Crow's sense of humor still peeks through an otherwise melancholy baker's dozen of tracks. [#82, p. 54]

By the time MacLean gets around to a spoken-word revisit to an old haunt, "The Museum Of Fog," you're happily along for the surreal ride. [No. 146, p.55]

Syro is surprisingly listenable without drawing much attention to itself. [No. 115, p.52]

Thematically, vocalist Michael Berdan mines the issues, burdens and neuroses for lyrical content that spans an overdriven line between unsettling experience and triumphant discharge. [No. 139, p.61]

The new Apocalypse is leaner and funkier than the more jazzy and sprawling Golden Age Of Apocalypse. [No. 100, p.59]

Another fine Vanderslice record with all he things we've come to expect. [No. 100, p.61]

Not as intentionally abrasive as its predecessor, 2013's Testimonium Songs, even if the new record also opts for clangor and heard edges over tuneful song structures. Still, if He's Got is noisy, it's not unmelodic. [No. 159, p.58]

The anthemic, fist-pumping nature of the originals has been reimagined in a brooding acoustic darkness more reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen's then-previous work, Nebraska. [No. 113, p.81]

LP2 is certainly worthy of standing next to a genre classic. [No. 137, p.53]

Though it reveals apparent influences ranging from Eyeless in Gaza to Simple Minds, the Baltimore trio's third album finds the band updating rather than simply recreating. [#82, p. 55]

It's hard to listen, and that makes Dear Mark the kind of pointedly painful pop that forces me [to] rush out, buy 11 albums that came before it and never get around to opening the packages. [No. 100, p.56]

It's world-class vibe-out music, equally well-suited to deep headphones listeners and SkyMall soundtracks alike. [No. 125, p.61]

With Ultraviolet, Kylesa has retreated to a place of darkness and alienation. [No.99, p.57]

The trio still churns as mixing hot butter with bourbon and gargling gasoline [No.91 p.59]

Putrifiers II finds a compelling bridge between the two poles [the breezy, lo-fi records Dwyer makes on his own and the heavier, more propulsive ones he makes with the full band] - ironically by being a remarkably wide-ranging effort. [No.91 p.59]

Aside from getting off on the wrong foot and then later making an awkward exit, the bulk of Illusion is a bristling. [No. 97, p.57]

In other spots, there’s a creeping air of spookiness tempered by an almost cartoonish playfulness that sounds like either a masked killer or a wily coyote is sneaking up behind you. Praise be to those albums that can aurally evoke emotion and vivid imagery. [No. 130, p.59]

His voice sometimes veers into brief, impressionistic Lou Reed talking or Mary Gautier twang, but mostly it's seductive. [No.85, p.61]

Some of the Milk Carton Kids' best work to date. [No. 97, p.56]

This is Fol Chen's sharpest full-length yet, gaining cohesion from the often mechanically warped vocal presence of new frontwoman Sinosa Loa. [No. 97, p.55]

Worth a listen, for Ween fans and armchair guitar heroes alike. [No. 137, p.61]

The songs [on The Bloom and the Blight] have a folk/blues foundation, but they're delivered with a grungy punk energy. [No.91 p.60]

Mala is his finest attempt at not killing momentum by diving down a rabbit hole. [No. 97, p.52]

Abandon is a baseline, with Chardiet demonstrating a solid understanding of the fundamentals. [No.99, p.59]

Even My Woman's back half, which features Olsen's two longest, most challenging songs to date in "Sister" and "Woman"--though neither come anywhere near "White Fire" levels of morose--succeeds largely due to Olsen's remarkable ability to make her loneliness sound like so much more than just that. [No. 135, p.61]

A notably more polished and considered affair than his erstwhile Sentridoh offerings, though it captures a comparable sense of intimacy and immediacy. [No. 125, p.54]

Segall's hooks work well in this loud, loose-limbed environment. [No. 103, p.55]

What's striking is how her voice, which once epitomized the prototypical fair young maiden, remains just as compellingly austere. [No. 138, p.55]

Dreamless might not be as thunderous as Endless Summer or as hooky as Crimes Of Passion, but it vastly improves on the scattershot Boys. [No. 138, p.55]

Weight is the inexorable comedown: a graceful and timely maturation that might just take a little editing to come through clearly. [No. 138, p.56]

As with his solo output, Jose Gonzalez has a clear vision for his music's direction, and he sticks to it with admirably rigorous discipline here, making the majority of Junip more steady than indistinct. [No. 97, p.57]

