At a tight nine tracks, any fat that needs trimming from Motorheart is easily digested. This one runs smooth.

Altin Gün don't reinvent the wheel so much as craft a sick new set of rims. They do their thing like nobody else, and they're always getting better at it — Aşk gives you everything you want, and you'll still want more.

While not as immediate as its predecessor, Void solidifies KEN Mode as one of Canada's most important heavy acts, a band that doesn't just rely on brute force to affect its audience.

Recorded with Mike Sapone of both Brand New and Taking Back Sunday fame, the album has a lot in common with the former's Deja Entendu. It's also another fierce entry in the more recent catalogue of young and earnest bands like the Hotelier and Modern Baseball who are pushing a similar message of hope in the midst of struggle.

It's the raw and relentless aggression of Reach Beyond the Sun as a whole that makes it worth the listen.

On Pray for Haiti, he has successfully stayed true to his roots while offering unique yet less obtuse content.

Rather than sticking with what worked before, Modern Baseball's two songwriters have pushed the band forward here, keeping their music in line with their rapidly maturing outlook.

This is an assured return.

The record smartly connects sound with weight and movement without ever having to coerce the listener with heavy guitars or mountains of feedback.

Panic Stations is an easy and enjoyable listen, with all of the energy and dynamism that fans have come to love and expect from Motion City Soundtrack.

Condensing her struggles into meditative lyrics and singing from the perspective of fictional characters, this is a jazz project in its purest and most unadulterated form, and a very solid start to Ndegeocello's tenure at Blue Note.

No wonder the Man In Black himself recruited Neilson and her fellow musician relatives to be his opening act back in the day — she proved then, as she does on CHICKABOOM!, to be a worthy successor to the Sun Record sound.

Even though the subjects may not be sung about with as much grit as they once were, they are certainly darker than the pop genre that's entrapped the artist in recent years.

If You're Dreaming showcases Burch's ability to communicate a wide range of feelings through her music, from the sultry melancholy of "Jacket" to the tender reassurance of album closer "Here With You." This record is perfect for closing your eyes and retreating inwards, letting Burch's dreamy melodies guide you through some afternoon introspection.

Freakout/Release tugs on the bare threads of the moth-eaten sweater of our collective conscience while leaving us dope beats to step to and good thoughts in our heads. You can practically feel the cumulative effect of Joe Goddard microdosing mushrooms, opening the window of perception a tiny crack to let some fresh air in each day. Depression has rarely sounded breezier.

In many ways, Sweet Heart is the most complete Spiritualized album yet.

The fact that the album kinda sounds like so many things, very few of them usually adjacent to the genre, sits at the crux of the album's aspiration. Ordinary Corrupt Human Love is a critical reminder to card-carrying loyalists and new inductees alike of their own agency; that it's potentially revelatory, not sacrilegious, for the spectrum of black metal to include things outside of its purview.

By separating his musical personalities into two neat piles, Deacon stopped short of creating a truly epic record. We'll have to settle for just a pretty great one instead.

At 12 tracks, Radyo Siwèl doesn't overstay its welcome and is speckled with enough gems to leave a lasting impression. It's a bit cliche to say Mélissa Laveaux is "one to watch" yet, here we are.

The fact that it's both artistically bugged out and immediately rewarding is just the icing on the cake.

Their musicianship and unflinching humour in the face of potentially bleak topics makes this album a distinct piece and a joy to listen to.

Mangy Love sounds like a collaborative affair from an artist who has the keen ability to keep his musical identity sounding completely idiosyncratic.

At ten tracks, Blood is a more focused and refined effort than 2012's Mercury Prize-nominated Is Your Love Big Enough?, building on what we've come to expect from Lianne La Havas and surprising us with new directions.

It's good both for bobbing heads and bopping feet — both for being alone-alone, and alone-around-others, too.

If this isn't Jacques Greene's magnum opus, we'll be very curious to hear what is.

Segall may not be bouncing off the walls on Sleeper, but its decided shift shows his range and ability to continue churning out great releases at an alarming speed.

It's heady stuff to dive into, and Williams isn't particularly concerned whether listeners sink or swim, so long as they get wet.

Låpsley has expressed a fondness for writing sad songs, and while there's a pervasive melancholy to Long Way Home, it remains both accessible and sonically explorative throughout.

It's unburdened by obligatory connections to what's come before and as a result, has a renewed amount of energy.

They've managed to create an album that feels fresh while also being the closest they've come to recreating the magic of earlier records. This is a band that has finally found a way to evolve without eliminating what it was that made them so special in the first place.

The result is a fun, freewheeling album that nonetheless feels mature — and still very NYC as well.

The propulsive spark that lit their debut lingers, keeping the record from drifting off into malaise.

Shallow Bed is refreshingly free of archaic, "old timey" references; it feels both relevant and familiar.

Every piece on New Bodies is painstakingly detailed and full of emotion--but experimenting with tempo and mood as much as they do with every other facet of their music would give the album even more weight. Regardless, it's one of 2018's best offerings so far and an exceptional entry in its sonic field.

