This is outsider music that manages to remain accessible yet endlessly provoking.

The result, while a bit surprising, is entirely satisfying.

The Place I Left Behind is another wholly satisfying album that builds upon past successes and carries the band forward as one of the country's finest roots acts.

Despite a three-year hiatus, Claro Intelecto continues to generate quality, masterful releases.

Orcas provides much to engage fans of both Irisarri and Pioulard, as well as lovers of languid, abstracted pop song craft.

The seemingly strange power that Actress has is to disorient the listener (i.e., the visceral shock accompanying the tonally maximal "Shadow From Tartarus"), though this contrast mostly allows for R.I.P.'s intricate and detailed beauty to thrive just beneath the cracks.

While the layers of oddball narrative that Black brings to the table help distinguish it, aesthetically it's at least five years too late and feels like something aimed squarely at hip, divorced dads.

Put succinctly, awE NaturalE leaves listeners wanting more.

Harmonicraft is filled with catchy hooks and pop melodies, as well as progressive, atmospheric rhythms.

The melodies can blur into one another and some tracks don't stand out, but Rock and Roll Night Club is so ephemeral and addictive that you'll want to be making love in this club regularly.

It's the driving, rock-based tracks like "Recoil" and "Just Dust" that give Life Somewhere Else its energy, as Kilbey matches Cain's chugging-but-ringing guitars with a lust-for-life delivery.

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.

This is a lovely record with enough autumnal tones to ensure that you'll still be listening to it in six months' time.

Shallow Bed is refreshingly free of archaic, "old timey" references; it feels both relevant and familiar.

In many ways, Sweet Heart is the most complete Spiritualized album yet.

Above all, Cynic's New Year sounds incredible; its production quality alone is worth several listens.

In nearly every case, the remix version does justice to the original while taking the track to a completely different place sonically.

The songs are engaging and incredibly catchy, but lack emotion ― that intangible quality that will take this feel-good record and give it staying power.

This is a minimalist masterpiece.

When it starts, the overt prettiness and ornate, layered arrangements are very reminiscent of Owen Pallett, but very soon it veers of in some lovely tangents, although it inevitably comes back to string-laden, experimental pop.

There's little about Dead Set on Living that isn't an improvement on the band's past efforts, from the thunderous guitar tones to the frenetic energy pouring out of every song, courtesy of live-off-the-floor recording.

There's a comfortable vibe that the project ease into, content to deliver serviceable lyrics over straightforward beats and nothing more.

Each song on Ataraxia/Taraxis is diverse, with moments of melodious prog-rock, powerful riffs and hazy ambience; however, there's also cohesion to the EP that makes it feel expansive and utterly epic.

Like many bands with a "core" attached to their sub-genre, Emmure are adept at making every song into an almost continuous, ferocious breakdown and it's a formula that keeps the album's momentum at its peak at all times.

An even stronger effort, one that avoids the sometimes-frantic pace that marred that earlier album a little.

Rhine Gold does feel a bit frontloaded, with the most compelling tracks happening in the first half, losing a little momentum towards the end, but this is still a superb release.

Alex Winston is capable of writing some excellent indie-pop gems, she just hasn't figured out to do it with consistency.

This album strikes an intriguing, if slightly schizophrenic, balance between gently meandering almost-psychedelia and the restless rhythmic activity of recent dance styles.