Although its brighter moments ("Adam and Eve," "Cops Shot the Kid") save it from being a complete fall from grace, overall Nasir is disappointingly heedless. Hopefully his next effort is more honest.

All the elements that have made for their most enjoyable material are still here, and the band shows they are just as capable as they have always been on captivating listeners.

Plenty of tracks here end abruptly, which likely works well for their use in the film itself, and maybe less so in an independent listen. But even removed from visual and narrative components of Hereditary, Stetson's compositions still manage to conjure a deeply unsettling, unrelentingly tense mood.

Throughout simply titled/simply written tracks like "Lullaby" and "Journey," Washington has astonishingly revealed another element to his budding songcraft.

This is the kind of music that, in 20 years, we may look back on as a pivotal point in changing the trajectory of the pop music sound.

Nothing is off limits, and their chemistry on wax continues to be just as powerful as it is in real life. It's not only a top-to-bottom banger, but it's also relationship goals.

Please Don't Be Dead is virtually airtight in terms of musicality and intent. Fantastic Negrito continues to live to his "black roots" moniker--a weary, weathered soul survivor raging against the coming storm.

Music this nakedly derivative requires sharp pop instincts to be successful, and tracks like these prove that Chromeo are still able to create magic within their well-worn source material, even if they are retreading old ground.

[Kelley Deal] sings on two of the new EP's songs, and that all-too-fleeting taste will leave you immediately hankering for more.

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.

RBCF are a welcome addition to the range of Australian guitar bands taking the world by storm, their confident debut an exploration of angular v. melodic guitars and energetic rhythms.

You can tick off a number of dream-pop heavyweights as influences here: Lush and Cocteau Twins, whose Robin Guthrie remixed "Sure," immediately come to mind. But Pillbeam makes the sound her own, putting heavy emphasis on the pop side of things via a brilliant synth sheen. Yet it's her ability to wring emotional drama out of rote subject matter that makes these songs so special.

Bay Dream is a great example of a band living up to the potential hinted at by their early work, and while day-one fans might be turned off by the album's cleaned-up production, it would be ungracious to begrudge a young band their newfound opportunities. Culture Abuse make the most of them here, with an album that should find its way into many a summer playlist.

Alvin's rugged and bluesy delivery contrasts nicely to Gilmore's signature ethereal tenor, and their harmonies are sweet. Given that both are accomplished songwriters, it's a mite surprising there is only one joint original tune here, the opening title track.

Every one of these seven tracks is like a J.G. Ballard car crash--the violence is beautiful and the beauty is ferocious.

[Song One is] the album's crowning achievement and yet, at under two minutes, it's gone all too soon, a bittersweet reminder of the album that Nightstand could have been had Abbott built on this blueprint instead of sticking with a well-worn sound.

There is a conceptual weight to IRISIRI that accompanies the expert songcraft and meticulously produced arrangements without ever being burdensome. That the music itself stands on its own is testament to Drewchin's maturity as an artist; the presence of a thematic cohesion demonstrates the seductiveness of her universe.

Nothing Is Still is an excellent demonstration of what Leon Vynehall is capable of when he emerges from the confines of club music.

Sitting at a painfully short seven songs, the project is every bit as good as it should be; this is genuinely the reintroduction to both artists the world deserves.

Book of Ryan is a welcome origin story, an issue zero that leaves no stone unturned.

Age Of is both a sonic treat, and potentially a precursor to how the future of pop music may sound. Fortunately, we need not imagine, because Daniel Lopatin is already there.

Insula is a cerebral, introspective record offering an abrupt turn from pigeonholing that tags grime as street music, the melodic refrains often more baroque and fantastical than they are rough and hard-hitting.

Overall, soil is a courageous effort where serpentwithfeet's bravery pays off.

No Shame is exactly what it says it is--an album where all is revealed, even the unpleasant parts.

On Constant Image, Flasher speaks to the realities of gentrification, self-discovery and escapism.