At the core are lyrics abstract enough to keep you coming back and digging for meaning until the next moles record, however many decades off that might be. [No. 135, p.56]

Superheroes, Ghostvillains & Stuff also shows how the Notwist masterfully blends organic and inorganic textures outside the studio, but it's also a reminder of how adventurous this band can be. [No. 138, p.59]

It's a pleasure to hear him unpacking his toy, stretching out and exploring this new set of voices. [No. 117, p.61]

It's a powerhouse collection. [No. 93, p.53]

Dramatic tension exists throughout, but in ways Explosions fans aren't used to hearing from the band. [No. 102, p.54]

The Horrors seem to have found themselves yet another niche writing the sorts of delectable psychedelic pop jams that are destined to see them crowd festival stages for decades to come. [No. 109, p.57]

While the abundance of previously unreleased rarities make this must-have fare for any self-respecting Pumpkins fan, Aeroplane does little but highlight how far past his prime Corgan is. [No. 102, p.60]

Espinoza and Murray return from a four-year hiatus in fine form. [No. 93, p.54]

If a smokestack tenor spewing a cloud of menagerie is your kind of daydream, the faulty superhero came through once again. [No. 132, p.51]

It's awesome we can hear Merchant's truly lovely vocals and deft songwriting once again. I just wish there were more banjos. [No. 109, p.57]

Playing to previous strengths, the band's third LP shuffles the decks, throwing six-string spiderwebs into spacey, bass-textured atmospheres. [No. 98, p.55]

The result is Animal Collective at its tightest, most coherent and poppiest, even as the band draws on '60s psych/pop, rudimentary techno and three-chord punk to build on its ever-evolving sound. [No. 128, p.53]

It's like 90215-era Yes meeting up with Air and fellow auto enthusiasts Trans Am for a jammola in the trunk of, yes, an indestructible talking car. [No. 93, p.57]

There's a load of fuzzy power chords ruling these tunes, but they're smoothed out and nudged into the background, allowing a very capable Cosentino to take her rightful place at the front of the mix. [No. 104, p.52]

It's Canning's guitar work that makes Chill hum, and the embellishments are enough to separate it from the growing crop of Fahey followers. [No. 104, p.53]

[The songs] are luminous and affecting enough to outlast much of the bullshit shock therapy that silences that same fickle chattering class. [No. 132, p.59]

Their liveliest, most varied offering since their debut. [No. 128, p.57]

There's plenty of upbeat rockers, but a bulk of the record is made up of ballads and slower jams. [No. 102, p.57]

Bettye LaVette is able to tap into the deep, sanctified stream of black-church music to come up with performances that shine with hope, even as she deals with life's more difficult situations. [No.92, p.55]

Black Moon Spell is King Tuff's glammiest work yet, echoing the swagger of the New York Dolls and the sexy, stoned vocal styling of Marc Bolan. But it still rocks. [No. 114, p.57]

Double Exposure is exceedingly well-crafted. [No. 104, p.60]

Comedown Machine may not quite hit the heights of the band's masterpiece-to-date, but it continues the band's healthy trend of finding curious new ways to twist and complicate its by-now instinctively recognizable sound. [No. 98, p.60]

Rarely do you stumble into a world so richly realized and so warmly, curiously inviting. [No. 104, p.58]

The pottery kiln warmth of the rhythm section lays a solid foundation for Lobsinger's sensual voice. [No. 128, p.59]

This is a singer's album, one that luxuriates in the pure, lovely tones of Nadler's warmly intimate, darkly insistent voice. [No.87 p.57]

Her soprano voice has held up pretty well, and her love for the natural and spirit world has only grown. But the production on I'm A Harmony by Wilco's Pat Sansone and composter Julia Holter combines '70s soft rock and '80s adult contemporary into a mix so vaporous it'll evaporate if you open the window. [No. 148, p.59]

It's hardly revolutionary, but Episodic is an immediate, righteously enjoyable half-hour. [No. 134, p.57]

Alternatively gentle and jangly, The House At Sea is a delight. [No. 95, p.52]

High concepts don't always result in high art, but Commonwealth comes close enough. [No. 113, p.61]

Thankfully Santigold has focused on quality, not quantity, as her third LP makes evident from the very start. [No. 128, p.61]

Honeyblood has plenty of possibilities, and a ton of potential. But it's also pretty darn potent already. [No. 111, p.55]

The result is a finely crafted collection of music that speaks volumes beyond its instrumental presentation. [No. 95, p.53]

