Distracted works so well because it resembles a pop blowout at first, only to pull the shag rug out from under our feet.

Sunn O))) is a behemoth, a leviathan, a statement of purpose worthy of the late-career self-titling gamble. Despite that, maybe because of it, I can’t imagine wanting to listen to it more than once every few years.

That this isn’t a more ornate, Watch the Throne-type album is a bit deflating; the two collab tracks between the duo–“Leadbelly” and “Kirkland”–display how much of their synergy is left untapped across the 31 other tracks. It took some living with this record for it not to feel like a homogeneous, just-decent meld of MIKE and Earl throwing shots up in an empty gym.

All but one of the mesmerizing puzzles on Vol. II strut across the six-minute mark, and the songs never lose steam because they contain so many variations and plot twists.

While the record delivers on joyful bass drops and club life vignettes, it occasionally leaves you longing for just a bit more unchoreographed chaos.

It’s classic Hornsby: both squirrely and crowd-pleasing, weirder than you’d expect but as traditionally, autobiographically confessional as he’s ever allowed himself.

When it works, it’s revelatory in the way peaking in a big rolling crowd at the club can be, or in the way of a little hand on your shoulder. .... Idehen is onto something here. And listen, maybe you’ve heard it before. But maybe we all need to hear it again.

The back half of the album drags a bit, with the organ lines of “Heatwaves” and the martial figurations in “Solid Light” never quite catching spark. .... Still, the band deserves credit for being confident enough to release all this material as a single gesture, rather than back-ending the leftovers into a “deluxe edition” a few months later. Ladytron arrived full-formed all those years ago, but they keep flowering into strange, vibrant forms.

The frequent spoken-word interludes would feel less performative at a live show, but often take you out of the moment on the record. It seems RAYE is unwilling to leave anything on the cutting room floor, even if dialing back the razzle-dazzle could forge closer connection to the music. But the peaks often justify the adventure.

WOR$T GIRL is most successful as an argument for Slayyyter’s abrasive style, but the record also contains some of her most painfully and finely rendered human emotion to date.

Auder’s music pulls in multiple directions at once, until the most emotionally authentic presentation wins out.

Across 10 country-tinged tracks, Cornfield also broadens her view as a storyteller, but proves that her boot heels are still dug into terra firma.

What’s remarkable about It’s the Long Goodbye is that even in these moments of consuming anguish, the album doesn’t feel oppressive. The musicians’ interplay and MacFarlane’s exquisitely sculpted production balance Graham’s grief with consolation.

If Ö sometimes sounds bored with itself anyway, it’s probably because Fcukers’ instincts are ultimately a variation on the nostalgia-baiting Y2K and bloghouse revivalism that surrounds them. It’s a simulacra of a simpler, grungier, more innocent time before high-speed internet, now wearing a tracksuit. Still: The fun is dumb and the night is young.

To make the personal sound universal is no small feat, but there’s a fine line between universality and sounding like your songs could be anybody’s.

It’s a mature and compositionally sophisticated collection of songs whose only real unifying thread is that Flea is very excited to be playing all of them.

On I Guess U Had to Be There, Elucid and Bash dial back the experimentation in favor of a more controlled approach. But even in this restrained mode, they still get busy.

The sprawling, bittersweet atmosphere—shaped by those repetitive guitars and a perpetual search for meaning—at times recalls Barnett’s collaboration with Kurt Vile.

If there’s anything bad to say about Sexistential, it’s that it’s too damn short.

BIG MAMA is as passable as it is forgettable, a workout that somehow seems to burn no calories.

Undying Love is Neurosis’ best album in two decades and maybe even a quarter-century.

The lust, greed, excess, and anxiety that they grappled with on PAPOTA are still there, but this time, the atmosphere doesn’t feel as friendly or accessible. Splayed out across Bulgarian folk music, trance beats, bruxaria atmospheres, samba, and even bits of nueva ola, Free Spirits feels dialed all the way up.

While BTS’s rapping usually incorporates a dated style of aggression and braggadocio, the fire in the delivery was often enough. Songs like “2.0” and “they don’t know ’bout us” instead sound sleepy, as if the members are just clocking in at the Biggest Band in the World factory. What remains in a lot of these tracks, then, are dazzling little ornaments.

