If you like your Sufjan Stevens in neon electronic mode, armed to the teeth with abrasive drum sounds, dive right in — and keep swimming. For anyone more enamored with his folk and chamber-pop records, it may feel like a rude assault to the senses.

Mohn is a foreboding album that also has its comforts.

Jaill's indie-major debut, That's How We Burn, further refines the strengths of its predecessor--tight, no-nonsense songwriting and straight-ahead arrangements with tinges of jangle and psych.

On Time Out of Time is conceptually fascinating, playing as Basinski often does, with very large abstract ideas that seem to have no obvious analog in music. Yet the concept yields a calming ambient sonic output that sounds not so different from other kinds of music that have nothing to do with black holes.

As strong as this set is, it still faces the originality conundrum. Rather than a group of songs individually composed and packaged under the banner of a soul album, Faithful Man can occasionally feel like one extended, vaguely monochromatic exercise in proving the vitality of a brilliant yet aging art form.

This album doesn't reinvent the sound, nor does it subvert it--but on its own modest terms, it provides a concentrated dose of smart, verbose pop.

Its melodic songs lack the fiery drive and urgency of rock and roll, consciously recalling an era of music of interest only to people looking for something truly vintage.

That flair for the undramatic has produced yet another fragile and entrancing record.

If you want stark, memorable melodies, you’re better off turning to McCombs’ combo Brokeback; for inarguably affecting rhythms, seek out Herndon and Parker’s turn with Ken Vandermark’s Powerhouse Sound; and for shiny sounds molded into pop songs, you’re better off with McEntire’s other band, Sea And Cake. But if you want that patented Tortoise blend of electronic tones, varied beats, and just-so textures treated as ends unto themselves, The Catastrophist delivers.

Dye It Blonde ends up capturing the post-Beatles hole in the most authentic way possible.

Bakesale's consistency allows it to work tremendously well as a beginning-to-end album.

In 2018 few singers could convincingly build a career as the next great crooner and William’s gambit to do that sometimes sacrifices the effectiveness of the songs, especially on those that serve his voice over craft. But when songwriting matches the talent of his voice the songs coalesce, and the results are spectacular.

The first couple times through Rejoicer, you might easily dismiss it as self-indulgent, unconstructed indie pop, lead by a pitch-uncertain singer with no great gift for catchy tunes. But after a half dozen listens, the album opens up, resolving its contradictions and bringing its juxtapositions into sharper focus.

The melting pot metaphor has fallen out of favor lately, but it’s alive and well in this breezy, engaging mixture of smooth sounds. The music wafts and flutters in a warm air current, landing lightly on syncopated rhythms and percussive bursts of keyboard, but it dances, never settling for long.

Caught between abandon and damming the stream of consciousness, Hopkins’ work seems to require a commitment from the listener that is not always reciprocated. It’s often beautiful passages feel somehow manipulative. But, when he lets loose, Ritual becomes, for 13 minutes, extraordinary.

Répercussions exists in a completely different universe, far removed from rock tropes, and sits comfortably within the spectrum of modern electro-acoustic and minimal composition.

Truth first: James Blake is not a great record. It is a good record, and maybe even a slightly provocative one, in that an album this spare, minimal, and myopic shouldn't, by rights, be stirring the pot so much.

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

Listen to the tracks that are not being released as singles and you'll see that the band truly does have something to offer outside of their super-fun-party-time aesthetic.

Noah's Ark is not an end-to-end stunner. But there are bright spots throughout, and the sisters display a consistent penchant for deviating from standard folk and twee pop lyrical imagery.

While I'm not convinced Biophilia overcomes the slump as an album, every song has something going for it.

It’s Blitz isn’t FTT, and may not be remembered as highly (particularly by those who never give it a chance), but it is a logical progression.

When there are fewer tracks, Anderson contrasts foreground sharpness with distant background. “House of the Setting Sun” and “Chimes” present fatigued leads pushed along by hazy, distant clouds of tone. What the new climate hasn’t changed is Anderson’s persistent restlessness, wandering off the road to find unusual details. Into the Light heads into the desert, knowing it’s hardly a deserted place.

It's a given that Excellent Italian Greyhound is a masterful offering of jagged minimalist rock from a seasoned and almost ridiculously venerable band, but its mastery is expressed in exclusively expected ways.

While the band's celebrity rose in the wake of national tragedy, Interpol will remind you that it's time to be worried again.

While MacLean isn’t a self-conscious wit, he’s never seemed too invested in trying to not sound silly, and it doesn’t cost him. Sometimes, when the darkness gets heavy, his limitations add a much-appreciated levity. As Brody Stevens might say, “Enjoy it.”

The music is a lot more accomplished here than on, say, Up for a Bit, but still loose, unpremeditated and a little bit straggly.

The Gathering is weighted in every way, heavy with distortion-crusted guitars, sluggish tempos and an earnest, perhaps even over-earnest, search for meaning.