This is a valiant and enjoyable varied attempt, by a seriously stacked cast of contributors. [No. 113, p.61]

Anyone who appreciated that combo's [OOIOO] giddy exuberance and arcane tunefulness will find plenty to like on this record's seven intricately arranged tracks. [No. 148, p.60]

It's a canny hybrid. [No. 95, p.53]

It's another creative leap for an artist who explores difficult human emotions with a bravery and intensity few singers ever approach. [No. 93, p.60]

This is particularly adept record-collector rock for the rest of us. [No. 95, p.54]

Things start strong, with some of Barnes' tightest tunes in ages. [No. 134, p.58]

[A] more muted follow-up [to 2014's The Way I'm Livin']. [No. 148, p.61]

This is a fresh, auspicious strike into new territory. [No. 114, p.61]

When's it on, which is most of the time, it's deep and beyond category. [No. 143, p.57]

It's a fascinating document, well worth a look from fans of any of the above [Offa Rex, Trembling Bells and Eliza's Carthy's Wayward Band]. [No. 145, p.61]

Its busy arrangements, brimming with the atomic energy of colliding guitars, synths, bass lines and drums, largely belong to no version of the band we know, instead a succession of growth markings scrawled in graphite. [No. 134, p.61]

A tasteful restraint envelops the album, continuing the musical maturation of both its performer and producer. [No. 111, p.61]

The album has more in common with the genre-bending and expectation-shattering records of Shelby Lynne and Sturgill Simpson. [No. 143, p.52]

Taylor is meditative in both sound and thought, using slow, simple arrangements in the service of a tender melancholy that grows more palpable as Await Barbarians floats along. [No. 111, p.61]

This third LP corrals sophomore sprawler Lenses Alien without killing its spirit. [No. 113, p.53]

The trio's execution is impressive, but the music is so tightly wound that it engenders a yearning for escape. [No. 128, p.61]

A suite-like meditation that is emotionally expressive and impressively nuanced.[No. 86, p.55]

The expansive instruments on this double LP lure you into a more relaxed aquatic experience. [No. 113, p.53]

Drums dance around the downbeat while acoustic guitars push the piece forward, proving these two can do subtlety, too. [No. 123, p.57]

What is by some distance the weirdest, wildest White we've yet encountered on record. [No. 150, p.60]

If it all sounds a bit vintage, at age 61, he's earned the right. [No. 126, p.61]

Come to it for the moody abstractions and impressionistic scene-setting. [No.112, p.60]

[Filled with] fine, subtle moments. [No. 85, p.54]

Occupied With the Unspoken plays as a chopped and staggered descendant of Fripp & Eno's Evening star, whose beauty is buried beneath a thicket of alien noises and reverb. [#89, p.54]

He's all over the phrasing but never sloppily and always expeessively. [No. 141, p.52]

Margot seems abundant in earnestness, pulling together hooky, shoegaze rifts ("Disease Tobacco Free") with dulcet guitar tunes ("Frank"), Tim Kasher lyricism ("The Devil" and a lonely piano ballad ("Christ"). [No. 86, p.56]

She dives into world music on this album, with interesting results. [No. 123, p.61]

Watt's voice may not be quite as preternaturally stunning as that of his partner, Tracey Thorn, but it's eloquent and expressive, and fits beautifully with these 10 unflinching, autumnal ruminations, character sketches, pastoral travelogues and reflections on loss. [No. 109, p.61]

They play rustic country/rock that constantly struggles to keep upright as it stands on the poly-genre curveballs that the musicians toss Schneider's way. [No. 134, p.59]

I Hate Music weds the North Carolina indie legends' eternal penchant for grind-it-out power punk with the pensiveness and introspection that colored their late-'90s/early-aughts output. [No. 101, p.56]

Eight is the sound of a band in flux, and that churn makes for some of Radar Brothers' most intriguing, compelling work yet. [No. 95, p.57]

Worship makes solid use of driving pop and new-wave inspirations straight out of the sort of black-lit club that doesn't open until 2 a.m. and practically serves absinthe on tap. [No.89, p.58]

There's aren't a whole lot of songs here that really stand out on their own.... But the members of Tam Impala possess such boundless energy and obvious, puppy-like enthusiasm that it would be downright churlish to dismiss them. [No. 92, p.81]

Occasionally, Tremain struggles to find a home amid the Collis' calm chaos, though his restrained and sustained bass lines are a non-cluttering foil demonstrating the importance of song dynamics, which isn't always a priority with math rockers. [No. 134, p.61]

Better than ever. [No.92 p.55]