A few tracks wisp away into nothingness, but on work like "Your Heart is a Twisted Vine," Nadler approaches timelessness as well.

The music is what stands out. Vile has no problem bringing any of his talents across--steady-handed, Appalachian-inflected psychfolk reels, doe-eyed wisecracker vocalese.

The ingredients that make up Dark Crawler are a tasty mix, and Danjah could do worse than keep cooking with this recipe.

Far from terrible, Echo Party sounds merely confused.

The Coathangers are clearly a band in transition, and it's very possible that this album's disjointed nature is a result of the band throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks.

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.”

It's cool to hear all this stuff put together in one package, but it's so smothered in nostalgia and cheekiness that the predictable analog incidents that keep the tracks from sounding repetitive seem clichéd.

For the most part, what hampers the recording is a reliance on a single type of musical form: the vamp. Over simple (and endlessly repetitive) chordal structures, the players just noodle.

It's a fine album, but after each listen I find myself wishing a little more had happened, that more of the human behind it all might shine through in unexpected ways.

Black and Miller aren’t as bluntly exposed as on their earliest records, but they still keep Diamond’s production bracingly in check for a sound that preserves a pervading visceral punch.

Fans might enjoy the history lesson, while non-fans are probably better off waiting for the next full-length.

What a disappointment.

The result is a lot of chaff and wheat that still need to be separated.

Havasu is raw with current and remembered emotion, but there’s love at the center of it – for the girls at school, for the places he went and even for the family that misunderstood him— and that warm forgiveness makes it all the more powerful.

Haley tows the line between soundtrack and banger throughout, exposing the similarities between the two but also the pitfalls that come with catering to a particular demographic.

On All Aboard Future, These Are Powers’ songs distract from the music. Consequently, the record sputters.

Imperial Teen crafts a super-clean, super-sharp, inordinately complex collection of songs that, nonetheless, go down like cherry cola.

So even though Popp's new sound palette seems like a step back, the way he uses it is as au courant as an oil-soaked pelican. O is not a retro move, but the work of an artist dealing with the now.

It's got an energy that's usually associated with naiveté and learning instruments on the job. The trio knits their little hand-played loops together loosely, and in a certain light, there are places it unspools completely.

Quaristice seems most comfortable amidst the modern scrum, a soundtrack for mundane urban maneuvers.

Bozulich stumbles through a sagging mansion of sound like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, which is to say, arch, elegant and utterly used up. But there is power in the decrepitude.

For the uninvested outsider (neither lover nor hater), it's distinctively spooky background music with a few satisfyingly jarring surprises, nothing to get terribly worked up about. For Patton's large army of obsessive pupils, it's an essential document of the Master at his most conceptually obsessive.

It’s frustrating to see someone taking the middle of the road, especially Sweet, who can do better, and has done better, but there’s no sense in questioning it.

The Twilight Sad’s second proper album is an encouraging step in the wrong direction. Perhaps the sensory overload of these recordings will encourage a more conservative route in the future.

The more you recognize its complications, the better Tidings sounds.

American Gong is frustrating. It's not a bad album by far, based on the usual criteria one arranges on the bar graph of goodness: it's melodic, paced well, pleasant and so on. At the same time, however, there's nothing that marks it as unique in any real way or different from any Quasi album of the past.

Despite these small clunkers, there are many moments on A Strange Arrangement that show careful attention to soul’s craft and demonstrate a full immersion in the genre and its subtleties.

The more faithfully you capture these songs, the worse they sound. The Lillywhite Sessions may be DMB’s darkest, most dangerous material, but it is still slick as hell. No question, though, that Walker approached these songs out of love, and for that, you have to give some credit.