Half the fun is in discovering where Grey takes them from there. “Innuendo” and “Lovefield” both get blasted into trance hyperspace. .... Beneath its high-gloss surface, every detail on U rewards close scrutiny—even its one-letter title.

These songs are bright and bold, and although they essentially iterate on the misty dream pop of her previous album, 2023’s & the Charm, the difference feels stark when you return to that album; it sounds positively miniscule in comparison.

Although their distorted punk pairs well with Midwestern bands they’ve opened for, like the Armed or Angry Blackmen, Prostitute are no imitators.

Every song here could be a single, but taken together, they add up to a sum greater than its parts.

Spilling out over the course of 73 minutes, the album drags, even if it has no specific slow spots. .... Any random song on The Way I Am is sharply crafted and unpretentious in a way that carries on the best Nashville traditions. If it’s not quite a comeback, it is, at least, a satisfying demonstration of Combs’ strengths.

By some miracle, the 24-track behemoth works on its own. It’s frequently beautiful and shockingly consistent, given the range of artists involved, and almost every artist brings their best efforts.

This album feels like the rarest kind of unintentional parody, so ridiculous and transparent in its intent that I really get a kick out of it. But the truth is that none of Monica’s parodic elements would matter that much if the music felt like a genuine experiment rather than a self-serving, big-budget attempt to deepen his image.

Whether experienced alongside the film or on its own, Halo’s Midnight Zone is an object of bleak, almost terrifying beauty: a snapshot of a forbidden world, and perhaps a warning that some treasures are best left buried.

n its refusal to adhere to a particular theme or sound, Paris in the Spring comes across as a little diffuse, but when everything locks in, the results are transcendent.

No single instrument dominates, nor do they act as strict counterpoints to one another. Sounds from opposite ends of the spectrum—felted resonances and sharp twangs—move in the same direction, drifting in parallel. While she rides these contrasts, Cogan sings with a smoky steadiness.

Her third album, Cloud 9, solidifies her as a mainstream country star who hasn’t entirely submitted to the machine.

On every level, PLAY ME is the most populist and literalist music Gordon has ever made. There are fewer jagged ruptures than on her previous solo records, more clearly demarcated beats, hooks that resemble hooks. The loops recur and aren’t so violently flayed open.

Most of these pieces have a lot going on, designed for listeners who take pleasure in guiding their ear through each successive layer.

These detours feel slightly random up against some of the most unadventurous tracks in his catalog, like the smoky ballad “Didn’t Come to Argue.” Like most of his albums, Trying Times could use a little editing, but that’s part-and-parcel of the James Blake package these days.

With a short history of decay, Nothing have begun to build something fresh and exciting; it’s a shame they didn’t finish clearing the rot first.

Musically and lyrically, Mutiny plays like he’s expanded 2016’s “Call to Arms” to album length. .... The best songs here are lean and sinewy showcases for his backing band, the Dark Clouds.

If the band’s homespun and deliriously catchy 2014 compilation record Sunchokes captured the kinetic energy of a sweaty college party, The Refrigerator is the sound of a 10-year reunion, subdued and sentimental, reflective and a little restless.

Make-Up is a Lie shows signs of progress and signs of regression; artful touches and clunking gaffs; soaring tunes and leaden lyrics.

Their identity isn’t as sharply defined here, but the hooks and surprises on S.W.A.G. are strong enough to fuel their soul-searching.

Somewhere between fight, flight, and acceptance, these songs squint at great cosmic mysteries through a tiny pair of sunglasses.

There are enough nods on Kiss All the Time to Styles’ stated influences—-a sharp, craggy synth running through “Season 2 Weight Loss”; chattering drum machine on the bittersweet Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix-ish highlight “Taste Back”—that you can at least identify his intention. (This isn’t Dua Lipa talking up a Britpop album before delivering nothing of the sort with Radical Optimism.) But Styles undermines himself every time with moves straight out of the stadium-pop playbook.

It’s not necessary to know the originals to enjoy his interpretations, but it allows you to appreciate them more.

It’s sentimental, wry, curious, and highly synergistic: Even if the dialogue has its lulls, the silences never feel awkward.

Gives the impression of an overwhelming fullness, a life force captured in a riot of barely controlled waveforms.

