Baby Teeth's gentle delivery and textured production creates a world in which listeners have an opportunity for reflection, situating their own experiences within the band's storytelling.

There's some really great songwriting on the album and a handful of tracks worth adding to your daily rotation, but it viciously grabs your attention without being able to hold onto it for very long.

Simulcast is a shining and beautifully crafted album that reaffirms Hansen's hold atop of 21st century ambient electronic.

With Bodies, they sound lost without an identity. There's barely anything that's exciting or memorable, and when it surprises, it's only in the wrong ways. The band sounds about 30 years less experienced than they are.

Some of It Was True finds the Menzingers growing up, not too fast and not too slow.

Longtime fans should recognize Lady on the Cusp as a strong late-career addition to of Montreal's vast discography, mainly due to Barnes's larger-than-life persona. But you can only be the horniest freak at the party for so long before it starts to get old.

The Day is My Enemy is an embarrassing display that inevitably ends badly.

On The Ways We Separate, Beacon manage to craft one of the most compelling and authentic-sounding albums of the year, and all it took was the courage to cool it with the R&B part.

Each song is theatrically arranged with Craft belting like a Broadway star and the large band supporting his every word. The ebbs and flows become slightly predictable near the end of the album, but Craft does a terrific job of performing the songs, emoting and propelling his tales with vigour.

Drake aims to come out stronger, more focused and more righteous than ever. ... He goes hard at addressing his industry ops on Side A, and it's full of the effortlessly cut-throat Drake we've come to love. ... Drake gets all the way into his feelings on the second half of Scorpion.

Some of the tracks, like the first few ballads, feel a tad exhausted and perhaps a little clichéd, but that's the nature of Sia's universal, inclusive pop music, and on This is Acting, she approaches it in an intriguing way and performs it with gusto.

The result is an unpolished gem of spiritual ambiance.

Nine reeks of adolescence — and not in the goofy, humorous way of Blink-182's past, but in a cringe-y attempt at youthful angst. There are no slyly couched bits of wisdom, no life lessons learned between goof-ups and heartbreak, and it's altogether too earnest and self-serious to even be enjoyed as carefree fun. Blink-182 have always been intentionally juvenile, but in growing up and out of punk rock, they've never been more immature.

The only real disappointment here is that it arrives just as summer ends, because few albums have been better suited for beach life as this one.

Their Northwest hardcore sound may be derivative, but it represents the tendencies of its origins with convincing force, as their unrefined grunge tones and twangs almost make Subjective Concepts feel like an overlooked album from back in the day.

With 12 tracks and a run time of just 30 minutes, much of Tobacco's fourth solo LP almost sounds incomplete at times, but Fec somehow makes it work to his advantage.

Aureate Gloom is the point where grief becomes a search for light in creation, adventure and musical experimentation, making even Barnes' more experimental sonic forays sound urgent.

This record is crawling with too many hooks and good-time jams to quibble over guitar tone.

These head-scratching moments mean that, despite the collection's successes, it probably works better as a sheet music oddity than a cohesive album.

Hexadic is louder and more gnarly than anything else he's done under this moniker.

It starts off deceptively strong, with standouts like "I Got the Keys," "Nas Album Done" and "For Free" all loaded near the beginning. But once the album advances past this bit of clever sequencing, it barely strikes a chord.

It's safe to call Outside CFCF's magnum opus; it's an immaculate zenith that represents every brave, leftfield musical choice this young musician has made up until this point.

Hard Believer has a simmering urgency, but though the album seems like it's always building to something, when it ends, you can feel how far it has come.

With Radiance and Submission, the Montreal musician attempts a serene matrimony of the two musical sides that struggles to strike a balance between stimulating and stale when it comes to the record's overarching sound.

Psychedelically haunted and spiritually free, Life After Death isn't just an escape from the world we're confined to, it's a multi-dimensional confrontation, compositions conversational as they are challenging.

Overall, Cosmic Wind is free of obvious flaws. But while it's a pleasant album, there's no song distinct enough to elevate it from passive listening.

It would be unwise to view Amnesty (I) as the rebirth of Crystal Castles; it's simply the next step in the band's evolution, a welcome return.

Hot Cakes contains vestiges of the brilliance that once helped make The Darkness a massive cultural force (at least in the UK). But too many of its songs feel like toss-offs and half-formed ideas.

With Nun, Teengirl Fantasy sound pleasantly restless and resourceful, but there aren't enough transcending moments here to make this EP anything more than a stop-gap.

It's all weird and ramshackle, but it fits the music so well. With each improvised yelp, clap and audience holler, Butler has created a record that captures his sound, in spite--or, perhaps, because--of his unwillingness to stick to one.

While Howl falls squarely into a no man's land between soul and pop, Brooks's smooth style ultimately proves refreshing.

