Pleasure and happiness live alongside unease on Lost Girls. Khan is able to pierce through the darkness while still honouring it, and in doing so, acknowledges the validity of her emotions.

Pharmakon's devouring is whole and ugly, but it carries a rewarding narrative about the importance of suffering — we're eating ourselves alive, but we're also becoming stronger for it, each act of self-cannibalization and each listen to this album more like a single coil in an upward spiral of transcendence than a snake eating its own tail.

Occasionally on Wallop, !!! sound either too world-weary or too committed to being incendiary to relay ideas relevant to listeners. But at their best, the band maintain their convictions about privilege, power and culture and present them as defiant, monumental tracks.

Awakening isn't going to change anyone's life, but Sacred Reich sound like they're having fun, and on thrash records like this one, that can be worth its weight in gold.

While it might be daunting to have close to 20 duets of mixed genres all on one album, it works for Crow and her crew. These collaborations show flair and offer a little bit of something for everyone, making Threads that much more appealing.

As their 2015 album relied on a pair on vocalists, Mutado Pintado and Paris Brightledge, sophomore full-length PL utilizes a whole stable of collaborators to create a pleasingly wobbly and splintered set of songs.

Though relying on their well-worn instrumental strengths and lacking Light Upon the Lake's compositional variance, Forever Turned Around sharpens Whitney's songwriting for another intimate collection of heartfelt tunes.

Although new listeners may find this brand of new wave revival frivolous in such an oversaturated pool of sound-alikes, longtime fans, or those who listen close enough, will hear a band who has a little more weight beneath the surface than their contemporaries. Songwriting that isn't always complementary, but bold nonetheless.

Powers is a surprisingly sturdy comeback album that sounds exactly how you remember the Futureheads, and that, at least for nostalgia's sake at least, isn't a bad thing at all.

On Like the River Loves the Sea, Joan Shelley proves she may be the only active musician who can surround herself with collaborators and sound exactly like herself.

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.

The result of those sessions, While I'm Livin', is perhaps the finest full-length in Tucker's storied five-decade career.

He's has created a blistering and often beautiful protest album. Let's hope his fever catches; it'd do us all some good.

At its worst, the effect is soporific, but if you're looking for a comforting, cushiony soundscape, Cala is good company. It's when Regan opts for crisper, more invigorated sounds, though, that the album really shines.

Lover hears Swift back on stable ground. Her songwriting is as careful, detailed and impressive as ever, she's nestled into a perfect pop niche, and it seems like being totally in love has let her head drift off into the clouds a bit. The best part: Lover lets fans wander off into the daydream with her.

Every song on The End of Radio has by now made it on to a Shellac release, but it's a testament to the singular artistry of this band that these two Peel sessions provoke pleasant feelings of awe and surprise at things that sound both familiar, yet fascinatingly alien.

Braindrops is a tumultuous and compelling listen.

The once nitty-gritty production that better helped listeners live in Sheer Mag's retro world has been tidied up. Having polished up so much that the line between self-awareness and cliché is stretched thin, it's hard to tell whether a concept has been burrowed or held hostage all together. In many ways, the charm is gone. Thankfully, a song like "Hardly to Blame," finds ways to make the best of less-than-ideal situations.

Love's Last Chance is lazy summer listening. It reveals a mindful DJ/keyboardist/producer and now vocalist who has progressed from someone who, in his words, "made beats every day," to someone who's on to something good.

Much of what Duterte has accomplished on Anak Ko reflects the balancing act depicted in its album artwork: songs that weave together contributions from a range of players, carried by Duterte's singular vision.

Although it may not be the best project that Young Thug has released, certain tracks off So Much Fun are guaranteed to become classic party anthems played at max volume for years.

There is a simmering sense of joy and positivity throughout, even while the lyrical content often remains affectingly bittersweet. Lay's voice is soft and lovely, and her vocals are more meandering than melodic. But her voice also carries an unpretentious gravitas that helps to ground the album.

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

Basking in the Glow is an album for fans of the courteous yet invigorating style of emo that Death Cab for Cutie and Jimmy Eat World made popular. Oso Oso's latest is a brisk invitation to savour the small stuff, to embrace insecurities, and to hang on to those head-rushing moments.

Atonement is a monster record in an almost untouchable career.

Like the best of old-school R&B, - Ugh, those feels again has a heavy hip-hop influence and an aura of feel-good innocence throughout, even on darker songs like "Love Like That" and the infectious, call-and-response number "Nothing to Me."

As one should expect from King Gizz, Infest the Rats' Nest never repeats itself, flying through idea after idea like a heart-stopping drop into the rock'n'roll depths of "Hell," the final track.

The couple's adoration for each other is every bit as potent as their social consciousness, on "P.A.L" and "Fruitful," two of the cosmic quiet storm cuts that comprise the album's second half. And when Aloe Blacc drops by on "Smile," something's seriously amiss if your body doesn't move.