The shifts within and between tracks lend Deface the Currency a sense of perpetual surprise: Even after its contours become familiar, the particulars of the improvisation remain lively and kinetic.

It’s clear that the pleasure isn’t in the novelty of these two forces aligning. The pleasure is in the groove, in the quiet confidence of Liv.e and Riggins making such a curious record, in the way it sneaks up on you and commands your attention.

COLD 2 THE TOUCH honors Angel Du$t’s tradition of fast songs and feisty spirit, but it also affirms that they’ll never settle for retreading ground they’ve already stomped on.

DEADLINE achieves the bare minimum, but instead of being a show of style and substance, its music and credits—Diplo, Chris Martin, Dr. Luke—come across more like a demonstration of A-list power.

Highway to Heavenly is a worthy addition to one of indie pop’s most consistent discographies. Thirty years on, their music is as fresh, creative, and catchy as ever.

On The Great Satan, Zombie sounds torn between wanting to revisit the boo-metal sound that made him famous and wanting to continue coasting on the gibberish trucker-rock of his later years. What this record suffers most from is a lack of direction.

He is still a charismatic performer and a naturally talented singer with a tone that can switch quickly from crystalline delivery to a rum-soaked rasp in his upper belt. When he channels the latter, The Romantic reaches its better moments. .... But even when the album finds its groove, it never really delivers the romance.

Marathon is an unequivocally beautiful album. But it’s beautiful in the same way as the colors kicked into the sunset by a refinery—it’s unnatural, uncomfortable, a byproduct of labor.

Maybe he’s lost the spartan immediacy of his earliest records, but he’s gained a sense of camaraderie that makes his music feel nourishing.

My Days of 58 is a weird Bill Callahan album, and a good one.

The Mirror is more about fresh adornments than drastic reinvention. And that’s OK because the album still showcases many of the best qualities Meek has been pursuing outside of his main band.

Where “Damascus,” “The Manifesto,” and Sparks-assisted pinger “The Happy Dictator” play to their unlikely collaborators’ strengths, the bombast of songs like “The Plastic Guru” and “The Shadowy Light” teeters into folly.

Fancy Some More? feels like a rowdy, well-earned celebration and reaffirms the main ideas PinkPantheress has gestured toward for much of the year: Heavy reference doesn’t inherently go hand-in-hand with a lack of ingenuity.

The music is skilfully marshalled: sober and lucid even while hallucinogenic and deranged.

At its best, Ca$ino is the most reflective Keem’s ever been. He parses through how California and the Vegas Strip have poisoned him and his circle, but his warring pop star and rapper sensibilities leave his reckoning in a garbled tonal mess.

I’m not sure any skeptics will find their gateway with the well-meaning protest music of Days of Ash. .... But if nothing else, U2 at least sound like they’re learning to trust themselves again.

A quarter century later, her same old razzle-dazzle feels a little repetitive, yes. But it’s also an insistence that the room we found can swell even bigger, that even in these dark times there’s humanity and humor at the heart of it all. Can’t hear that enough.

On her new record, luck…or something, she’s as familiar as ever. That’s largely because this is music you’ve heard before: fizzy, centrist pop, precisely positioned at the crossroads of autobiography and universality.

It’s a shame this album suffers from the same bloat that befell other recent Dessner projects: The last eight tracks on their own would be the band’s most rewarding record.

Charli is one of the definitive pop artists of our time, but in soundtracking a classic story, she never fully transcends our moment.

Despite underwhelming stretches, the album retains enough moments of personality to breathe life into even ordinary lines.

To Whom This May Concern might feel scattered to those wanting her more characteristic, sensuous R&B. But the album does a good job of flaring in different directions while keeping close to Scott’s artistic core.

You’d have to be in a particularly loose frame of mind to listen to it top to tail; but there is enough of the Beach Boys’ singular genius—perhaps the expression in pop of a musical mind pulled to and fro by the heavy weathers of psychological torment—to deliver. This is the Beach Boys at their best, their worst, and most frustratingly human—just like we want them to be.

Laughter in Summer serves as a summary of Copeland’s career, but it’s also a portrait of the artist in his last act: confident, generous, and unafraid.

