Sound is bright and immediate, even on tracks extracted from less than optimal vinyl sources.

Car Seat Headrest feels, at this point, like it’s about half under control, with Toledo at the wheel, yanking desperately to keep it on the road, and yet it’s sort of magnificent.

Deeper than Sky is just as much a thrill ride [as Disfear’s Live the Storm], coming from the opposite angle--confident that the growling will balance the ornate structures, it hits plainly no matter how intricately it jumps from measure to measure.

Here in the Deep, like the last few Arbouretum albums, is good but not mind-blowing.

Both on Why Choose and in the live setting, Shopping’s music elucidates the urgency and modularity of postpunk and delivers a host of compelling songs along the way.

Almost all of II has a first-take rawness, well recorded, but without fuss.

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

This third full-length, written around the birth of his first son, takes that bouncy castle exuberance to even greater lengths, channeling the euphoria of sleep-short early parenthood into woozy, optimistic grooves.

This is an album that seriously repays repeat listening, sounding slight at first, but gaining heft with every play. It’s beautiful stuff, and you won’t miss the vocals at all.

Rather than back down from the precipice of decline and confusion, Protomartyr has reported the situation as they see it in The Agent Intellect, an uncomfortable, honest and ultimately excellent record.

It’s weird (great album art), lush, hypnotic and impossible to grasp, a dreamlike futuristic soundtrack that only exists in the combined imagination of those willing to follow Steve Hauschildt’s gently commanding vision.

Fish at first doesn’t come across as the sort of defining, revelatory work that The Resurrection and Revenge of The Clayton Peacock and, to a lesser extent, Pachyderm were, but its pleasures are more subtle, revealing themselves in increments.

Even when Ejstes and his combo stretch out, they do so in a catchy way. Sometimes they do it the old-fashioned way with a big, memorable melody. Other times it is a cool sound framed just so.

A visceral and intriguing record, and one that doesn’t always gel, but it at least stands by it’s own convictions.

Songs to Play is a quiet success, maybe not as quiet as it seems at first, but operating with a definite modesty and restraint. It’s a record that takes some playing before its warbly charms come clear, but it’s worth the time.

It sounds, at times, less like a proper shoegaze act and more like a memory of one: the hooks as pronounced, but with an ineffable dreamlike quality thrown in, less something quantifiable than something to be experienced. Thankfully, this is an album that both satisfies and mystifies; both are welcome qualities.

The music can sometimes obscure the words, with only snippets allowing themes of love, loss and solitude to creep into the listener’s consciousness.... Have You in My Wilderness is another arresting album by an equally arresting artist, one who is clearly at the forefront of the global avant-pop scene and will be for some time.

Stepping gingerly and keeping balanced in precarious places, Wald is a cat. It’s as pleasing as a purr.

With Ones and Sixes they’ve pulled together many of their disparate sides in a masterful survey of what makes them one of the great rock bands of their era.

Far from being an emperor’s new clothes situation, it simply feels like the band is settling into a sound built for endurance rather than excitement.

Despite the album’s disparate material, it has a lulling cohesiveness. All the songs, wherever they come from, feel like they have been reimagined at the same volume and tempo and in the same wistful ambience.

If you can get past the non-audiophile recording, there’s some great music here.

It meanders stylistically all over the map, but unites all those styles in a pounding, obliterating “Bristol Road Leads to Dachau”-style drum beat that punches you right in the soft tissues.

Ultimately, however, too many of these tracks, whilst foundationally strong, don’t linger much in the memory. The Neo-Realist (At Risk) remains the strongest aspect whilst the singles and outtakes feel more like filler. As such, Artificial Dance feels more like a beguiling curiosity than a lost masterpiece of American post-punk. And yeah, those Eno and Byrne and Talking Heads similarities are a bit problematic at times.

This is Frog Eye’s most elegantly structured, premeditated, composed album ever. It is also miraculously, unexpectedly the band’s best to date.

There are innovative and fresh beats and voices, and the record rarely falters.

Piteous Gate is an absorbing listen front to back.

It’s the kind of album you can listen to many times without wearing it out, without even getting much of a grip on why you like it.