There's no doubt the songwriting is there--but the LP's best tracks ("All Our Wonder" and Old Haunts") share the lo-fi production that was a boon to the atmospheric beauty of their EP.

Preventing such weighty topics from becoming too exhausting are the upbeat instrumentals with which they've been paired.

Some of its improvisations feel more impenetrable than others. But the album's unpredictable nature gives it some of its finest moments.

Her solo album is indicative of her strength alone, but it also highlights her importance as a member of Warpaint.

DJ Shadow's solid fifth LP shows that he still has the chops to cut a good record when he's not doing a complete gear change (The Outsider) and then turning down the wrong road at full speed (The Less You Know, the Better).

This album won't change anyone's opinion of Rick Ross, but fans will get everything they love about his music: some standout tracks, an abundance of charismatic luxury raps and a slew of incredible, lavish instrumentals for you to cruise around to.

Tinashe's Joyride is a stop-start journey that doesn't quite stall out, but does feel like some ground has been lost. It does move, however, and it will be interesting to see where things go from here.

For an ambitious release that obviously reaches for such lofty heights, Taiga is peculiarly light on hooks and personality, forcing Danilova to fill many of those gaps in with glittering aural cosmetics.

Elephant Stone haven't lost anything here; rather, they've refined their songwriting and production, and the results are quite exciting.

The 47 minutes diced into 17 tracks that consitute Breakthrough demonstrate what Gaslamp Killer is capable of.

While they don't break a ton of new ground with this record or introduce any drastic new elements, Only Ghosts is still a great new addition to their canon.

Some of album's more pedestrian elements slide by — bouncy, sing-song verses that Pitts can obviously write in his sleep and which come off as a bit insubstantial sometimes, the whole thing threatening to blow away with the faintest breeze. Carefree Theatre is certainly pleasant enough to get swept up in however, and a good capstone to a decade's work.

The 11 tracks on Magpie and the Dandelion were recorded during the same Rick Rubin-produced sessions, and now stand as a well-timed response to those that found The Carpenter too weighty for its own good.

The band's natural tendency toward tightly knit pop music, combined with an increasingly evident and more fully realized awareness of their strengths, makes Shaky Dream a great release.

Chesney's folk-pop Songs for the Saints is a charity album that although compassionate and kind, carries few memorable and catchy country tunes.

They're not back at their best, but on Everything Now, Arcade Fire once again sound like the world-beaters they were on The Suburbs without forgoing the acidity, swagger and scope of Reflektor.

Without Goodman's unique artistic voice anchoring and guiding the proceedings, Music for Listening to Music To feels set adrift, done in not by its makers' stylistic diversions, but by their unwillingness to give the album a proper focal point.

For all its vulgarity, predictability, repetitiveness and reckless musings on drugs, Juicy J's trippy music succeeds because of its spirit. His new album (his first since trading 666 for Taylor Gang) bottles that infectious energy, that reckless intensity, that raw hustler's "kapow!" and delivers it in an accessible package.

There's endless potential in this collaboration, if only they'd take a more confident leap into the unknown.

Z is a quality beginning for a beguiling new artist with a fresh futurist sound.

By demonstrating the passion with which he performs these songs, as well as the inventive instrumentation, Callinan has reaffirmed the sincerity in his music that is so often elided by his provocative image.

Lacking the depth of his more memorable efforts, Digital Roses Don't Die sounds more like an album Big K.R.I.T. made for himself rather than something he expected his fans to collectively laud.

G is for Deep remains an album driven by lustrous compositions and like any good artist, Doseone's voice dutifully abides.

While the disc does eventually find its footing, the clash between clearly artistic and commercial endeavours makes for an uneven and somewhat jarring listen.

There are undeniable flashes of peak Joji scattered throughout the album, which only heightens the frustration. They serve as reminders of his ability to be great, confirming the unevenness as less of a lack of talent and more of an excess of underdeveloped ideas.

White Women is consistently fun and well-crafted, a shining example of disco's renewed relevance from a pair of musicians for whom the genre never went out of style.

Callus is a harrowing experience, not for the faint of heart. It's more of a preach than a rap, at times more post-rock than hip-hop, the overall experience something akin to hearing slam poetry at knifepoint.

What's impressive about Girl though is how strong Morris's vocals have grown, along with the maturity and uniqueness of each song. It's clear that Girl isn't a sophomore slump, but rather an album worth investing in.

Without being overwhelmingly expressive or boringly subtle, Boris create layered atmospheres that are equal parts beautiful and menacing.

As a riff rock mood board, most of the album passes by nicely enough, with the occasional embarrassing lyric (the aforementioned refrain in "Must've Always Been a Thing," repetitions of "Ring dong / Ring-a-ding dong" on opener "The Dooms Day Bells") being the only moments that are actively unpleasant to listen to.

Cosentino's songwriting has definitely strengthened, it's just that instead of sounding like her peers at the Smell, she'd rather sound like her heroes on the AM dial, and that's not a bad thing.

