If the quartet’s debut challenged the assumptions of what kind of music this group of musicians might make, this album shows off their own assurances: not a retread of what’s come before, but a solid follow-up to it.

If you’re a fan of the Whigs, Do to the Beast will push all the right buttons and even add a few new ones for you to think about.

Re-invented and fully assured, Pattern is Movement is a band that can do what it wants. One can’t argue with Pattern is Movement’s results.

Protomartyr has raised the bar high enough for any bands to follow, so high that most won’t even know it’s there.

Though perhaps not as unique or groundbreaking as Ugly Side of Love, Beyond Ugly is still a pretty fabulous record by a band mostly alone in a top-shelf niche.

Motion uses some new approaches, but ultimately it fits in just fine as another solid entry in a rich and rewarding body of work.

The vocals alone would be a lullaby, but in this broken orchestra, they’re insomnia. Yet spending time with this record allows the burs to break off. If you give in to its strange terms, You is soothing.

Daughters of Everything is a fine, fun rock ‘n’ roll record that struggles with a gimmick it didn’t really need.

These New Puritans are still thinking the same off-kilter, rhythmically intricate thoughts, but filtering them through a whole different music making process. Either way, it’s impressive and quite lovely. Nicely done.

All told, Light Divide is a pretty thing, transporting and enveloping and full of glowing tones. Yet even as you’re listening to it, it slips away, and when you’re done, it’s like you’ve been asleep.

You can’t hear Signals without hearing modern London.

The Eagulls’ album does a fantastic job of funneling the band’s energy. That’s the good part. But as for the subtleties--the way that players interact, the fit between chug and melody, the depth that emerges with occasional negative space--you won’t find any of that here.

An uncompromising set of solid songs set on the internal and external eve of destruction.

This is a record you could play on the car stereo whilst burning up the miles on the Tennessee interstate, and it’d never sound wrong.

Black and Miller aren’t as bluntly exposed as on their earliest records, but they still keep Diamond’s production bracingly in check for a sound that preserves a pervading visceral punch.

Unfidelity never feels derivative or retro, Edwards displaying an alchemist’s touch as he drags all these influences into a potent melting pot.

Lost in the Dream continues Slave Ambient’s trajectory, threading wispy, half-spoken melodies through emerald forests of tone, ducking conventions like riff and hook in favor of edgeless, shapeless sensuality. These are songs that drive off into dune-like landscapes, always in motion, never arriving.

These two tracks ["Feels Real" and "Do It (Right)"] read a bit corny on paper, but Lambkin’s knowledge of genre, song form and structure and how to make music evolve (i.e. filters, not just slapping in new sounds when something gets boring) bundle up the awkwardness with cool to present fresh ink amidst the droves of novice DJ nostalgists.

Though the harmonic material isn’t always major keys, everything (mix, production, sonic universe) is pleasant, resolves nicely; the song structures are divided into equal measurements; much peace and congruence are present.

These are exceptional bar-band songs, sure, but they’re still bar band songs. Where Tomorrow’s Hits suffers, though, is in its wholesale familiarity.

After years of sluggish BPMs and charts run by screw-influenced beats, the people may be ready for something with the uptempo beats of Presents James Grieve. The question now is whether Addison Groove wants to be the man for that job.

If the first half feels a little like a warm-up, they deliver the payoff in fine style and by the end you may feel as worn out as the band must be.

The album isn’t easily chewed or digested, but certainly worth the taste.

Emmaar’s reassuring familiarity in the face of the forces of war and commerce is at once reassuring and a bit concerning. On the one hand, it’s great to see that the group remains incorruptible and in touch with its essence; on the other, a bit of buffing and shining aside, if you know the band’s sound, you already know this record.

Its greatest strengths are more memorable: the songwriting is strong, even if the album is a little top heavy, and it’s a lot of fun to watch Aaron Funk go way out on a limb without a safety net in sight.

Alcoholic ne’er-do-wells or not, New Bums has allowed the duo to ditch old genre entrapments and celebrate new life as troubadours of enrapturing darkness.

There are so many things here that shouldn’t mix, but the brute force of Cherry’s personality smooths them.

On Sleepwalking Sailors, Helms Alee finally feels bigger than the sum of its parts.