Callahan can give us no answers. But some of us find the struggle, the ride, much more interesting when the answers are lacking.

Shaking Hand demonstrate a cleverness with the reins, balancing looseness and restraint. This is typically found in long-tenured outfits; it’s hard to believe this is their first record.

As Keepnews said in the original liner notes, “There can be room for vast newness within the unhampered framework of this ‘old’ music.” [Ahmed] have continued to mine that sense of discovery with ongoing zeal.

This is the prettiest album Dorji has made so far, though it’s more than that, profound and spirit moving and just what we need at the moment.

In veering so hard and so often, they manage to be that rare thing: interesting. Save for later the development of brand identity and a recognizable aesthetic.

They sound very private, though not uninviting, and, compared to the first album at least, less fanciful and more grounded in everyday events and relationships. Yet while these songs are spare and not at all weighted down, they integrate diverse sounds into the mix. .... The harmonies are what’s lovely here, and a little different from before.

Another essential album in Dry Cleaning’s discography, and the first great album of this young year.

What’s key here is that Winged Wheel is travelling together, as a unit. The eclecticism in mood proves that they’re enjoying the voyage.

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.

I’m not sure anyone was looking for a doo-wop revival led by a father and three sons, but here it is, and it’s a kick.

The songs on England Screaming sound very much in line with Wreckless Eric’s recent output, brash and tuneful, the words barked out in the artist’s clanging, faintly tremulous tenor, the choruses exploding in swaggering hooks. And they are very good songs, not a real dud in the bunch, and a couple that rank with the artist’s very best.

The vocals on cuts like “The House That Doesn’t Exist” may be soft and high, but the melody slashes forward with determination and force. Even the Nico-esque whisper psyche of “Flowers Turn Into Gold” exudes intention. Daydream soft sonics swirl in clouds around Prochet’s mic, but she, herself, is wide awake and in control.

This is a lovely album, its only drawback being its brief running time of barely 30 minutes.

The songs are good, full of fetching turns of melody and surrealist images, but they sound especially excellent bashed out with clanging chords and pounding rhythms and intuitive rock-and-roll energy.

Slater has found a way of collating a raft of familiar guitar tropes and injecting them with fresh energy. He seems to have ideas simply pouring out of him, plus enough of a quality-control filter to stack up an album’s worth of songs that fizz with inspiration.

A number of the record’s best songs sizzle and churn on Miracle Year. The atmospherics of the live setting suit the combination of incisive melody and the chaotic fuzz-and-feedback issuing from Bob Mold’s guitar; check out “If I Told You,” “Powerline” and especially New Day Rising’s title track. .... 1985: The Miracle Year includes another four LP sides of live Hüsker Dü, from various gigs in ’85, and you can hear some serious hard psych: “Chartered Trips” from a show in Switzerland, “Eiffel Tower High” from Salt Lake City, “Sunshine Superman” from Hoboken.

The melting pot metaphor has fallen out of favor lately, but it’s alive and well in this breezy, engaging mixture of smooth sounds. The music wafts and flutters in a warm air current, landing lightly on syncopated rhythms and percussive bursts of keyboard, but it dances, never settling for long.

It’s definitely a more expansive palette, and not entirely to my taste, but I’ll defend any artist who takes a chance like this.

Even at their most spacious, these songs are taut and well-crafted pieces of music. Previous Modern Nature outings showed that the band can be expressive and daring; with The Heat Warps, they’ve proved that realism can be just as intriguing.

Daylight Daylight flows easily, likeably, languidly — but at times rather forgettably.

A lot about One Hundredfold reflects its unsettling time and place, with its gleaming technological surfaces, its machine-like precision and its invocation of rot and threat and corruption. If we ever get through this period, we may not want to hear it again, but for now, it’s a mirror to what’s around us.

Touch is a surprisingly coherent album, demonstrating the band’s strengths of agile melodic sensibility, nuanced performances, and immersive production.

Despite the length—and maybe because of it—this one drew me in and kept me there. It’s warm and casual and unstudied, which is not to say that it’s not technically proficient. It’s a campfire where everyone sings and plays preternaturally well, and it’s easy to linger there right through to sunrise.

The album has a gleeful, headlong, nearly slapstick propulsion. .... There are some tranquil, romantic interludes, like the Julee Cruise-ish “Plastered” and the dream-pop, 4AD drift of “The Lady Vanishes,” and that’s all fine, but what this band does best is unpredictability, where you never know who will take the mic next, or where a song will take its latest sharp turn. This time, Bar Italia goes into some satisfyingly dark and noisy places, and cheers to that.

The Besnard Lakes Are the Ghost Nation is another solid addition to a consistently strong discography. It doesn’t quite hit the heights of my personal favorite, Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO, but it certainly comes close.

These are gnarly, inward-focused songs, but if you listen carefully, you can hear how a different sort of delivery—big voice, big drums, slashing guitars—could turn them into a female-centric version of emo-rock. Even if you appreciate the way the music works here, you might still wonder what that larger scale version would sound like.

But whoever’s on board, the sound remains largely cohesive, the agile slither of bass, the slap and clatter of found percussion and the lilt of Latin melody, sung sweetly but with menace. It’s a potent brew, still challenging, but coalescing around songs.

None of Molina’s songs gets an extreme makeover here, and, indeed, one or two wild cards might make the whole collection more interesting. However, it’s telling that so many young, vibrant acts honor the material enough to deliver it straight.