With classically trained vocals, storytelling swagger and a knack for melodic invention, Lost & Found serves as both introduction and foundation. The debut offering is laden with contradictions: feels safe yet edgy, simple yet complex, ambitious yet relaxed.

Overall, this is YOB in their purest form. No tricks, no gimmicks, and of course, no bullshit. YOB is comfortable in their own skin, and making their most honest music to date with Our Raw Heart.

This still sounds like the Âme of the past 15 years. Truthfully, without a real departure from their signature tropes, the album doesn't have too many big surprises. Above all, the album serves as a strong reminder as to why Âme and Innervisions have reached the lofty heights that they have.

Lush is unencumbered and honest, putting emotional pitfalls on full, nuanced display while remaining streamlined and filler-free.

On Listening to Pictures (Pentimento Volume One), it's a treat to find Jon Hassell still fascinated and engrossed in the style of music he helped create.

so sad so sexy is an unusual blend of pop and R&B inspiration, but it's not a memorable album. Lykke Li scratches the bare surface of the talent she possesses, making you wish there was just a little more ener

Childqueen demands patience and a receptive ear to pick up on the care and detail Bonet has taken in crafting every moment. She is in complete control of her artistry.

Babelsberg's ten songs comprise a confident, fully realized soundtrack to a quasi-fictional dystopia.

The instrumentals on ye capture the essence of its marquee artist--the contradictions, the abrasive sudden shifts in tone, the blistering flaws and the bounty of positive potential. If West had better delved into his emotional and psychological turmoil in ye's lyrics, instead of getting bogged down with click-baity asides, then this LP would've been a classic.

With a bit better pacing and fewer drawn-out moments between songs, the record could have been the best of their career, but still stands as a fine addition to their discography.

There is something innate about Bernice's music, full of Dann's knack for honesty, observation, and language that reflects on the natural beauty around us. It is a joy to hear Bernice's musical identity coalesce.

She's quite literally found her groove, nicking pieces of '70s and '80s pop and R&B to give the tracks, performed once again by producer Matthew E. White and his Spacebomb Studio's crack house band, a bit more swing. Though they lack the natural funkiness of say, the Dap Kings, the crew once again deftly evoke the past without ever inhabiting it, creating a record that, while conceivably could exist in any moment in time, still feels modern.

Recording at Daptone studio has given the fledgling singer-songwriter some welcome vitality, boosting up the mid-range; its live-to-tape setup gives an immediacy to Rault's insouciant meld of psychedelic harmonies and willowy melodies.

Overall, LAGEOS is an engaging listen that just might surprise you in the places it goes.

Hval's knack for the conceptual can make her an elusive songwriter, but The Long Sleep offers plenty of immediate charms. Like the disco ball that hangs through the EP's first half, Hval breaks down her ideas and refracts them into something luminous.

Hell-On is incredibly dense and eclectic; each moment sonically plays up Case's lyrics and her inimitable delivery--which can turn from tough to vulnerable, to casually wry and to siren-esque within a few lines. It's chock full of delicious attention to detail.

There's enough variety mixed in to keep the instrumentals fresh, with luxurious string passages, warm organ swells, overdriven guitar riffs, some harmonica and even a fuzzed-out synth tone.

Though it's no surprise that Cole's consciousness leads the album, his unabashed statements regarding the direction of rap music and its current megastars are gutsy.

Throughout the 15-track album, he weaves from hip-hop and psych-rock to R&B and soul, proving that artistically, he will never be confined to a single box.

All the controversy gives elements of DAYTONA some delicious extra novelty, though thankfully its core ingredients are more than fulfilling on their own.

So much goes right here, but in scrubbing their songs of imperfections, they've also magnified their flaws. Though not quite stuck in neutral, it will certainly please the band's ever-expanding fan base while not really moving the needle creatively enough to convince sceptics that their initial opinions were unfounded.

Tracyanne & Danny is a deftly-produced, heartfelt album, highlighting both Campbell and Coughlan's best qualities, setting the bar high.

