Goldsworthy’s highly layered mix of sounds maintains a pleasant balance between harder edges and winsome feel-good vibes.

The whole album is rich with memorable hooks, as opposed to just the singles.

The songwriting is outstanding: striking and smart, concise and full, and James Bagshaw sings superbly throughout.

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.

Papini’s vocals seem scaled back, too--there’s less energetic chattiness and more silent resignation.

Drowners prove themselves competent in making a tight indie rock album full of enjoyable melodies, but their strict adherence to formula and professionalism is undermining and can be dull.

It’s a masterpiece of uneasy listening but would be a lot more digestible had it been trimmed to a manageable length.

Bibio isn’t reinventing the wheel here (or rather, the acoustic guitar), but when you’ve already hit the sweet spot, you don’t have to.

The production (thanks to Jim Diamond) also sounds more radio-ready, but the increased crispness makes the looseness of Maya Miller’s drums far more distracting than it used to be, and everything is far too cold.

Lyrics, when employed, are simple and to the point, thoughtful but sparse enough to let the classical musicianship shine.

Working again with pop Svengali Richard Gottehrer and the Raveonettes’ Sune Rose Wagner, DDG find a nice middle ground between their signature detachment and a classic pop sensibility.

More than a decade out from the band’s shift into electronic music and their reinvention as what at times seems to be a soundtrack band, it’s hard to tell if Mogwai have aged well or just sort of boringly mellowed.

Like any growth spurt, Age contains the obligatory awkward phases, like the reggae-inflected Afterparty. But the Hidden Cameras have always taken risks, and this time the payoffs are much bigger.

All 10 are thoughtful and gentle, presented with little embellishment and zero pretense.

More than just another post-whatever crescendo generator, SMZ remain committed to nuance and subtlety while no less committed to getting louder.

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

The album mines go-to country clichés like driving and women (“Put your sugar down on my front seat, cuz you truly know what’s good for me,” Wilson implores in the opening track, North), but for the most part the songwriting is diverse and mature.

At times, this sense of vulnerability in the music can grow stagnant and forgettable, but it’s usually pleasurable in the moment.

Sure, stripped-down, acoustic versions of the songs could’ve worked, but with help from producer Richard Swift, they’re fleshed out into psychedelic dreams dappled with field recordings, Latin guitar and Jurado’s serene vocals, raising existential questions that don’t quite get answered.

It’s weighty, sure, but give yourself over to this album, see it through, and you’ll be rewarded generously.

His subpar wordplay is easily out-rapped and out-sung by guests like Future and 2 Chainz.

Haze is positioning herself as a top 40 infiltrator, which is fine, but she’s also diluted her uniqueness.

There’s not much new here, but Springsteen has always traded on a maudlin permanent nostalgia that only works because it’s so fucking earnest that it blasts through our attempts to be cynical about it.

The album is missing an emotional, drawn-out, heartbreaking ballad, but inspirational anthems like Retreat! find her sassing as loud and proud as ever.

While they’re great at the dreamy soundscapes, Toy are not as strong with fractured pop songs, and the vocals could still use some work.

The 30 songs follow the scene’s progression: the first half is classically minded R&B and soul that evolves on disc 2 into danceable funk, with Alexander O’Neal’s new wavey Do You Dare and Ronny Robbins’s electro-rap track Contagious.

It was always hard to predict which direction he might take next, but on his new album, Hardcourage, he’s surprised us by finally bringing all those disparate tangents together into a cohesive sound.

Williams is at his best when he’s being weird, so cheeky title track Swings Both Ways, which finds him examining his fluid sexuality with Rufus Wainwright, is good. But any fresh moments are balanced by too many unlistenable ones.