This isn’t a case of trying to reinvent the wheel so much as it is reveling in just how very good you’ve gotten a making wheels in the first place.

The Danish four-piece tapped Spaceman 3’s Sonic Boom for production on this uncharacteristically uplifting endeavor, and you can see the uneasy alliance of the bright colors of Peter Kember’s recent work mixing into the half melted, slushy desolation of Iceage’s aesthetic.

The recording shows little evidence of how acoustically challenging the glass-walled structure can be; every element registers clearly so that the music yields where it needs to and slams where it must. And slam it does, with big beats and massed choruses that bring the messages down hard and certain.

Hayashi’s eclecticism gives the album the feel of an anthology and although his beat making is terrific and provides a thematic backbone, the real interest here is what’s going on around, beneath and between. If his wish were to destabilize and upend expectations, then full marks, but too often he seems to retire behind his tools and allow his technical skill to overshadow his considerable artistry.

Endless Arcade will do nothing for the people who wish they would let it rip again one more time—but it’s fine, well-crafted, intricately plotted mid-tempo rock. The edges, if they were ever there to begin with, have been sanded off, and it’s all rather noddingly pleasant.

Having the backstory on Walker’s path to sobriety isn’t necessary to appreciate Course In Fable. There’s enough allure in Walker and guitarist Bill MacKay’s elaborate latticework of glazed melodies and modal chords that call to mind McEntire’s other band The Sea and Cake, and how drummer Ryan Jewell floats through it all with loose, jazzy flourishes.

Their attempt to weld the cerebral and physical is not always smooth but part of the attraction is to sit in on a work in progress, to hear the musicians grasping at handholds and swinging for the next ledge, fearless in the vulnerability of thought and action.

Keys isn’t a flashy album. Its songs tend towards the quiet end of things, and they make their impact in an unassuming way that never shakes you by the shoulder. It’s just two people playing two instruments, alike but different, listening to the way they align and contrast with one another and taking the tune to another place.

The second disc, the one with the covers, is a revelation of sorts. ... Not all of the covers add as much to the material, but there’s lots to admire in Courtney Barnett and Vagabond’s raw-boned “Don’t Do It,” and Big Red Machine’s rushing, blues-twanging, falsetto’d version of “A Crime.” One of the best, though, for its sheer audacity and difference from the source, is IDLES’ take on “Peace Signs.”

They’ve never interacted quite like this, and the results are correspondingly different from anything else they’ve done. ... Clocking in at just half an hour, Made Out Of Sound makes its points and moves on.

Whereas [Michael] Hurley tends toward the absurd, often pushing the limits of song structure in the process, Rose always has one foot planted in tradition. Although not always the same one.

Magnificently noisy in some places, forebodingly quiet in others and at all times distended from full cognizance, Dream Weapon is a balanced, well executed step firmly away from Genghis Tron’s former selves. Call it their Year Zero.

Dry Cleaning gave us a taste in 2019; New Long Leg is a banquet upon which to feast.

For Those I Love is a wonderfully open-hearted portrayal of young Ireland akin to contemporaries Fontaines D.C. or the Murder Capital.

A juicy amalgam of West African rhythms and soothing electronic sounds.

An album of subtle yet emotionally resonant songs.

Both weird and wonderful, Pick a Day to Die manages to boil down the immensity of Sunburned’s oeuvre into a manageable morsel that is digestible by both neophytes and long haulers alike.

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 album certainly leaves you with a sense of dislocation and déjà vu, as if hearing musical avenues open, meander deliciously, then abruptly slam shut. It’s disorientating, surprising, at times deeply funky, and often very beautiful.

Arab Strap chronicle all the joys we seek and the catastrophes we make on what could well be their finest and most complete record. As Days Get Dark is a sordid, mordant, tender triumph.

It’s a lot of Gang of Four, and if you’re interested at all, you probably already have a good portion of it. Still, it’s a nicely packaged set from the best years of the career of one of post-punk’s best ever bands.

The players worked remotely, sent in files and Johnson and Kaufman fit them together. All of which makes it even more remarkable how effortless and streamlined this album sounds, how its sounds swirl around the listener like warm currents, and how carefully Johnson kept the balance between letting the songs speak for themselves and enveloping them in luminous arrangements.

Future Times takes a few plays to sink in. Its balance of the monumental and the delicate, the personal and the epic, shift as you listen and only draw you in gradually over time. Stay with it, though. It’s worth it.

Dream logic rules this world, with periods of calm beauty, eruptions of noise and the sense that for every step forward there are delays, disruptions and detours that must be dealt with in order to proceed to a distant destination. If abstraction is the rule, the emotional resonance is real and deeply felt.

If you like Woods you’ll enjoy this record. If you’re team Skygreen Leopards, however, you might want to wait for that Red Pink and Purples record, which is very good and all Donaldson.

Her soundscapes are transportive and evocative, but they also contain detail and texture that plays with a sense of natural versus unnatural soundscapes, the real versus the imagined. Left in the between space, this is fascinating stuff.

Feelings does no damage, it exists to target pleasure centers and does so. The influences are the point and yes there’s the Gilberto voice, the Mendes smoothness, the Getz sophisticate sheen but also a lack of Stereolab’s knottiness and the kind of knowingness and look-at-me cleverness of some of the practitioners and fans of whatever round of lounge revivalism is going on now. There is nothing here to take offence at unless you want to split the hairs between anodyne and placebo.

While the bossa nova drum machine on “All the Things You Do” and the scratchy funk guitars on “Pyramid Schemes” introduce a bit of welcome variety, both songs wear out their welcome over the course of their combined 10-minute runtime. Thankfully, “Solarised” takes the album out on a high with its swooshing synth pads underpinned by a hard-grooving bassline and soaring vocal melody. It’s a fitting close to a vibrant collection of tunes.