There are great production touches all over Beams, but unfortunately the songwriting is just okay, and the arrangements often bury the best sonic details.

She sounds like she’s rediscovering the thrill of making music, and a nervy triumph pervades.

Nothing terribly new or unexpected to report, just a more direct way of expressing not so adventurous ideas.

The result is a uniformly pleasant selection of peaceful, easy feelings that wouldn't sound out of place sandwiched between the similarly smooth tunes of Loggins & Messina, America, Gerry Rafferty and, yes, Christopher Cross.

In producer Tucker Martine’s hands (he’s worked with Neko Case, Punch Brothers, the Decemberists and Laura Veirs), O’Donovan’s music sounds light and atmospheric, her folk freed up by billowing electric guitars and sensitive percussion.

While the record is a solid listen front to back, standout moments include 'Princes,' which features Ghana-London rapper Tinchy Stryder, and the breathless vocals on the ghostly 'House Jam.' Watch for this album to pop up all over year-end best-of lists next month.

The album plods occasionally, but then the band’s mastery of mood shifts kicks in and a dreamy landscape and simple, jangly verse turn into a big, beautiful chorus.

The album’s last bit kind of peters out, but what comes before it is amusing and fun.

It feels like she’s made no effort to censor herself musically or lyrically, and that naked honesty makes this disc stand out strikingly.

Much of their bubbly futuristic synth music goes no deeper than what you’d hear in old TV Ontario science shows. Cute but disposable.

Wrecking Ball could've been great but was derailed by unnecessary gimmicks.

The album is both challenging and rewarding. On songs like Fresh Laundry, Allie X’s vocals are often treated with high-gloss effects that steal the personality from her voice. It’s not until final track Learning In Public that you hear her unvarnished, which by then sounds jarring. It often feels like she’s doing too much with too much.

All the emphasis on getting the realness down doesn't distract from Bridges's butter-smooth vocals and inventive phrasing. Instead, the understated arrangements allow us to really hear his voice, unadorned by excessive studio shaping.

On the whole, the band’s country-leaning indie rock pulses along for 49 minutes at a decent clip.

The album's middle is slow, contemplative and ambient, allowing Marshall's deep-seated melancholy to reveal itself.

The moody minimalism is still present, but under the rich vocal treatment the band sounds more subordinate and self-effacing, at times to a fault.

Maths + English is not without its gems.

Yet another must-have for Animal Collective fans.

An intriguing tension exists between the lo-fi production touches and pristine hi-fi sounds, and similarly between Cook's joking/not-joking attitude.

The songs are about working through the pain of love, but what comes across on record is joyous.

Recorded last summer in Los Angeles, their debut 10-track album effortlessly showcases both Oberst’s and Bridgers’s strengths as songwriters who are unafraid of literate vulnerability as they explore subjects like loneliness, privilege and estranged family.

Post Tropical’s lush horn arrangements, rare but welcome returns to guitar fiddling and overall sense of restraint keep it warm, woozy and with one toe still in the folk realm.

The band wisely retains the elements that worked the first time: intricate, jittery guitars, driving bass and creative rhythms, best displayed on the title track and Black Gold.

Some might prefer she stick with her usual skewering of gender roles, but that genuine anger lends a new seriousness and realness to even her silliest verses.

Sincerely, Future Pollution still sounds distinctly like Timber Timbre, and stands up easily against their other albums.

Iz and Bobby Avila (aka the Avila Brothers) produced and co-wrote the bulk of the tracks, and those are the most successful. It would have been smarter, though, to use them for the whole album, as the smattering of generic blues jams and guest showcases seem tacked on and out of place.

An anxious mood comes through clearly but doesn’t quite go anywhere, kind of like a protagonist who seems the same at the end of a book as at the beginning.

This is music to lose yourself in.