Knuckleball Express is the best Howling Hex album since Nightclub Version of the Eternal.

The sound is harder, more precise and altogether more of a sock in the gut.

On their 21st album, Three, their usual album-length evolution is divided into three 20-minute acts, much like 2006’s excellent Chemist.

Far Enough is the first of this band’s albums to get a wide U.S. release, and it’s a doozy, no question. ... This is no over-earnest diatribe. It’s a series of party anthems about stuff that matters. One drum flattening call to arms insists that “Anger’s Not Enough,” and that’s right, there’s a lot more here. But it’s a really good place to start.

It’s this balance between distortion and purity, between chaos and clarity, that makes Red Sun Through Smoke a compelling listen. There’s urgency behind these compositions, reflected in both the intensity of IWC’s vocal delivery and the severity of signal degradation applied via his tape machines

Their nearly ten-year core pivots rhythmic and tonal ideas athletically, and their ability to pull elements from anywhere and everywhere is seemingly more fluid with each record. With The Common Task, Horse Lords simultaneously stay within their own signature pocket and poach outside elements, expanding how large that pocket seems.

The main issue with this Arbouretum album is that it sticks stubbornly in a mid-tempo calm. There are no big, ripping guitar solos and few instrumental crescendos. The one big exception comes late in the album with “Let It All In.”

Rose Golden Doorways is an astonishing experience, uncompromising in its willingness to map extremes of ethereal quiet and the physicality of sound, played without fear by musicians drilling deep into an ugly core to extract beauty and return to share their findings with those who would care to listen.

Islet have lovingly crafted their own kaleidoscopic little world. It’s easy to step inside and get lost there for a while among the colorful flora and fauna.

While there are plenty of thrilling moments, Dungen Live feels less like a coherent journey and more like channel-surfing between chase sequences and zoned-out psychedelic visuals, steam corkscrewing out of the top of the TV. Each of these flights of fancy probably made perfect sense at the time, as instrumental interludes between the songs, but recontextualizing them in this way has made the playing feel somewhat aimless at times.

The busted up and agonizing forms that result accumulate into a hell of a record. Put on your black boots and stomp around in it awhile.

The songs are good. Both musicians are pros. The execution is offhandedly excellent, like they’re not even trying but nailing it anyway. But you never get the sense that these songs matter all that much to either principal. It’s a parlor trick, a juggling act that they could do all day without dropping anything, but the stakes don’t seem to be very high.

The three singles—“Home,” “Never Come Back” and “You and I” ... follow the trajectory of Caribou’s previous and most successful commercial album, Our Love, in the conjunction of dance, R&B and psychedelic electronics, and will likely capture the same level of attention for it. Yet there is also much to like in the quieter, more contemplative cuts where frail, gorgeous shreds of melody reside in intricate electronic settings.

Two side-long compositions make up this tranquil, contemplative album, each divided into three A, B, and C tracks. ... Consider it more a tribute to filling in the quiet spaces that have arisen unexpectedly out of chaos and disappointment, but which are, themselves, very peaceful and beautiful.

And indeed, kabong it does. Fun stuff.

Companion Rises is straight-down-the-middle Six Organs, not as loud and abrasive as the first Hexadic disc, not as reticently wisp-y as the older folk-derived records. It tucks its wilder, more distorted guitar forays into the interstices of verses, so that the steady jangle of acoustic guitar runs into tempestuous squalls of sound.

McCraven lays down a lush musical backdrop that allows Scott-Heron’s words to have emotional impact.

That Allen is able to continue to do this 45 years on from when he first introduced us to Sailor, Spanish Alice, Jabo, and Chick is as moving and mystifying as that big Texas sky.

While it doesn’t wield the heft of a Hop Along release, Likewise demonstrates Quinlan’s adept melodic sensibility and enviable vocal delivery. It’s a short, sweet collection, easily digestible and ripe for revisiting.

Your response to Be Up A Hello will depend on your tolerance for Squarepusher’s virtuosic onslaughts. It can be as exhausting as it’s exhilarating. If there’s a sameness to the BPM readings of the up-tempo tracks a deeper listen reveals the layers that are buried beneath the frenzy and show Squarepusher has lost none of his edge.

“Why is this happening,” a listener might wonder as the music jumps from one notion to the next? “Why not? Now hold on,” would be the response, if anyone were of a mind to put such matters into words. ... Sometimes the music coheres into a tight, catchy chant or a propulsive passage, but these moments end before you’re ready. Perhaps the freedom not to keep doing what you’re doing, and not to have to make sense while you’re doing it, is the point?

Mind Hive is concise yet full of restless intelligence, musical ideas and willingness to push boundaries. Taut, tense, not a wasted note, moments of great beauty, 35 minutes of Wire contains enough to fuel a multitude of pretenders.

Have We Met is Destroyer at its inscrutable, poetic best, its elegance poised on a rip-tide of violence.

If Fisher and co feel wrung out at times it’s not through lack of commitment or creativity. No one said fighting the good fight would be easy and There Is No Year lands enough punches to win at least a TKO decision.

Modest reservations aside, this is more top-drawer stuff from Shauf, as we’ve come to expect. Drink deep.

It’s all very nice and a bit surprisingly, like your grandma’s favorite stew with some unexpected new spices in it. For an impromptu gathering of talents, Bonny Light Horseman feels very lived in. Here’s hoping it’s not a one-off.

The elements of Eddy Current Suppression Ring have always been very simple, yet they congeal in a primal, supremely compelling way. However, this time around, they’re still fundamental, but perhaps a bit less urgent, especially early on in the disc

There’s a solid, heartening release to be found in Countless Branches. It’s a shame that Fay and Dead Oceans didn’t take the opportunity to tease it out.