Simply put, Playing Favorites is their best work yet.

Though the fanfare surrounding the band may have dwindled slightly, the heartfelt emotion they deliver has not.

Olympic Mess isn't a complete shift in direction for him. It's merely one step toward the outer rim of a very large and very dark shadow.

Rat Saw God is wildly ambitious and easily lives up to the industry hype — Wednesday have succeeded once again in twisting nostalgia and existential dread into a braid of bruising, life-affirming rock music.

Their third full-length, Scholars, reflects the modernization their latest instruments have undergone (Arx allows them to trigger percussion, change instrument effects, and control vocal harmonies with the push of an arcade button), keeping their wholly distinct sound while embracing digital and synth-based instrumentation.

It's a globetrotting affair: the wah-wah brass and dhol drums of "Mitote" make for a savoury blend, the Indigenous chants and percussion reverberate in title track "All My Relations," the mid-'70s Stevie Wonder/Herbie Hancock-styled funk of "Mescalero" hits the spiritual spot, while the smooth sax of "Seyewailo" offer up a sonic take on bliss.

Plumb is a rich, complex album, with the songs spilling over into each other.

Are You Serious is a mature and confident record that finds Andrew Bird exploring myriad new sounds while remaining instantly recognizable.

Her identity is permanently stamped on As Above, So Below — the album both showcases Sampa's growth as an artist and delivers on fan expectation, taking them on a journey beyond bars into Africa's rich musical heritage.

For a stopgap collaboration, Underrated Silence sits comfortably with some of Schnauss's best work.

Beyond the gooey saunters she’s become known for, she slows the tempo to near-standstills on multiple occasions, while likewise finding the most heart-racing BPMs of her career thus far. By virtue of this being a Faye Webster record, none of it feels jarring; it’s as intuitive as passing the time with someone you love.

This is a lovely record with enough autumnal tones to ensure that you'll still be listening to it in six months' time.

Metawar will not only please current fans, but will likely win them scores of new blood, simply due to their noticeable growth. This is the most realized and accessible the band have been to date.

K-os hasn't been this experimental or fun to listen to since his 2004 classic Joyful Rebellion. It's a thrill to hear him return to the creative stratosphere once again on Can't Fly.

Singin' is comfortably the most accomplished and self-assured Ratboys album to date.

Without any obligations to an overarching concept this time around, it stands as her most direct effort yet.

In effect, McIlwain has succeeded in making not only a great record, but also a thoroughly lovely one.

"Psycho Star" and "Neverending Sunshine" are the more dance-y tracks that make The Other much more vast than Thomas's earlier work. Lastly, "No Man's Land" is a mesmerizing sendoff to end the album; slow and triumphant, by the time it's over you're left with a lasting impression.

A bold, far-reaching and determined work that continues Brock's journey creating music both accessible and eccentric.

In its lyrics and tone, Infinite Granite is remarkably blue, and beautifully so. Some fans might not appreciate the direction the band has taken towards the light, but nevertheless, the heart of Deafheaven remains.

Free of filler and definitely worth repeating, Hive Mind is the Internet we know and love, but tighter and more refined.

Unsurprisingly, the music they select is beautiful and carefully crafted. The album features such acts as Boards of Canada, Stereolab, River Tiber, Thundercat, Delegation, Charlotte Day Wilson and the Beach Boys, to name a few.

Much of what Duterte has accomplished on Anak Ko reflects the balancing act depicted in its album artwork: songs that weave together contributions from a range of players, carried by Duterte's singular vision.

Free Dimensional is infectiously positive, building off of similar foundations as his previous tracks while boasting a fuller, more dynamic sound.

With the release of Melophobia in 2013, listeners saw Cage create a new identity; Tell Me I'm Pretty takes that change further by exploring new avenues and soundscapes, and it's better for it.

Siggelkow's Born Again is fearlessly exposed, touching on emotions in the most direct way — an infectious, wondrous full-length debut for Ellis.

Damien Jurado provides yet another quietly magnificent album. What's New, Tomboy? feels like a traveler finding new footing after a storm at sea.

Their latest offering confirms the act have found footing with their sound, as III revels in minimal electro glitch while an orchestral current weaves beautifully throughout, Ring's vocals lending soulful, poignant reflection not often found in contemporary electronic music.

Even for all the newfound sheen, there's nothing on this new self-titled album that necessarily feels out of step with what's come before. ... Anchoring the songs to drum and bass grooves and keyboard loops gives Bixler-Zavala more space to flex his voice; once little more than a high-pitched rebel yell, it's now capable of delivering a rainbow of emotions.

It's to CHVRCHES' credit that Screen Violence doesn't suggest any shallow, put-down-your-phone answers to the questions it raises. Instead, the album makes an unflinching appraisal of present-day anxieties to summon the vitality needed to keep going, in spite of what keeps coming through the screen.

If All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us was an Olympic gymnastic performance, it would have nailed the double backflip but stumbled just a bit on the landing, leaving onlookers blown away by the trick and barely remembering that last wobble.

