Some take a little while to hit their sweet spot, like the middling That’s Life, Tho (Almost Hate To Say). But when Vile hits those hazy, beautiful peaks, he reminds us that the untamed wilderness of modern Americana is still his backyard.

Wilco's ace eighth album, the first released on their own label, dBpm, is a real kick in the pants.

Starter Home is country music for intellectuals, but he still hits those classic country tropes: longing in Waiting and alcohol as a cure for regret in Drinking With A Friend. His voice is velvety and smooth with texture, vital for a mature sound.

The result is akin to bottling one of their energetic live shows, and it makes for a thrilling, if not altogether bump-free ride.

Free of misguided anger but with healthy amounts of trademark anxiety and angular riffs, Grace’s expression is powerful.

By tightening things up, another sprightly highlight emerges from this pleasant haze.

There's an underlying complexity here, but ultimately these are bare, potent rhythms created to, in global parlance, make you "werq."

Nine Types Of Light is mostly mellow, slow jams and funky, upbeat love songs.

Their riff-heavy songs are brashly delivered – favouring attitude over technique – but it's Turner's keenly observed vignettes of bored text-messaging teens that really connect.

As with his last couple of releases in the American series, his voice no longer commands attention with booming authority, but there's something about that gasping frailty that makes this proud final bow even more endearing.

It's heavy at times, but always thoughtful and interesting.

The most poignant moments involve simple memories.

Touch doesn't live up to the wild standards of the local group's ballistic live shows, but its focus on connection elevates it to more than just riff-blasting fun (although that's in good supply, too).

Not every song sees atmosphere, theme and emotional power meld seamlessly--a collab with composer Sarah Hopkins called Features Creatures feels like a b-side--but when those elements coalesce the result is all-encompassing.

The songs are still simple, but they're delivered with a sophistication only hinted at on her debut.

The overwhelming headiness, relentless heaviness, behemoth riffing, technical proficiency and epic scope of Crack (at least three listens are needed before it all sinks in) should be enough to prove that these guys are the Rush of extreme metal.

Whatever is driving her interest in self-identity is obscured by overwrought conceptualism and confused by a push to sound more slickly commercial.

Recorded in her cabin in the woods of New Hampshire, the album has a strong connection to nature and draws on themes of survival, healing and spirituality. ... Not all tracks sound like club hits, however. Deep Connections has a soft, ethereal quality created by synthy arpeggios and My Body Is Powerful samples soothing nature sounds – birdcall and distant howls – over a pentatonic scale.

On first listen, the album as a whole seems repetitious--there aren't any 12-minute odysseys like on breakout album Person Pitch--but its diversity reveals itself with multiple listens.

You can't deny how interesting some of these dynamic post-rock explorations are.

Song for song, however, this is the best QOTSA album in a decade, delivering all the swagger and skew of their greatest work without rehashing it.

Songs, though distinct, spill into each other, with heady euphoria tying it all together.

He remains a confident and commanding rapper, full of agile double-time flows and verses that skip from biographical vignettes and life lessons to boasting. But, given he rarely has more than one verse per song, Diaspora gives us a fragmented window into his thoughts.

Pallett’s inventive textures lend emotional weight to some of the deliberately mundane lyrical details, so the album is at once beautifully ethereal and painfully real.

The hallmarks of Blood Orange’s sound are all here--breathy male/female vocal interplay, rare groove rhythms, jazzy sax, gliding slap bass, honeyed falsetto melodies and flirty spoken word--but channelled into a reassuring, comfortable space that brings together pop’s supposed polarities of accessibility and specificity. Somewhere in there, Freetown Sound finds its own beautiful sweet spot.

Beneath catchy pop hooks, there’s deep-rooted pain in these love songs.

You’d think this might get messy, but the arrangements are so thoughtful that the result is sweeping and astonishing.

The musical motifs get a bit redundant, but its stylish minimalism brims with drama.