instead of songs about past lovers and immaturity, Motorists are using philosophical ideas as fuel for their jangly indie rock.

Soulful yet sensational, Fabriclive 93 is a consuming mix that marks the intersection of Snaith's dance floor personas--and powerfully so.

Mirrored Aztec is also more tight and clean than February's Surrender Your Poppy Field – that Pollard still has this many hooks in him is mystifying.

Cooper seems to have found just the right balance of electronic elements and traditional instrumentation for this album, as well.

It's a gorgeous collection of songs, showcasing Spear's preternatural songwriting ability.

It's obvious he has a consummate ear for quality and potential. Listeners who share these sensibilities should be all over this release.

[An] astoundingly distinctive album.

The result is Protest the Hero's best effort to date, one where (relative) restraint yields a far more powerful product.

Whether you're aware of the conceptual backstory behind Potential or come into the project blind, Hinton makes the album just as conceptually moody as it is conceptually aural.

This is not just a comeback; it's All Saints' best work yet.

These unapologetically authentic offerings are balanced with several from the band's comparatively tidier self-titled LP era. The unholy marriage of mayhem and hookery on the infectiously melodic "Dirty Shirt" and "Leave Me Out" begs to be bowed to.

Either as a companion or a standalone, it's a consuming piece of music that reminds us of the Weavers' ambition to always lead and never follow.

On Migration Stories, M. Ward doesn't change the way he delivers his material as much as he alters the way it reverberates once it hits you.

There are no interludes or breaks, a consistency that is both the band's greatest strength and only weakness.

Old Star sounds as new as it does born of another epoch, reminding us that though genres and scenes may change, the riff is eternal.

The directness of Bully's songs--both emotionally and melodically--is their strongest asset, but it's tough to argue that Bognanno has any discernable weakness when it comes to her music.

III is fuzzy, fast-paced and ferocious in all of the ways we would expect from FUZZ. Ty Segall, Charles Moothart, and Chad Ubovich have carefully conjured cacophony once again, in what might be at once their most spontaneous and their most down-to-earth record to date.

The Mountain Goats really haven't gotten the attention they deserve over the past several years, so if you want to introduce someone to them, Songs for Pierre Chuvin is a fitting choice. It's a great example of the heart of the band.

Merriweather Post Pavilion remains as culturally important as it felt back in 2009. Ballet Slippers mines that very significance for its pure euphoria, and with carefully selected performances and interpretations, this celebration of that groundbreaking work does justice to its source material.

Being more open to collaborations, and trusting the process of a co-producer, the quality of production is more on the synthetic side, but the record still has a sense of nostalgia that permeates her techno-pop melodies, because of the heavy synths.

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.

In the end, Everything Hits at Once may not be the most necessary thing. But, like most of Spoon's material, it is a well-crafted, admirable work — a pleasurable end unto itself.

Sometimes, a cloud isn't just a cloud, and Morgan's Equivalents offers a space to ponder the difference.

Burning Love add a dark edge to credible rock bands like Queens of the Stone Age and in doing so, have crafted one of the catchiest hardcore albums, or heaviest rock albums, of the year.

Her party-girl braggadocio feels more nuanced by recent tragedy. Yes, listeners are blasted with sex-positive bangers that bounce from wall-to-wall, like the infectious "Body," which will surely be gentrified by White TikTok in the coming days, but these moments are made human next to moments like "Circles" where she reflects on recent trauma.

At first listen, the album is scattered and slightly exhausting; it takes several attempts to make sense of everything you're hearing, and some listeners may run out of the patience required to dissect it all. Those with a longer attention span, though, will find SYRE a very promising debut that offers new delight with every play.

Across its 13 songs, the beats are crisp, the choruses pronounced and the hooks sharp.

There's a sense of well-earned intimacy throughout Local Honey, with songs that speak plainly and from the heart about deepening relationships and the life-sustaining love that comes from them. This record is warm, instantly inviting and crackling with life.