Model of You is neither sparse nor overstuffed, relying on a few, highly polished elements to make up each song and allowing each of them ample space to unfold.

The songs are best when they say the least, implying depths that are, perhaps, mostly in the listener’s head.

The sound is open and uncluttered, rare for a genre that relishes tangles. There’s lots of liquid synths, and were they gracing a 4/4 thump, they’d have an Ibiza glow to them.

Third Time to Harm is a visceral pleasure, celebrating brawn over brains and shout-along choruses (“What pretty parasites!”) over songwriting complexity.

Amid the brightness and snark of another consistently entertaining Fujiya & Miyagi record, it’s a reminder that even our modern Lucifers have many dimensions to them.

Beauty & Ruin is Bob Mould’s catchiest, most tuneful album since Copper Blue, full of ear-wormy melodies and bouncy hooks.

It’s clearly the best Young Widows record.

There are differences around the edges that are making Fresh & Onlys ever more interesting, fresher and more singular, a better version of what they have been promising all along.

Seek Warmer Climes is still more visceral than cerebral. It washes over you in a foul, cold, gritty spray, and you can hardly breathe when it’s coming straight at you.

Admittedly, this is a record with a specific style and set of concerns: if you don’t like your post-punk hyper-focused and with Van Morrison-levels of nods to mysticism, you may lose patience with it quickly. For those who appreciate the iconoclasm involved, however, there’s plenty to savor here.

Sugar and spice and everything twisted, Daniel continues to write music for people who like to think about why they like something and can appreciate creative, sincere homage.

The balance is the thing, and on Here and Nowhere Else, the balance is very, very good.

At its best, A U R O R A is an exhilarating work, propulsive and contemplative, able to allow for moments of searing volume and elegant beauty.

The first four songs on Are We There don’t work as well as the later ones. Ultimately this doesn’t hurt, because the later ones are among her very best.

Tempest delivers her labyrinthine tales with forensic detail offered gracefully like Saul Williams, Roots Manuva, Asian Dub Foundation and Tricky / Martina Topley-Bird on Pre-Millennium Tension (think “Bad Dream”).

Musically, Sunbathing Animal is much the same as, but slightly more feral than, Light Up Gold, its two-stepping vamps harder and jitterier, its strangled guitar licks more aggressively atonal.

Three full studio albums into their reinvigorated latest phase, and Swans’ ability to surprise remains as potent as ever To Be Kind might just be the most startling and uncompromising of the trio, although these qualities take time to unveil themselves.

Whether or not this incarnation of Horseback is apocryphal--remember, Miller says he won’t have this form forever--it’s quite possibly the closest Miller’s come to seamlessly blending roots music and metal. Even if he doesn’t think there’s a line to cross.

Another subtle evolution of Fec’s homogenous sound palette, Ultima II Massage is a reason to keep you coming back 11 years into his career to witness him experiment with his inimitable aesthetic.

Asiatisch is impersonal and airtight. Musically, the album is fascinating, diverse and expertly produced. But a chance was perhaps missed to deliver something with more to say.

The best and most consistent Pink Mountaintops album to date, Get Back mines a deep vein of nostalgia via song references, memory-scape imagery, and musical touchstones in kraut rock, post-punk and new wave.

Dead Rider has created a vivid, weird, deeply compelling world on this album, but the band isn’t going to come to you; you have to get on its level.

The energy ebbs and flows between these two poles, so that intellectual inquiry becomes a gateway towards straight-on freakery, and wild intuitive leaps make sense of complex formulae.

The real masterstroke of So It Goes is that it’s not: This is one for the here and now, as contemporary as New York hip-hop gets.

Though this is an enjoyable listen and a vast improvement on their debut, the promise of where they could end up is its biggest appeal. Stay tuned.

It doesn’t help that the production is full of weird echoes and indistinctness.... And yet, there are some genuinely good songs here.

Throughout Boy, the action recedes into a murky distance from which disembodied details reach out like the tiny malevolent creatures that hide under the staircase in your nightmares.

Estara is not as musically challenging, hooky or advanced as some albums by similar artists.