There are some good songs on Jesus Piece, but they're decent in spite of the Game, not because of him.

The relentless gothic signifiers too often leave you in the cold, wondering why you didn't spend the last 45 minutes enhancing or deepening your more sinister feelings, rather than drowning beneath them.

The dynamics are top notch, shifting masterfully from a melodic tone to a heavy, empowered voice.

The band's punk'n'roll won't make converts out of unbelievers, but for those already initiated, V proves the Bronx an undoubtedly vital institution.

His predilection for marrying sublime pop melodies to bombastic arrangements laced with classical avant-garde flourishes has reached a new level of focus, and, resultantly, potency, on Jackrabbit.

When Collegrove is good, it's very good. Unfortunately, it's tough to hear this project as anything but a crude marketing move to keep both rappers relevant until their next solo projects.

Triple F Life is good because it's big and stupid.

For Ever is Jungle's Hollywood album, both in scope and substance. With it, the group affirm their place among the indie auteurs of the zeitgeist, and--perhaps more importantly--skilfully avoid the sophomore slump.

Although CASE STUDY 01 may not receive the same critical reception as Freudian, it's a solid effort by an artist who is, more or less, still a rookie, attempting to diversify his sound early on in order to avoid cementing himself into gospel music for the entirety of his career.

With Junk, Gonzalez has taken M83 into a whole new galaxy that is just as ambitious and starry-eyed as everything that came before it.

His latest LP, the 13-song Pressure, is a quality collection of songs that core fans will undoubtedly embrace.

So There, Ben Fold's collaborative LP with yMusic (a classical sextet from New York) is poppy, ambitious and bold. Yet despite clocking in at nearly an hour--including a 20-minute-long concerto for piano and orchestra with the Nashville Symphony--the new record feels scarce on songs.

Born 50 years ago, he would have been the toast of the avant-garde community; his musical experiments are a rarity in this ADHD world of MP3s and free downloads.

While Keith Flint and vocal partner Maxim aren't as prominent as they sometimes are on this outing, the bludgeoning beats and aggressive synths remain, with perhaps even a bit of classic rock swagger thrown in early on.

Much of Please Be Honest is filled with mid-tempo material, but unlike his recent work, Pollard seems obsessed with guitar textures and vocal effects here, making Please Be Honest an intriguing success.

With its hypnotic loops and acoustic percussion, this great downtempo record, at times, calls to mind a looser, dreamier Teebs, with the melodic sense of early Four Tet.

Head in the Dirt definitely bears all the hallmarks of an Auerbach production--fuzz, funk and stadium-ready choruses--and often it's difficult to tell whether El Khatib is merely serving as Auerbach's stand-in. But the catchiness of his songwriting ultimately wins the day.

This is a deeply enjoyable, satisfying and fun slab of melodic heaviness.

The stuffed effort could be Lil Baby's attempt to showcase his growth. But one mark of artistic maturity is exercising restraint — less is often more.

PersonA is proof of the exemplary musicianship of Magnetic Zeros, and their ability to forge songs as rich lyrically as they are musically.

Galore, is a soulless collection that feels more like a grasp at brand synergies than an attempt to make meaningful music.

Nothing on Breakin' Point really hits as hard as their earlier work. Peter Bjorn and John are having fun on this album, but occasionally get a little lost in the dance moves.

They've still got a solid ear for dreamy, yet captivating melodies, but with the confidence to push their sound in new directions and see where it takes them.

Similar to how Drake and Future on What a Time to Be Alive, the two collaborators have trouble finding common ground here. They're equally impressive in their own right but they rarely connect, and when they try on each other's styles, it's awkward.

Much of Fixion, while enjoyable, finds Trentemøller stuck on the same weary note, reaching for what's comfortable and familiar rather than pushing his craft forward.

As a whole, it feels less like a sketchbook come to life and more like a laboratory of hermetic fusion jazz and avant-garde rock, which isn't to say it's devoid of charm.

Overall, In My World is a first-rate sophomore effort.

Like every Chili Peppers album, the 13-track The Getaway suffers from bloat.

JJ's sound may be nothing special anymore, but their songs and vibe still stand up.

Bad Love has just too many things going on.

They've elevated their music from songs you listened to at your job in a coffee shop or in your parents basement, to music you want to play in the car or in your grown up apartment. You can find a sense of nostalgia without losing some of the comfort that age has brought you.

Crusher shows that Grave Babies know how to get down with some morbid music, all in the name of good, clean fun.

Orth starts off with a very promising narrative, but soon loses the listener, and himself, in the world he's created.

Joey Bada$$ absolutely deserves his position as one of hip-hop's rising young stars, he just needs to learn how to leave them wanting more.

The Last Spire, their tenth and last release, combines all that the legends do well: snail-paced doom, upbeat Sabbath stoner rock and craggly sludge.

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.