got nuance.

While the bossa nova drum machine on “All the Things You Do” and the scratchy funk guitars on “Pyramid Schemes” introduce a bit of welcome variety, both songs wear out their welcome over the course of their combined 10-minute runtime. Thankfully, “Solarised” takes the album out on a high with its swooshing synth pads underpinned by a hard-grooving bassline and soaring vocal melody. It’s a fitting close to a vibrant collection of tunes.

Some of the songs feel like echoes of one another, such as “Diver” revisiting the water imagery of the opener, and short instrumental interludes “Made of Mist” and “Resolve” create an uninterrupted sense of flow. There’s an expansion of perception in “Night Picture,” which feels akin to Phil Elverum’s work as Mount Eerie.

If you can’t conceptually get behind the concept of a metal kid giving up noise for beauty, you’re probably not going to like the record. Otherwise, check it out. It’s lovely.

Brave Faces Everyone doesn’t have a bunch of easy answers either — it’s more a record of solidarity and mutual support than it is anything more prescriptive.

There is nothing uncertain about You Stand Uncertain--this is one of the most assured albums of the year in any genre.

Though they’ve yet to release a subpar record, the sarcastically titled Ultimate Success Today laser-focuses both their song writing and sound into what may be their defining statement to date, especially apposite for these grim times.

Bullish and forceful, The Disco’s of Imhotep is also a work of considerable intricacy and mystery. Jamal Moss aims high and rarely overreaches, making the album not only ambitious, but a welcome blast of modern house that would live up any club night.

Any way you look at it, though, it commands and keeps your attention, and that’s something to appreciate in any age.

The results are as you might expect from the album title: playful, wide-eyed and occasionally chaotic explorations of intense forces that reach above and beyond human dimensions.

Saltbreakers is a wonderful album – a little glossy on the surface maybe, but saved from preciousness by its intelligence, restraint and soaring images.

The low tide image on the cover Black Sea suggests that this process of covering and uncovering is cyclical, and the music bears it out by adding a welcome bit of noise and depth to some stately and slowly evolving melodies.