The results, though rarely the caliber of the albums that bookended this era, are a consistent delight.

No easy listening feat by any stretch of the imagination, Scott Walker's The Drift will provide critics and general music fans with talking points for the next 10 years. It is, simply, a work of staggering emotional sentiment and complexity that few will be able to match.

Though this release is bloated and sometimes inconsistent, Horseback remains a distinctive, at times even bewitching band.

All of the tunes are pretty but none of them knock it out of the park.

The magic of I’ve Got Me comes in the way that brutal sentiment comes dancing in on skittery melody and how coruscating lines conform so neatly to classic song structure. Joanna Sternberg makes tales of betrayal and non-conformity sound like tunes from 1930s black and white musicals, and that’s an accomplishment.

Moving well beyond the claustrophobic and listless tendencies of earlier releases and doing away with their predictably two-dimensional dynamics, this is Mogwai's strongest album to date.

Engineer Bosco Mann's work here exemplifies the principal that it's better to capture the sound right than to try to fix it in the mix. Then you can spend the mix getting the balance right, making some sounds stand out and others blend just right. Such is the case here; this record simply sounds right.

As ever, he refuses to offer any easy answers, leaving the listener beguiled.

For completists and anyone else paying attention, it is the most expansive and rewarding route to the band's elaborate genius.

The resulting sound is clear and resonant, which does justice to the music Orcutt’s composed. And instead of feral yelps, ringing phones, and passing traffic, the guitarist accompanies himself with subliminally registered breaths.

A great deal of well-written, rigorously observed detail.

Try to label what Newsom does in a sentence or two, and you just tie yourself in knots. Have One On Me will do little to change all that, and so the only clear point of reference is her own previous work. Beyond that, though, it’s enough to say that it’s her, and if you loved "Ys" as much as this writer did, you’re probably going to love Have One On Me also.

There's a just-right roughness to the recording that has worked for bands as diverse as The Commandos and The Trashmen.

The whole is so relentlessly nasty and the riffs so good that a multitude of metal sins are forgiven.

Ka got something from an autodidact street preacher. For more resonating effect he puts together street common wisdoms and Biblical allegories.

Perhaps more than any other record the band has issued in the last 20 years, Sunn O))) best recalls the austere glories of The Grimmrobe Demos (1999).

Oceans Apart is the album that fans have been waiting for, the one that brings back the flawless production of their early releases and the cynical/idealistic tradeoff in Forster and McLennan’s songwriting.

On Veckatimest, by contrast, the experimentation can go over the top: the additional arrangements may not add much aside from being one more thing to admire. And, paradoxically, doing that moves some songs out of the avant-garde and squarely into the middle of the road.

It should be stressed as bluntly as possible, then, that Jenny Hollingworth and Rosa Walton haven’t “just” made a good album for a couple of teenagers; I’m All Ears is pretty damn good for Rambo.

The thing that really sucks about Bitte Orca is that the guy is probably onto something pretty good, but his allegiance to cleverness rather than consistency fucks it up.

The decision to work these songs out while camped out next to a mobile recording truck shifts the instrumental balance; the bass is less mobile, handclaps and choppy rhythm guitar set the cadence and overall things move a little slower. And Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, who sings over half the songs, has never sounded more world-weary. ... But deep blue sentiments touch deeply, and Tinariwen’s music still has that reach.

Positively stomps and bristles, with Smith and his band summoning up the type of chutzpah not normally found in middle age.

Classic Objects demonstrates Hval’s capacity for musical growth and lyrical introspection. It is her best work thus far.

Life Metal is music as event. It’s a terrific record.

Tense and uncertain, The Weather Station will keep you tuning in.

I Am Not Afraid Of You is a one-stop jukebox.

What’s more effective is that the band have become more skilled at writing for chord changes rather than just riffs. They don’t exactly back down from the effect of the latter when they go there, but the attention to harmony gives the whole much more heft than it otherwise might have. The heft is certainly in the physicality the music achieves in its peak moments. But it’s also in the fractured beauty of this music, its emotional catharsis, the beauty of something lost perhaps.

Clara demonstrates Morgan’s ability to make practically whatever he gets his hands on into loscil music. But when loscil music is this deeply immersive, richly textured, carefully calibrated, and ultimately viscerally satisfying (however one feels about the process), you just hope he keeps on doing it.