It carries the manic, youthful energy of Parks’s very best works, plants itself deep inside the listener’s brain as though tapping into some deep American (meaning in this case both North American and West Indian) musical unconscious, and magically holds together as a single, unified and exhilarating listening experience despite its meandering through a dauntingly wide range of material and approaches.

The emotional excavation Jayda G has done with her sophomore album is admirable to witness and a joy to hear.

When it comes down to it, though, I can look at the track list and sing you back the most important lyric in any song. If pop music is meant to create a shared experience, consider this album a success on a whole bunch of levels.

A nasty, dense and confrontational mess.

Beauty & Ruin is Bob Mould’s catchiest, most tuneful album since Copper Blue, full of ear-wormy melodies and bouncy hooks.

If you prefer the combination of styles in his other Thrill Jockey work, or the more ambient and experimental character of A Child’s View, this may not be your bag. There is a specific focus on 10th, a consistent if ultimately unspectacular attempt to see through a child’s eyes.

Dispensable, and far from groundbreaking.

Up on High will sound like nothing much the first time you listen, but stay with it, because the songs are soft and unassuming, but excellent, and they’ll catch you in the end.

When Religious Knives stretch their limbs, they’re still good, but both 'The Storm' and 'On A Drive' lack the power of their more formed songs.

Wilco is a Great Band, if you like stuff that’s boring. And a lot of people seemingly do.

At some point, you may, in fact, find yourself hankering for unaccompanied Mods, and to that end, let me direct you to “Megaton” with its loopy, pinging beat, its hammering bass pulse, its artful disdain.

The temptation to move to these songs is unequalled in his catalog and, consequently, the willingness to engage the material (and artist) in a positive way also makes Sentielle Objectif Actualité a unique challenge of a very different kind.

These first five songs are like a good singles collection, every one of them free-standing and complete, none of them particularly relating to the others. The rest of the album is slighter and less compelling.

Out Hud’s new-found pop smarts leave you hoping that they’ll drop the instrumentals and devote a whole album to songs.

The lyrics lack the indirectness of so much of The Blackened Air and Road to Ruin, just as the piano-embroidered instrumentation skims the surface of what the singer’s band once plumbed with all of its clawing and scraping.

Goat are a bit too tight and knowing to be transcendental or truly trippy, for now at least, although the Afro-beat leanings that crop up all over Commune point at avenues rich in potential out-of-body experiences.

Ultimately, Instrumentals 2015 is minor in everything but the quality of the music--and that seems a very FSA-like play indeed.

These songs are dull because they are about dullness, as sad movies are sad because they are about sadness.

They are super-tight and competent, but with an undercurrent of madness and chaos, a well-oiled machine that is infinitely more interesting because it might blow up at any time.

This crew has figured out how to make it work as a quartet.

In Messes, I’m hearing plenty of scrappy, sardonic, guitar-slashing indie rock--“Spotted Gold” stands out--but also other things. Chura’s voice gains clarity and sophistication on the slower songs.

Birchard's music is euphoric and in your face--if only he could combine his staggering technique with some true grit.

Filled with an ineffable spiritual longing and a fractured sense of alienation, the album packs an emotional punch and a dark intelligence that sneaks up on you after repeated listens.

This is an album in a platonic sense, crafted around a clutch of real hits that were made for group enjoyment on the radio, not just for headphones in coffeehouses. And, like every Comet Gain album that's come before, it succeeds.

Holtkamp finds a beatific atmosphere somewhere between the first BEAST recordings and his earlier work.

This time, she and Wells seems intent on demonstrating that members of even the shaggiest rock outfits have a pop side, too. If you’ve been waiting to see someone try to splice together Carol King and Karen Dalton--and more or less pull it off--this is your record.

Though there are no weak links in the 10-song, 30-minute track list, Cohen tucks the album’s finest moment midway into the second half. “Night or Day” is such a catchy, perfectly executed song that it deftly snaps everything into focus, prompting the realization of just how odd and sneakily exploratory Paint a Room can be.

I’m Going Away is striking for its group sound; the Furnaces play with more air around them, more flexibility and interaction.