When “Upper Ferntree Gully” takes off, it’s to the sort of easy midtempo riffs that once made Billy Corgan listenable, with a soupçon of Mascis noise thrown in for good measure as Smit builds an intergenerational metaphor from a kangaroo pouch. It sets the scene for an album of sharp twists that owes its success to the personality and wit of Smit’s omnivore genre jigsawing.

10 unassuming but gem-like songs that live up to their past work.

He may not voice things like Ellington would have, but it doesn't matter. It could never stop, as far as I'm concerned.

The BQE is best listened to in complete ignorance of the track titles, packaging, or even professed subject matter. The music speaks best when it speaks for itself.

Like most bands, Girl Friday has never been crazy about genre labels, and if you asked them whether they were pop or punk or indie, they’d very likely just say yes. By sliding continually between categories, though, this band creates a very absorbing tension between what they are right now and what they might become in a measure or two. You have to pay attention. You can’t take these songs for granted.

Clattering drum machines and gorgeous washes of tone are topped off by a standout vocal turn that carries the album off into the clouds, a searingly emotional purge and soothing balm all rolled in one.

What To Look For In Summer is a terrific career spanning selection of some of their most loved songs the performances of which give lie to the common wisdom about a bunch of fey, romantically challenged, wallflowers. If anoraks just wanna have fun we could do far worse than spending 100 minutes with Stuart Murdoch and company.

The album is vigorous in its grooves and leaves a powerful, unifying impression with its words.

The result is a collection that transports you to place and time you’d probably never get to otherwise, rocks your body, feeds your curiosity and makes you feel at home. Well done, I’d say.

By repurposing this music with a child’s lack of regard for history, they make it fresh.

Akron/Family II really captures a feeling of happiness and at the same time melancholy, and that's what makes it beautiful: those two feelings at the same time.

Twelfth stands out even in their strong discography.

This is a hard record to get a hold on, but its vapors make you dizzy.

Pajo employs quiet space beautifully here, amplifying his hushed couplets and fret noises by surrounding them with nothing but a vague tape hiss.

Less folky and more eclectic than his past work, Crow offers ample evidence of growth in Banhart’s range as both a performer and a songwriter.

[This] is the first time Bowie’s been interesting since 2002’s overlooked Heathen, and if you prefer his avant-garde side, this is the first sustained material of its kind in far longer; both of these are certainly things to celebrate.

Far Enough is the first of this band’s albums to get a wide U.S. release, and it’s a doozy, no question. ... This is no over-earnest diatribe. It’s a series of party anthems about stuff that matters. One drum flattening call to arms insists that “Anger’s Not Enough,” and that’s right, there’s a lot more here. But it’s a really good place to start.

This is a record of a rare stripe--one that manages to pull a lot of disparate ideas and influences together to inhabit a unified world all its own.

Although lacking an ear-grabbing single or a truly hummable hook, the New Amerykah Part Two does something that current R&B seemed incapable of: it charms.

Maybe it's less dangerous, stoopid and contagious in moments. But for this newest gift, I do feel blessed nonetheless. In the end, I guess this largesse just makes me smile.

For such menacing music, the overall effect is oddly inviting.

Jones remains emotive yet controlled, her artistry enhancing the warmth of her delivery, taking a sound from the past and making it still new and still vibrant. This one is a time machine of sorts, but it looks back to push forward, fulfilling the persistent vision of Soul of a Woman and Sharon Jones.

Tripper is the cleanest, leanest--and, arguably, most accessible--record Hella have made as a duo, showing off some fantastically tight playing and even a few hints of what their music desperately needs: clarity.

Heavy stuff, but the music is often not. Cuts like “Erghad Afewo” keen and wail ecstatically, the eerie vocals taking you to other, more triumphant places, the insistent rhythms urging your feet and butt to move. A Tinariwen concert is always a celebration, and since we won’t have access to that, the transporting joys of Hoggar will have to do for now.

Where Horn of Plenty still had spare singer-songwriter arrangements, Yellow House sounds far more elaborate.

The breathy blur of Pratt’s vocals give these tracks a will of the wisp quality, as you chase after the lyrics only to find yourself becalmed and beatific amid iridescent fog.

Joachim Nordwall, Daniel Fagge Fagerström and Henrik Rylander are enough of a quorum and enough in sync with one another to make a defining closing statement.

The result is his most fully realized album to date, and a reminder after those lower-profile years that Lekman’s voice is a singular and valuable one.