It’s an album full of aggressive piano, golden rock and roll and warbled, disturbed lyrics.

Loud Planes Fly Low has heart and soul to it, both very familiar with wells of confusion and despair; unfortunately, it's not the first heart and soul to chart these depths.

Sometimes, the results are heavily wrought and obviously worked over (the muddled instrumentation in the chorus of Breakers comes to mind), and some of the skittering grooves (the spastic tribal pounding of Wooly Mammoth) don't quite fit in the album's overarching arc. Nevertheless, the stately elegance of Hummingbird emphasizes how Local Natives are fit for the role of indie rock saviors.

Even if the songs sometimes lack some nuance, as is the many thematic layers the band puts on display, Standell-Preston manages to keep the album afloat when she's at her most open-hearted and assertive.

Musically, it's by far their most rounded and satisfying album to date.

Infra is a pensive and deeply involving achievement, which rewards long after the credits have finished rolling.

This is a record to really fall in love with.

Suckers make this stylistic smorgasbord indisputably their own.

There are some missteps on this album, but the last line on the record, which comes at the end of the seven-minute closer, is a perfect sign-off: “This shouldn’t hurt, but you might feel a slight discomfort”--an ominous warning and a promise of a new awakening.

This album is a grower.

The band stays true to their rhythmic minimalism and bouts of art-infused modernity and Red Barked Tree has a consistency that its predecessor lacked to some extent, though 47 seemed more prone to experimentation and risk.

With The Bride Screamed Murder, The Melvins attempt a refined edge from a songwriting perspective, songs like Pig House boasting some mathematic constructs and the organ bending Iâ??ll Finish You Off acting as some weird Flaming Lips take on grungy psychedelia.

Migration is a sparkling, crisp display of Green’s ability to completely immerse a listener, and it’s strong as it’s ever been.

That's Real Estate. The composition is flawless, but the feel is mellow and meandering, subdued and slight.

The songs are flat and unoriginal rock.

If GY!BE is the Tolstoy of the Constellation label, DMST has to be its Chekhov.

An original and fascinating record from three enviably talented musicians, who probably will not spend much longer being so inexplicably overlooked.

Always professional, but rarely memorable, What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World, much like its fudge of a title, ultimately balances out as a fairly middling work.

It’s a good comeback for De La Soul, and there’s plenty to really enjoy here, but there are too many occasions where tracks loiter for too long, not outstaying their welcome as such, just not doing a great deal with it.

FRIGS half-convincingly communicate their agitation over piercing shards of noise. The band are at their best when the rhythm section takes charge.

MGMT always excel when they don't try too hard, and on Little Dark Age, they admirably leverage irony with lighthearted merriment.

She’s made an album for embracing yourself, your past and whatever lies ahead, and having fun while doing so. Her music doesn’t sound like the future. Even better, it sounds like the present.

Three tracks and two genre-shifts in, it’s a wonder how well the pieces fit together. Vu’s voice is a connecting thread, a honeyed contralto as distorted and disconnected as her affect, doubled onto itself and pulsing with uncertainty.

Easter Lily, released on Good Friday, offers the visceral, emotional experience that U2 fans have been yearning for the longest time.

By utilizing a synth-based soundtrack just as organic, emotional, and unadulterated as Welsh’s voice and lyrics, Impersonator successfully matches man with machine and gives each an equally powerful, equally human voice.

Bromst is an excellent followup to a slightly more-excellent debut, and proof that Deacon isn't going anywhere.

Kehlani replaces any hint of controlled pop presence with a lowkey, gloomy vibe that doesn’t suit her strengths at all. Her raspy voice is now placed upon liquid synth bass and irritating trap production, leaving her songwriting to be the record’s only strength.

In a way, we’re witnessing the rest of the evolution that began on "Son," as Molina experimented with the ways the human voice could be manipulated electronically, as an instrument.