The arrangements are beautiful, borderline orchestral, and contribute to an expanding Horse Feathers soundscape. While the mood that Ringle is trying to strike with these ten tracks belies easy definition, what's clear is that Horse Feathers are forging a new way forward.

Thanks to the lack of coherence or variety though, nothing on Die Lit really sticks. It's fun enough but, save for a few keepers, has the lifespan of a mayfly. Rock to it for the summer and forget most of it by September.

The album, the first effort from the Poets in 20 years, is just as blunt and angry as their past work. But it is tempered with a patient wisdom that can only come with time, experience, and the gift of hindsight.

V. never rises above space rock, making the album feel like any other '60s hippie/psychedelic record. It's adequate, but when you can easily predict how it's going to play out, you're never left wanting more.

A deep, traversing album.

An album that challenges, even as it brings a 17-year band to its conclusion. As a coda for Frog Eyes, it's hard to imagine a more potent sendoff.

It's a comfortable collision of songs that probably won't gain many new listeners, but should find a home in real fans' collections, despite its lack of risk-taking.

This ain't the easy listen they've become known for, but it is a rewarding one.

The end result is likely the most dynamic and entertaining Jicks record thus far. You can hear Malkmus's love of classic and kraut rock in these crafty arrangements, which each get to a place where they truly shine. Hard.

Wide Awake! is a letter-perfect musical contemplation of modern times, where social uprisings are actually affecting positive change. It's urgent and potent music that's thought-provoking and danceable, and whose rage is measured by a pointed optimism.

Clever turns of phrase and quirky observations still permeate Barnett's writing, and there are still jangly, toe-tapping jams like "Need a Little Time" and "City Looks Pretty," but there are also darker forces at work.

What makes Hundreds of Days such a engrossing listen lies in the way Mary Lattimore flawlessly combines both mood and mode.

Compared to Wolfgang Voigt's heyday, Rausch can feel a bit a like a protracted misstep. Although GAS's sound starts to sound a bit dated, Voigt can still be applauded for his approach to storytelling and patience in constructing his electro-orchestral worlds.

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

The Siren's Song is another compelling chapter in what looks increasingly likely to be the long story of Kacy & Clayton's career.

Mark Kozelek is a skeletal record, composed almost exclusively with guitar loops and vocals tracks, designed to serve as a vehicle for his diary-like lyrics. Some may argue that Kozelek aims for quantity over quality, while others wait attentively for his next correspondence.

Leon Bridges' sophomore record rings as an endorsement of his range. And that's a great thing for Good Thing, which tempers its pop-radio ambitions with unique bends on the age-old love song in this super-tight, 35-minute ride.

DNA Feelings is unlikely to show up in any club sets. It is far too complex and unconventional. This is late-night, "visions of alchemy" stuff.

The album is slippery, but perhaps not in ways that are interesting enough to memorable, and definitely not as much as his previous work.

Floating Features hits the ear and satisfies as much as a California-grown avocado, buttery and smooth.

Overall, this is an album that blends choral and electronic to create something that amounts to little more than unobtrusive background music. It lacks both the cultural depth of world music and the dynamic disco beats of their earlier offerings.

At this stage, both brothers realize they work better together, though SR3MM's unique format allows for a distinct look at the two very different parts of what make Rae Sremmurd tick.

If you're a long-time listener, or someone that was tuned in to AM, you might be prepared to change the dial. But before you write this off as exhausting or pretentious self-indulgence, give it a listen or two. Peruse the lyrics, dissect them and have a laugh. Commitment isn't as scary as you think.

The end result is proof that traditional instruments can work incredibly well with electronics, although it might take two legends to pull it off.

Minor evolutions aside, there's not a whole lot to set 7 apart from the six albums that preceded it, making it easy to see this as just another Beach House album. Don't take them for granted, since it's hard to think of another band that has delivered so reliably for this long.

Now with a larger band, rapid-fire lyrics don't serve the same spatial purpose they did when Graves was stomping out his own drum beat. There's a busy conversational quality to the songwriting that strict economical poetics couldn't achieve. There's not a lot of wordless space on Can't Wake Up.