Love Is Not Enough is never not invigorating (save for “Beyond Repair”), but its more vicious songs are such refreshing evidence of Converge’s vitality that every departure from that energy feels like a pulled punch.

Caroline Polachek fares best of all Harle’s features; in both “Azimuth” and “On and On,” she iterates a dancefloor diva more at home at Camelot than, say, either the Paradise Garage or Pacha, and Harle really sounds like he’s having fun honoring her commitment to the bit. Other vocals fail to emulsify.

The record gets interesting when it lets ugliness in. .... Butterfly comes up short because it mistakes scale for character. Its drops and hooks have been engineered for maximum lift instead of maximum surprise.

Blastbeats churn and tremolo-picked guitars gnash their teeth. These guys know what they’re doing. Liturgy of Death has its share of weirder moments, too.

While some of the production on Piss in the Wind feels like an upgrade, the core issue with Joji’s songwriting remains: He never offers much of a window into his emotions.

Vig’s masterly production gives the album a seasoned gleam and punch, but his period-specific details only exacerbate the weary undercurrent on Tenterhooks; it makes the album feel stagnant.

Plenty of moments on The Fall-Off remind of the hunger of his early mixtapes, the purposeful thrills of his 2010s hits, or even the misguided zaniness of KOD, though none materialize in meaningful doses.

Ratboys bring their best, most compositionally advanced songs, moving from tightly wound indie pop to the serene hammock sway of country rock to territories far dreamier and uncertain. Their performances are varied and versatile without feeling like a different band has taken over each song.

This is guitar as salve, not weapon. Moments when feedback pokes into the mix feel tightly controlled, and you can almost picture him moving the guitar in imperceptible angles to keep the resonant frequencies in check.

URGH is both headier and more visceral than anything Mandy, Indiana have made before. This isn’t body music or brain music; it’s spine music, homed in on the bony junction where mind meets matter.

Corey’s enormous productions and Ritchie’s conversational flows feel hypnotic in dark rooms over large sound systems, but on an intimate listen, moments like these meander.

Empty Hands is at its best when the maximalist arrangements sound big, not bloated, and despite a few clunkers, most of this record plays to those strengths.

Don’t Trust Mirrors is the snake’s head and tail: the project’s flash of inspiration and its culmination, the point where Moran lost her passion for the prepared piano and found it again.

Their most consistent and propulsive set of songs yet.

I miss the enveloping nature of Daniel’s last two albums, the feeling of floating through a particularly absorbing dream. But the new album does have plenty of buoyant moments.

Tyler Ballgame has a special voice; he just hasn’t yet made it distinct.

Songcraft is still their priority, and their moments of indulgence are not without self-awareness or criticism.

An odd, pleasingly unclassifiable instrumental record that was inspired, bizarrely enough, by a hurdy-gurdy performance he saw Keiji Haino play 28 years ago.

Every Craven Faults record is immersive and overwhelming, and Sidings is no different.

Vacancy is rooted in experience and features the most skillful vocal performances of Lennox’s career, highlighting her attention to mood and the patience with which she builds toward runs that feel like falling in love. Still, sometimes the songs feel like they’re trapped in amber, with emotion muted and songwriting that verges on repetitive.

Duckart’s second album, Death in the Business of Whaling, further develops his creative identity by adding a little mystery, opting for abstract, free-associative musings over straightforwardly confessional songwriting.

The collision of genres fashions a delicate niche, but Planet X’s most striking moments are its most deconstructed.

If these four songs [bad enough, healthy habit, you’re still everything, and bittersweet] were a standalone EP, it would be a showcase of Beer’s pop prowess; instead they’re an island in a sea of weaker, more derivative tracks.

Still, sparse as it may be, her music offers its own richness, and these songs often reach full-band conclusions that feel warm and inviting.

Williams revels in the comfort of rock’n’roll, encouraging her band to play loud even when they’re playing slow. .... There’s a casual, authoritative swing to their [the band's] performance that belies the stylistic range on the record; the songs touch upon different traditions, yet all sound of a piece.

Megadeth proves that Megadeth can still do the thing, but it’s missing the communal gravitas of a band’s last hurrah.

One standout is “Ruins of a Lost Memory.” .... It’s a concrete, compelling closer to an album that otherwise slips from memory as swiftly as a dream.