Vanishing Point serves as a 34-minute distillation of what those who still expect things out of Mudhoney expect from Mudhoney.

The object of his lamentations is conveniently out of reach, hence the constant cat-and-mouse game between enunciation and melisma. When Blake sees fit to loop a phrase or attempt a chorus, the undertaking breaks down under its own weight.

For as strong as much of the material on You’re Nothing may be, it is an uneven record, without the focus or pacing of its predecessor.

V may be more intimate and introverted than Ancestral Star or Lost in the Glare, but it is no less cinematic. It’s a remarkable return to the fore for Porras and Caminiti.

The songwriting is just as strong as anything in Lerner’s output and much like emotional nadirs, emotional zeniths also fade. Lerner’s moment in the sun is as fun for the listener as it is for him.

As distinctive as it is complex, is as much about the journey as its component pieces, commanding all the familiar electronic music components with ease, but infused with the warmth of soul and a kind of cross-continental sophistication.

While Wakin On A Pretty Daze may not be an anthemic leap forward, it is in many ways even stronger for its existence as example of a craft being so finely honed.

Impossible Truth is a dense and compelling album, but also one that shows room for him to develop into an even more impressive musician.

Shaking The Habitual is quite simply a triumph, a bold and experimental statement.

Cosy Moments moves slightly toward pop-and-hook than the last Kinski album did, but more than maintains its integrity as an outsized purveyor of aggressive guitar rock.

Haw is, likewise, bristly, indelicate, often beautiful but never precious. It bursts with life.

It remains to be seen whether Nomad reveals Bombino to be an artist of limited means or one who is making the occasional misstep on the way to something great.

As an album, Ride Your Heart seems less like a collection of songs and more like a collection of expertly selected Tumblr-ready rock ‘n’ roll signifiers.

You can’t listen to Via without going through the wringer, but you also can’t listen to it without feeling stronger, surer and more defiant afterward.

Revisiting the past isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but turning elements from one of their discography’s savage outliers into a competently turned-out, but not outstanding new chapter in the ongoing story of Wire hardly seems like the most ambitious thing they could have done with that material.

Ripely Pine is overloaded with sound, lurching with sudden dynamic shifts, swiveling from one melodic idea to another, trembling with strings, gleaming with brass, fractured into colored shards of bright feeling.

It’s worth your time to follow him through these grayer back alleys. Once you get your bearings, you’ll wonder where he’s going next.

The members of Ensemble Pearl have made an album that takes heavy, and turns it into a contemplative virtue.

This fourth Purling Hiss album takes a lot of what was exhilarating about the self-titled and Hissteria and adds some structure and melody.

It’s all very soft and comfortable, musically speaking, like an old couch you can’t get out of.

On an emotional level, LISm is hard to get at.

It goes through stretches of boredom. From a distance, the album seems concise and poppy. But up close, the heavy grazing of each song bursts its seams.

Cerulean Salt is a very strong album, frank and blunt and vulnerable.

For illumination on this particular sect of techno’s journey over the past few years, it’s hard to think of an album more deserving of the limelight than Incubation.

New Moon contains a handful of good songs, just like The Men’s prior two albums for Sacred Bones. The main difference here is that the stellar tracks aren’t embedded amongst thrilling instrumentals.

As one comes to appreciate them through repeated listens, it becomes clear that what initially sounds like a letdown is, from another vantage point, an impressive achievement.

Maybe a bit more editing could have given it more coherence. At the same time, there are no duff tracks, and a lot of fascinating moments.

Thom Yorke used to make better music than the nine anemic Atoms for Peace cuts here.