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.