He navigates through colorized thickets of tone on the long songs with the knowing confidence of a veteran wilderness guide.

There are plenty of moments among these 15 songs that are devastating in a way that’s unique to Xiu Xiu, but also moments that leave me frustrated and baffled. Essentially it’s business as usual for this brilliant yet confounding band. They challenge you to turn away, yet reward the brave and patient listener with flashes of startling beauty.

The third of the record that’s truly Molina & Johnson shines the brightest, when their discreet identities fall away to create Burroughs’ and Gysin’s third mind.

Among the remaining eight songs is some of Raposa’s strongest songwriting.

Despite the up-tempo spunkiness of half the album’s songs, the prevailing tone seems to be that of a musical android--equal portions ukulele and digital distortion.

Tallied up, the hits and the misses are about equal. But it would be unfair to describe Interstellar as middling. What the misses lack is not quality but a strong sense of self in terms of songcraft.

Pole’s familiar synth-hissing static has been removed but a chilled atmosphere remains, successfully transforming this release into four club-friendly tracks that will leave you feeling warmer than a glass of red wine.

What's perhaps most interesting about the album is that it steers clear of most indie rock tropes.

The lyrics (and their alternately crooned and flat-rapped delivery) are nothing new is probably the worst that can be said of them.

Downstate is far more varied [than 2023's Upstate] and the songs make their point and get on with it — a definite improvement.

It's as though she's taken the lesson of The Trip--that you can get over the most extreme pain--and used it to come back to her musical home.

It's a pleasing set on its own terms, but it's just as interesting as a contrast to contemporary electronics, to hear what traits and effects have faded as its evolved so rapidly.

Presley is an oddball psychedelic pop artist of considerable appeal. He’s also an experimenter in digital minimalism. Larry’s Hawk eats all kinds of stuff, apparently, and you just have to keep feeding him.

A ragged, gnarly listen, Future Teenage Cave Artists is, fittingly, one of the band’s most experimental offerings in years, offering short bursts of breakneck, catchy garage rock, counterbalanced by plenty of reverb-drenched dissonance and eerie atmospherics. Just as it feels like it may be settling into something approaching conventional songcraft, the band chucks in a blast of competing ideas that sound like they’re eating each other alive, desperately scrambling for survival.

Though comprising only nine songs across just over half an hour of music, Actually, You Can is bursting at the seams with ideas.

Ultimately, The Iron Soul of Nothing feels considerably more like a NWW album than a Sunn 0))) album. But somehow that doesn't come at the expense of the source authors. Rather, it's a satisfying document of Stapleton's ongoing creativity as well as confirmation of the potential always nascent in the doom duo's earliest work.

Venus on Earth proves that world-pop fusion needn’t be a pastiche of watered-down musical tropes, but rather something vital and soul affirming--a fever to embrace.

Like many collaborations, the material on Stoney Jackson is varied and can feel rudderless at moments.

As distinctive as it is complex, is as much about the journey as its component pieces, commanding all the familiar electronic music components with ease, but infused with the warmth of soul and a kind of cross-continental sophistication.

Temper is rewarding in a conventional way compared to the surprise of Precis, less something iridescent found in the sand and more the product of resourceful and masterly design.

Here are very lovely songs, tempered by oblique though evocative lyrics; here are rustic landscapes juxtaposed with computer sounds and eccentric field samples; here is violence couched in the gentlest possible terms.

It may have taken a while, but the rewards of this belated collaboration are exquisite.

This time out, more than ever before, it really feels like Brooks and Co. are half-assing it, victory lap style, when they could have soared once again.

The album is an enjoyable listen, but not enough is at stake for it to get under your skin.

Freaks of Nurture needs a bit more abrasion to leave a mark. Sunny and pleasant all through, it blurs together like vacation days, each enjoyable, but hard to remember afterwards which was which.

Ascension reaches for the infinite, but achieve it only intermittently. Mostly you're left with songs that don't stop time, only slow it down.

At its best, Surf City's debut is catchy in both melodies and enthusiasm. And while the latter occasionally prevents this album from achieving resonant emotional depths, "Icy Lakes" suggests that they are very capable of achieving those if they so choose.

Ultimately, Conquistador contains few surprises, but its stark beauty and understated textural depth prove that Carlson is still finding new and engaging ways of repeating himself.