The partnership of Stephen Ramsay (Young Galaxy) and Jace Lasek (Besnard Lakes) offers up five songs in tectonic waves, their instrumentation carefully modulating into a slow-burn intensity.

Overall, the Pixies' seventh album is palatable — the songs are generally likeable — but it lacks excitement.

There isn't anything innovative about their music, but every note of this album feels honest and considered.

Anything in Return functions as an all-in-one summary of Bundick's talents, giving the impression of a maturing songwriter who has found his wheelhouse.

It's a leaner, grittier iteration of Arbouretum that slowly lopes out of the starting blocks on this fifth full-length.

Sonically, the album is a time capsule of the greatest moments in black music history. Lyrically, it's hard-hitting reality about the present day, the good, the bad and the horrific — but it's also a captivating tale about using love as a weapon to overcome, as well as the reality that sometimes love also fails, whether it be romantic, platonic or social.

They're disorienting, at times disturbing and very abstract, which basically makes it the perfect visual representation of the album. The record feels like it's falling apart at times, but there's beauty in its disarray--like its accompanying videos, it's hard to look away.

Teaspoon To The Ocean's all-encompassing aura takes you through Craig's master class of dream exploration fairly quickly, but even in the midst of all the trippy goodness, his thoughtful testaments manage to shine through track to track, giving poignant, detailed expression to the anxiety that plagues his deepest thoughts.

Having few tonal shifts and being practically devoid of contrast, LAHS is the perfect atmospheric soundtrack for a backyard party with boozy beverages and adult tokeables.

Never in recorded history has there been an album of such audible variety, distinctive fidelity and lyrical intensity.

August By Cake gets interesting when tracks like "Warm Up to Religion" and "What Begins on New Year's Day" tap into the melancholy that's occasionally haunted Pollard's melodies. Aside from those tracks, though, he shows little interest in the tinkering that made his earlier work so interesting.

While new beginnings aren't without their flaws, Big Boi's lyrical prowess and effortless delivery provide the thread that link the old Big Boi universe to this, the Boomiverse.

Couple the simultaneously sparse and noisy production with the overall scant running time, and the album unfortunately fails to leave an impression, especially in an area of music that has become more and more saturated since the band's 2018 breakthrough.

This sophomore effort builds off her debut, but loses the plot in a mass of electronic blackness and vague grievances.

It's possible that hyperpop purists and longtime Harle fans will wince at the sanded-down edges and softened tones that make up this album — go listen to "Boing Beat" or "Interlocked" for an ungentle reminder of how bonkers Harlecore remains a half-decade a later. And yet, Cerulean is undeniably fun, and cements Harle's standing as a singular artist in the world of progressive pop.

A brooding, groovy, muscular album, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here is a more mature and thoughtful application of Alice In Chains' undeniably powerful aesthetic.

At its best, Mechanical Bull is standard, paint-by-numbers fare that attempts to sprint to the finish line. However, it runs out of gas and you have to wonder if Kings of Leon have as well.

Pretty much the only complaint is that, similar to all of his releases since the infamous EVOL, it delivers and lives up to the hype, but it doesn't build and surpass his previous work. It remains to be seen whether he will ever create an album that is better than everything he's done so far, but this is still an extremely solid release.

There are songs here that could quite easily become part of anyone's perfect summer soundtrack, which was likely Kisses' plan all along.

Over the course of a full album, the duo's strict adherence to their limited sonic template starts to get just a little tiring, but the Milk Carton Kids' mastery of their chosen form is never in doubt.

Be Myself is hardly a classic, but it's another solid, light-hearted sounding collection with some clear standouts on it.

Although the album may carry a serious and meaningful message, Rostron has enough hard-won maturity as an artist to know that vinegar only attracts flies, and All Love's Legal is a perfect marriage of thought-provoking and hip-shaking.

The Hyperdub resident dabbles in funk, grime, experimental, R&B and soul, a mélange of styles that effortlessly coexist.

Windy City isn't a revolutionary album, or even the most adventurous release in Krauss's deep, rich catalogue, but it's a welcome reminder that Krauss remains a song interpreter with few--if any--peers in Nashville.

Masana Temples is a comparatively accessible release from Kikagaku Moyo, despite rooting itself in a reality outside of our own. The ease with which these tracks can be entered leaves one wondering whether this utopian vision--for all its gestures at peace--could be closer to us than we thought.

Ultimately, Something to Tell You rests uncomfortably between the retro California pop sound HAIM pulled off so perfectly on album number one and experimentation that reaches a little too far into a cartoonish computerized concept of the future.

Ultimately, Thank You for Today finds the Death Cab for Cutie of 2018 taking stock of their band, choosing to forge ahead by using the foundation of their back catalogue to harness their core identity and build upon it. The band's shared vision is clear, encapsulated in this collection of songs.

They've got the speed, the outfits and the record collection, but Cerebral Ballzy's interpretation of hardcore punk never comes off as more than cartoony.