Stir ends in relative quiet and serenity with “Path to the Peak,” little flares of guitar anarchy quickly sluiced over pensive bowing. The dialogue here, as elsewhere, is fluid and intuitive, as each player hears, contemplates and reacts to what the other proposes, not in synchrony but in understanding. They move gracefully over a landscape that is always shifting under them.

These cuts have a lively, volatile energy that reflects the fact that they were improvised and captured mostly in single takes with minimal overdubs. You can hear the two musicians thinking about how their instruments can sound and work and reflect on each other in the moment, untethered by conventional expectations for guitar and drums.

As a listening experience it’s akin to viewing a water color painting, its delicate hues no doubt appealing to anyone attuned to such subtlety. But to someone aching for a little more conviction, grit and risk, it may prove frustratingly listless.

“Six Six Seven (Monsieur Faux Pas)” is all rushing, clambering, beat-wrecked chaos (and very early Liars), while the single “Strawberry Hill” fills well established structures with pastel colors, a pop song melting into dream state. You could fit this latter song onto an Animal Collective-family album, Avey Tare or Panda Bear, possibly.

It’s a languorous, barely moving, fever dream of sustained organ tones and ritual chants, but it creates its own world if you let it.

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.

This is not a one-hit wonder situation, or even an album with only one good song. With King Night, Salem exhausts all its resources in a singular moment, which leaves the rest of the record to suffer through its own paralysis and mediocrity.

So, enjoy it if you will, and forget it if you like.

Even as Barnes works with a more limited palette, the drums/bass/guitar ensemble sounds as tight and crisp as could possibly be desired. He just doesn’t seem to want to be as gentle as the music that he has created here, resulting in a frustrating, and sometimes rather irritating listen.

What Lali Puna does, and it’s very apparent on Inventions, is to really use the simplicity of pop for all it’s worth.

Whether a frolic or a detour, the latest stop on Hynes's winding musical road is worth a listen. But take his own early words as this listener does: out of context, as an invocation of caveat emptor.

His songs succeed when they balance on the knife-edge of banality and pathos, and when they succeed in making formula redeem itself and regain a kind of innocent power. For most of Realism, unfortunately, Merritt fails to even remotely strike this balance, abandoning any emotional power as he falls victim his penchant for formula and banality.

The momentum picks up a notch on “Whitewaterside,” in which O’Connell recounts standing in cold water, watching the ripples and admiring the quiet stillness of night. The stage is immediately set for a stark, reflective listening experience, with nature as a focus, rendered with zen-like clarity.

Nothing wrong with clearly highlighting your influences, although you do run the risk of reminding listeners why said influences are better.

Their latest is just as bright, bold, and bludgeoning as their past work but adds complexity and depth to their sound.

Wolf People is working out the difficulties of splicing hard rock guitars and post-rock rhythms with diffident folk melodies as if for the first time, and their full-bore concentration makes it sound fresh and unexpected and interesting.

These songs are ultimately undone by their ambition in an attempt to turn what could be pleasantly ephemeral fare into moment-defining anthems.

Echoes of Faust's enduring impact leap to the forefront constantly, but by the end of Something Dirty, it is clear that the anxiety of influence remains on the present generation, not vice versa.

This is Quintron's best summation yet of his iconoclastic melding of raw rock & roll, R&B and funk, experimental electronics and art.

The good news is that this is the band’s strongest music since Seasons in the Abyss. The bad news is that, compared to their vaulted ’80s output, the album lacks intensity.

Fab Four Suture is a virtual treasure map, a plane of possibility.

The concept and the execution are both spectacular.

We can see Power as a breakthrough provided that we do not think about the DFA, !!! or Out Hud, or Les Savy Fav. Unfortunately, Q and Not U do not have much to add to what those bands have already done.

A gorgeously euphonic skull-crusher.

Chemical Chords is more compact, true, but they’ve not lost their character through economy.

More than anything else, one gets the feeling that Bespoke exists to defy categorization and manifest that essential need to live as a unique being, no matter how inevitable the factory-churning repetition of prescribed lifestyles may seem.

This is a “nice” album, not a great one. It pleases with clean, intelligent production, thoughtful arrangements, clever, elliptical words.

While Lortz's body of work as a songwriter has grown larger, The World is Just a Shape to Fill the Night may occupy a spot similar to the one Get Lonely owns in The Mountain Goats' more varied discography.