A weird aura of nostalgia hangs over Jet Plane, the longing you might feel for a Buckeroo Banzai future that never quite happened. And yet, most of these tracks are very urgent, very present, very right now.

The song selection, from two very distinct periods in Oldham’s discography, makes for a cohesive album, and it exemplifies how strong his songwriting has been from the beginning.

[This] is the first time Bowie’s been interesting since 2002’s overlooked Heathen, and if you prefer his avant-garde side, this is the first sustained material of its kind in far longer; both of these are certainly things to celebrate.

It’s tempting to spend the whole review quoting Goulden’s best lines, but the songs are solid musically, too.

This record doesn’t want to be anyone’s friend, but if you’re ready to feel, it’s real.

Grey Tickles and Black Pressure is furiously funny, intelligent and confrontational even as it heads to an upbeat ending.

The first two discs make a good introduction to the curious, and following the anthology format, it’s exciting to think that anyone who does come to the band this way, although they’ll have a fine overview of what makes Mogwai compelling, still has plenty of riches to discover.

The Silence is readily accessible (certainly more so than Batoh’s eyeball-movement-tracking Brain Pulse Music), but hard to pin down. It sounds folky, much of the time, and then it lets the bottom drop out.

Easy on the ears, Film Music’s approachable offerings are compounded by the high recording quality, new transfers made from original half-inch tapes in the Tariverdiev family’s Moscow apartment.

At its best, you can get lost inside Garden of Delete’s rabbit hole of different directions and unexpected asides, but at other times it’s easy to feel shut-out, as if you’re looking in at someone’s intellectual ADHD, but he’s steadfastly refusing to meet your gaze.

These are beautiful, rather unsettling pieces that feel almost right, almost wholly natural, and yet just off.

More than nihilism, the songs on Death Magic ultimately resolve that what’s important is loving and understanding each other because there’s nothing else. Going in that direction at the same time as their songs go in a much more immediately ingratiating one is a bold move for HEALTH, and here it pays off.

It sounds a bit like the Weakerthans did on their debut, that is, looking one way at singer-songwriter work and another at politically charged punk and trying to gauge just where they should fall between those two poles.

All in all, Metalmania is a lovely little album.

Vertigo may be the Necks’ best studio album yet, but they are still far from recreating the magic of their live shows.

Newsom is, obviously, not the first musician to get technically better at what she does while we’re looking on, and not the first, either, to elicit a twinge of regret from listeners who liked the rawer, wilder beginnings.... Divers hides its sting not in an unusual voice, but in its lyrical and musical complexity, and it’s a good trade after all.

One skippable track makes for a slight mark against an otherwise strong return to the world. After decades of teases, EPs and live stuff, a few good singles would have been satisfying, but with a quality album, it’s certainly nice to have the Chills again.

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.