Cut Worms' music might not be as immediate as Andy Shauf's, or as inventive as Whitney's, but for listeners who miss the time when songwriters wrote actual songs, this album should not be overlooked.

Panic Blooms is a shadowy, leaking sibling, licking its wounds and pulling back from the sunlight. There seem to be fewer entry points here than with other BSMR albums, but there's also a comfort in its unabashed adherence to exploring bad feelings: hearing weirdos call it like they see it, even when the going's gotten rough, offers some strange sense of reprieve.

he only complaint (quibble really), is that a number of the pieces don't have endings. ... Otherwise, this is an enjoyable and important document. One of many for a pioneer we are all grateful to have discovered.

Beerbongs & Bentleys contains banger after banger; it's an incredible drug-induced album.

The Horizon Just Laughed is an album capable of moving listeners figuratively and literally. The pastiche of genres aptly complement and accent the American folk foundation that he's built his style and brand on.

Structural concerns aside, Singularity still finds Hopkins exploring sonic textures as deeply as ever. It's an album that, in its best moments, finds one of electronic music's great minds operating in peak form.

Solo productions add ballast to an already solid outing; Knock Knock deserves your response.

The nervous, blemished energy of Forth Wanderers is gripping with heaping amounts of charm, bitterness, sarcasm, and unease in the right proportions, making our insecurities stare back at us.

Iceage make unpleasant music, but their bland sentimentality is the most disagreeable thing on Beyondless.

Rebound continues her trajectory as an distinctive artist who's ever-skilful in her sonic explorations.

A Girl Cried Red takes you back in time to the nostalgia of your emo days.

The harmonica, piano and clean sounding guitars characterize The Last Man Standing. The smart and witty lyrics adorn the western swing album with an acoustic blues rock and rockabilly shine.

Fans of We Are Scientists will appreciate the new direction in crafting a new upbeat dynamic sound, and for new listeners, Megaplex is the perfect introduction to one of the band's most notable releases to date.

Overall, the trio showcase legend influences in their lines, while still authentically being themselves.

An LP so irresistibly danceable and irrefutably topical that it'll also leave generations of up-and-comers clamouring to team up with Janelle Monáe.

Harris is a sage escort to have along for the ride, and with the spare concrete signifiers and evocative open spaces she provides on Grid of Points, she's crafted a map for the full spectrum of human emotions and experiences.

For a 13-track album, the majority is forgettable and doesn't live up to the colourful elements of Lewis's previous releases. The lack of energy on Caer leaves a longing for more originality and creativity he has once given us.

Twerp Verse is a solid entry that should please fans of Speedy Ortiz and might also gain them some new ones with its hints of pop.

Simply put, cannabis is the medium through which this album should be listened to; otherwise, its greatness will never be revealed to the non-believers. ... When sober, 14 minutes for a song is a little long; stoned, it's not long enough.

Although there are some standouts on the album, like the vocal push-and-pull of "Don't Move Back to L.A.," the soulful "Shelter Song" and the dramatic buildup of "Human Being Song," Sheff sounds rather lost throughout this album, hampered by indecisive arrangements and ambling verses.

Stargate Music is a brilliant addition to the outpouring in the L.A. beat scene, a beautiful amalgamation of raw experimentation and sound fusion that raises this concept album well above others who have come before.

No. 4 proves beyond measure that Christina Vantzou has as much talent and vision as most any of them. Hollywood, this is your wakeup call. Listen to her.

On the rich, rewarding Sparrow, the singer has found the perfect marriage of songs, arrangements and performances. In the process she has also crafted a captivating Southern Gothic country-soul masterpiece, one that can stand proudly next to the timeless works that inspired it.

Your Queen Is A Reptile, is 55 minutes of ecstatic insurgency.

Where some might find their centre in such a locale, the self-imposed echo chamber seems to have exacerbated their worst individual qualities.