The lo-fi/hi-fi production values keep slickness at bay, resulting in something as warm, intimate and super-casual as an East Coast kitchen party.

Depression and personal battles still make up the lyrical content. But there are also spacious, cosmic moments, swaths of texture (Tim Bruton adds keyboard lines and Matt Rogalsky synth bass) and gentler fingerpicked and/or softly sung moments.

While the sheer density of Bejar's writing can be overwhelming, Destroyer's Rubies is, on a musical level, the most 'accessible' disc he's released in years.

The really exciting news is that [Sexsmith] actually takes some vocal risks – and sounds like he's having fun doing it.

Product is Sophie's debut LP, collecting four previously released singles plus four new ones in a concise introduction to a producer who has quickly crafted a style and perspective all his own.

Some might lament the increased accessibility and decreased experimentation, but it doesn't take long to realize that these tracks do as much in four minutes as the 18-minute epics in Black Mountain's past.

After a while the tripped-out builds can feel formulaic, but the mind-altering textures and melodic flourishes are so gorgeously realized that Luminous’s feel-good charms become hard to resist.

The alien textures of St. Vincent's guitar heroics and the crunchy electronic rhythms lurching behind the trombones and sax stabs keep things just on the right side of gleefully weird.

In terms of brightness and accessibility, the album feels like an extension of their breakout record, 2008's Microcastle. Yet it's clear the band has matured in the intervening years--and they're better for it.

Not every track is a winner, but fans of their brash debut will still find a lot to enjoy here.

What's really impressive, though, is how all the nods to glam rock, shoegazer, new wave and 80s indie rock blend together to produce a sound that's maddeningly familiar but completely unique.

A Crow Looked At Me is an unsettling, awkward listen and it might (probably will) make you cry. It’s also a tribute to an amazing 13-year love story (the penultimate song Soria Moria encompasses Elverum’s childhood longing, how he met Castrée and their instant connection) and may turn out to be one of the strongest albums of the year.

Robyn takes a range of styles from dancehall and rap to house and disco and melds them with her big pop sound featuring four-to-the-floor beats and thoughtful, unsentimental lyrics about love and loneliness.

These are slow, sad ballads brilliantly executed.

Listening is like slowly sinking into a warm bath, then gradually adding rose petals, bubbles, arsenic. But Majical Cloudz never let you drown.

While their performance is expansive and parts are definitely stretched out and rocked out, like on I Will Sing You Songs and Mahgeetah, this is just solid performing, not lame jam band shit.

On the first three tracks, she tackles enduring pop-music themes like love, loneliness and friendship with the kind of unsentimental yet empathetic songwriting fans of the Pet Shop Boys might admire. Midway, her worldly confidence morphs into outright cockiness and the beats grow aggressive.

There’s an eerie blandness to the mood that is initially off-putting but turns into a surprisingly compelling, subtly evocative combination of sadness and contentedness.

If you let go of your preconceptions, what you’ll hear is a strong soul album by a mature singer who’s successfully channelling a lot of real pain in her music.

Oddly, the unconventional sequencing and measured pace of the album make the fragmented mess hold together quite well.

Do too many cooks spoil this classic rock 'n' roll concoction? Hell, no.

TID is a solid collection of his trademark epic ballads ready to be your summer patio soundtrack.

There's an enigmatic quality to his rapid-fire narratives, which bounce between composed and freestyle. And yet Bleeds is also clearly one of his most dynamic, intimate and humble artistic efforts, revealing more with every listen.

Despite all of its references, Reservation is original, cohesive, absorbing and Haze's most polished release to date.

So the cookie-cutter joints are tossed out the window for The Renaissance as Q-Tip attempts to show that he can creatively flow over whatever unusual progression or production twist comes along with each successive track.

Jungle’s core members, childhood best friends Josh and Tom, make well-balanced dance tunes--lush, but with plenty of breathing space between slow builds and feverish climaxes.

Her control has never been better and Jimmy Hogarth’s production provides the perfect foundation for her deeply delicate expressions.

With cleaner, more refined production quality to boot, Growth is an interesting and fully realized progression.