IV is impeccably produced, one that tailors even the finest details with a delicate brush; even when it disappoints it’s still a joy to listen to since every instrument is mixed to perfection.

Cut for cut, this is a triumph of melody and intelligence, with hooks that aren't cute and noise that doesn't dampen introspection, cosmic and prosaic at the same time. Parquet Courts have conquered rock 'n' roll's biggest hurdle: to move forward while staying true to themselves

There are additions to her guitar-pop foundation here, but they’re mostly limited to the occasional keyboard line or an anomaly like the dreamy synth outro of Outside with the Cuties. Met on its own terms, however, it’s a record that plays entirely to Kline’s strengths and confirms her as a worthy successor to the legacy of indie modesty.

The boys are in peak form in (Girl We Got A) Good Thing, a sauntering piano-led number that has this bubbling, dumb-is-more-fun David Lee Roth attitude about it that could possibly cause one to shed a single, happy tear in its rousing finish. The colorfully romantic Wind in Our Sail is also typically gleeful, detailing a cute meet alongside one of the band’s most memorable choruses since Pork and Beans.

Admittedly, iii flirts dangerously with its commercial sound, to the displeasure of fans used to Miike Snow’s earlier work. But there is no denying the creepy genius of Genghis Khan, the frenzied fun of For U (a collaboration with Charli XCX, no less), or the unapologetic bounce of The Heart of Me.

He’s on a full-on conversationalist binge on Sky, though it’ll demand your extra attention since the album’s turbulent production tends to obscure most of his learned reflections. In spite of this, it wouldn’t be a true Mould record if it didn’t hit you with that pummeling, noisy sheen.

The rest of the record, for all its flash, leaves us in some bland middle ground- lacking the impact and craft of great pop music, but too fleeting in its appeal to work as anything else.

That lack of restraint, of wanting to offer moments of merriment through straightforward movements, is not as revealing as it is expected, though Compassion is at its most gripping when it decides to go against the grain.

This collection of moods and moments is one of the year's most engaging listens.

Frontman Max Bloom’s voice isn’t even that dissimilar from that of the man he replaced in 2013, but he’s lacking something that Blumberg clearly had in his arsenal to sharpen his band’s sound.

Victorious is premium Wolfmother in places, and pretty much abominable in others.

The Catastrophist is an odd record--an album that was probably more interesting to perform than to listen to.

Operator is a very good debut, impressively original without becoming too inaccessible, and the debut single that dropped three years ago sounds as fresh and as authentic as it ever did.

Songs distort from their structures, allowing for a gelatinous cortege that serves to distinguish the album with flair and maintain a fetching edginess throughout.

Trust ends with Chapman pleading his object of affection to have some faith in him, though it could also be a message to his listeners: setting aside his lackadaisical manner, Chapman really does want you to care about what he thinks.

Ultimate Care II doesn’t inspire one to peer closer into the musicality of everyday life; instead, you’ll constantly look at the time, wishing it’d sped up so you can move on with anything else.

The potential is there for this to be very good, but the fact that it’s so comprehensively safeguarded limits it hugely.

As more challenging and artful pieces like The Morning is Waiting prove, the Brewises’ love for intricate harmonies will always go hand in hand with slick pop hooks.

In their dramatic interplay they find their lust for perversion and compulsion, as if exploring the infinite degrees of their relationship with the same piquant allure of Gainsbourg and Birkin (albeit less warm and more interpersonally brittle).

Hiperasia is an incoherent mess, sure, but a fun one, too, splattering all kinds of disparate, colorful sounds in the hopes that some of it will stick.

While a lack of editing and consistency may keep neo from being better than promising, the energized rush of holding the void and hyper-melodic the sickness deliver two of the album’s best moments, the latter being the most successful synthesis of So Pitted’s want of strange and aggro.

The talent, confident and imagination on display throughout this album makes it a must-listen, a chance to let your mind wander and to lose yourself in an incredible plangency of strings.

It’s not quite inspiration, or an emotional center. You leave this record thinking about how complex and refined it is, or maybe about how much Jack Tatum has grown as a songwriter. But at the end of the day, the album doesn’t embed itself into your daily life in the way Nocturne or Gemini did.

There’s reason to believe that the kind of soppy, mellow pop they write just doesn’t have a place in our current times, that it reeks of starry-eyed nostalgia. But as every generation has a Seth and Summer romance for younger audiences to scrutinize and fawn over with episodic foresight, there will always be a platform for heart-on-sleeve songs to track the high and lows of a teen soap opera.

Music for Listening to Music to isn’t just a background pleasantry; instead, it may very well be the one that could move Goodman into the foreground of her career.

While every song here makes note of the relationship at the center of School of Seven Bells, this is not a downbeat album. Instead, it's a record that showcases everything the band is about.

Remove the four or so songs that never seem to do more than bubble happily in an unambitious realm of chanted hooks and rehearsed quirkiness, and the result is an album fit for anyone with the slightest predisposition for fun.

All in all, Painting With feels just far too interpolated, and even familiar, to truly grasp, though through its failures it manages to somehow bring them one step closer to achieving those awe-inspiring moments of yore.