The seemingly strange power that Actress has is to disorient the listener (i.e., the visceral shock accompanying the tonally maximal "Shadow From Tartarus"), though this contrast mostly allows for R.I.P.'s intricate and detailed beauty to thrive just beneath the cracks.

Nothing is overdone here. Washington's saxophone grounds the entire project. His fiercest fans will miss hearing him out front, but that's entirely beside the point. No one's at the head of the table here. Instead we get a group of friends with genuine history and the kind of outsized talent we can only marvel at. Savour this.

Pythagorean Dream is a qualified success because it shows Chatham moving forward with his craft, if only by simply reaching back.

Amid soulful, R&B-indebted sounds married smoothly to the more country-leaning, Atkins has created her best and most resounding work yet.

Hovvdy's balanced expressions between residual nostalgia and murmuring secrecy are worn in beautifully on Heavy Lifter.

This debut album stands on its own as an artistically daring personal statement.

Marginally more "mature" in composition and content than the band's previous records, Transit Blues is another solid release from a band that audibly continue to give their all.

Exhausting Fire synthesizes and fuses those sounds with their more doomy roots.

As with all successful concept albums, its individual songs work as well independently as they do as a whole. It's depth shrouded in mischief, and it's proof that King Gizzard have mastered creating music that's as heavy conceptually as it is sonically.

While there's arguably nothing here that will dethrone your favourite all-time Robyn tracks ("Call Your Girlfriend" forever wins the March Madness bracket, doesn't it?), a great many stand proudly amongst them — and for most fans, this is very much enough right now.

At times, the album sounds a maybe little too polished, but the energy and stereo movement in songs like "Do We All Feel It" and "Disco Night Driver" sound like they would translate better live than in studio, anyway.

With Reality Show, Sullivan delivers an R&B album that feels like how R&B used to sound circa late 90's/early 2000 while still coming off as forward-looking.

Desire Lines refurbishes '50s pop, turning it into modern classics filled with unabashedly lovely melodies, just the way Camera Obscura want it, and just what we've come to expect, and love, about them.

Ultimately, All That Must Be is a glowing album that plots the psychological journey of its creator through the often un-navigable waters of change. Yet somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle of real life, Fitzgerald found his strongest compass.

The added lyrical depth takes Optimal Lifestyles from just another party record to a genuine reflection on living life one six-pack at a time.

Although When the Wind Forgets Your Name is by no means revolutionary, it's still a refreshing, cool-sounding record, one that finds Built to Spill revelling in the past and looking clear-eyed toward the future, some 30 years on. That's no small feat.

While he seems outshone by his flashier co-stars on much of Ronin at first, repeat listens find his well stoked lines smouldering for far longer than you'd think.

In dialing back the chaos a bit, the band have made room to let the smaller details of their dense and intricate music shine. It may have taken six years to deliver, but Congrats was worthy of the wait.

Orcas provides much to engage fans of both Irisarri and Pioulard, as well as lovers of languid, abstracted pop song craft.

As far as comeback albums go, May the Lord Watch is resurgence done right. But if you're new to the North Carolina duo, listen to their older work first for context.

While it doesn't offer up any game changers, it does provide a snapshot of Kompakt's eclectic and, ultimately, satisfying vision of electronic music in 2015.

It's a life we're lucky to see through this gorgeous album, however briefly.

While these "in-between areas" are not always sonically pleasant, you can't accuse them of being dull; they make Tyranny the compelling album that it is.

It's at the intersection of curiosity and vulnerability where she concocts her best work. Gentle Confrontation learns and preserves artifacts of the mind, appreciating special moments that many leave lost in time.

The most sophisticated and pristinely produced versions of their signature sound to date. Whether you're a new or old listener to Teeth of the Sea, Wraith will be a fresh experience.

Diggs finds all of the quicksilver tales of sex, drugs and violence that '90s gangsta rap used to trade in — except here, they're wired together yet dislocated, provocative yet impersonal. Hutson and Snipes gleefully resurrect the adrenalized club beats of that same era, with occasional breathers that flirt with the ambience of Massive Attack or Tricky when darkness starts to suffer the threat of dawn, all tied together with the static pulse of electricity and the flow of information.

From the diamonds on the chains he hedonistically spits about while prospering to the shameless confessions he unveils at the nadir of despair, the way Lanez embraces his flaws makes his music stand out.

Kvelertak feel as though they are right on the verge of something extraordinary, as they explore the limits of their very successful aesthetic with Meir.

It's difficult to avoid self-parody when you're mining a genre that largely defines itself by tacky sonic flourishes, but somehow White Hills have continued to do just that.

It's the fact that Disclosure make bookish, aurally factual electronica sound so carefree that makes Settle such an artistic success.

This influx of new voices finds Deerhoof exploring a number of different styles and sounds, all the while keeping that chaotic exuberance they are known for.

PRUDE's half-hour-ish run time packs plenty of punch, mixing old and new strengths well, exemplifying why Drug Church have so much staying power.

Sure, the sequencing could have used some tweaking, but Days Are Gone is a commendable effort that manages to answer all of the hype.