Clear Heart is just good enough to keep us listening.

Eels' latest, Tomorrow Morning, is far too insular to mean much of anything outside itself. It's an exercise in self-referentiality, which might be more impressive if the music didn't sound like the folk-with-beats path Beck was smart enough to avoid.

There's an organic, humanistic ethos operating behind her music: we are all people, and we're all moved by the same primal passions and stimuli.

While the whole package is marketed as a "love letter" to fans, true followers will quickly be able to sniff out its inferiorities. If anything, this latest selection from the dwindling Buckley vaults subverts his talents and ultimately insults the same hardcore fans it's aimed at.

Framing Pretty Ugly as a broken-beat album helps account for its pleasures, but can't entirely absolve its pitfalls, perhaps because much of what is true for funky remains true for broken beat, namely, that the flight into syncopation should not be heedless.

Ghostory is at its best a very pleasurable realization of niche.

Windy City never quite reconciles her genre history with her populist ambitions, creating an album that toggles back and forth between the two poles and then ends abruptly.

While Trouble Maker doesn’t usurp the band’s primordial peak, it’s far and wide their strongest effort since 2000’s excellent self-titled.

Its quality is mostly a testament to Pusha's connections and his ear for beats, but the rapping is sufficiently competent enough that the album never drags, which is less of a backhanded compliment than it might read.

This is the Killers' spitball album, the one where they try everything and see what works while Flowers grasps for a relatable tone.

As opposed to the didactic nature of the booklet, the audio portion of No Business tends more toward arch satire of the ongoing debate over fair use in digital media, creating a précis of its contradictions and ideological schisms rather than advancing a particular thesis.

This album feels more like a series of genre exercises, a place in which they occasionally work up a palpable tension, but never enough to make this more than an adequate diversion from the resources they're obviously sourcing.

There's a gritty, lucid vein [in the album's songs] running just below the top layer of haze, the words' bite stinging all the more for their burial under all those dank guitar tones and harmonies as dark and delicate as black lace.

"New Day" has a transformative effect within the album, whose middle is as strong as any sequence of songs Keys has recorded.

Much like its predecessor, Optica's pervasive mildness doesn't give you much to latch onto.

As on Days Are Gone, its sheen is current and its spirit out of step. Beat by beat, Haim are the classic sound of heartbreak alleviated, if only for a moment.

As a musical statement of intent to the throngs of the newly interested, Music For Men shows a clear picture of who Gossip want to be--a New Millennial Madonna for whom Danceteria never closes. But for those who have been following Gossip's career, waiting with bated breath to see how the band will evolve, this new record may feel a little too much like they are still Standing in the Way of Control.

Thank You for Today isn’t as uniformly bland as Codes and Keys--if anything, it’s the strongest Death Cab album of the 2010s, a dubious achievement that nonetheless deserves recognition. But there’s moments that suggest Gibbard and the rest of Death Cab are still struggling through the beige malaise that has cast a pall over their more recent work

Mayfield has insisted for years that love is treacherous and obliterating, and on Make My Head Sing... her guitar enacts that romantic violence. It provides an intriguing counterpart to her vocals, turning her inner monologues into something like an argument.

3121 does a bit better than [Musicology], coming up with a handful of infectious songs-- it's his best since the symbol record, although certainly there remains a massive chasm between it and his masterpieces.

Without that commitment to either pop immediacy or boundary-pushing weirdness, let alone being able to pull of both at once, Tussle are always going to feel like they occupy some kind of tepid middle-ground, however sharply their cymbals are recorded.

CrasH Talk might not have the mean-mugging raps of Blank Face LP or the weed-infused smoker anthems of Habits & Contradictions, but it’s comforting, like diving into the fifth or sixth season of your favorite network sitcom.

But if the group has grown deadlier and more dynamic in their five years together, singer Julian Casablancas still struggles as a lyricist.

A unique, gripping listen that's certainly not for everyone, but manages to carve out an appealing niche for itself.

If anemic blues guitar riffs and half-assed attempts at white-boy soul were the only problems with In Our Gun, it might almost be passable.

It's difficult to determine whether You Cross My Path is a victim of the times or its own merits; it's the sort of thing that's so competent that it's more likely to be defined by its failures than its success.

While Okereke has described Intimacy as a break-up album, it feels like more of a document of a band disconnected from itself.

Out Into the Snow is another solid entry in a long career for Joyner, and it seems his place as the dark observer on the indie world's fringe is pretty well set.

Pazner knows this stay-out-of-the-way tactic well, and the Olympians make their toughest tricks sound effortless because of it.

MU.ZZ.LE might be a transitional point on Gonjasufi's path and it shows just one face of an eclectic, multifaceted performer. But it's also that rare album that feels meditative and cathartic all at once.

On Need Your Light, they finally hit the sweet spot.

Gotye's exemplary pop sense may be the big revelation of Making Mirrors, yet it's his arty restlessness that will continue to keep him interesting.

It doesn't take a lot to make old technology sound damaged and creepy. But taking the next step and making that creepiness sound appealing is what makes Maniac Meat the feel-weird hit of the summer.

It’s still a joy to hear the Migos rap, which is why it’s especially depressing that Culture II ultimately feels like a drag--a formless grab bag compiled without much care.

With inchoate, banal lyrics and blustering tunes that go for it all, all the time, Degeneration Street sounds like the product of too much euphoria. Definitely catch the Dears on the comedown, if at all.

There's a dark undercurrent of dispossession coursing through these songs, which sound measured and conflicted even as they grasp for meaning and import. That generosity of spirit suggests Geiger knows that everyone, even Canadian collectives and celebrity kids, is an outsider looking in.

By wearing their influences on their sleeve while never slipping into gimmickry, HÆLOS are able to pull off an impressive trick, a debut record that both cements them in a genre and leaves then room to grow.

By improving his craft, layering sharper melodies over increasingly sophisticated arrangements. Steinbrink’s music--so often insular, gorgeous in its way yet tentative--has grown up, becoming wiser and more confidently strange, ready to embrace the world outside his bedroom window.

Mills’ production gives the recordings dimension and depth, inevitably tempering the pain at the heart of the songs.

The music’s subdued hum brings to mind Eno as well as contemporary artists like Tim Hecker and Oneohtrix Point Never, except the mood feels divine in an almost undefinable way.

It might not be your cup of tea, but there's little denying its charm.

Horse Feathers are quick to set a mood and diligent in sustaining it, but it's pretty much the same mood they've struck on all their albums.

While Bush is strong enough musically, you can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if this crew had followed R&G with a full-length a decade ago, when everyone involved was still in his prime.

For those who missed Frightened Rabbit's last record, those who weren't already enthralled by these tuneful Scots, this album will really come alive.

In the end then, for all of Diplo's good intentions and curatorial muscle, the first volume of Blow Your Head struggles not just as a lesson, or a sampler, but also simply as a collection of songs you want to listen to.

While it sounds like it was taken from the same creative burst that birthed London producer Zomby's recent LP Dedication, here that album's glum funereality gets an almost dance-friendly makeover.

Everybody's Got It Easy But Me answers Finberg's ever-withering worldview with playful, rambunctious performances, enhancing the I-just-wasn't-made-for-these-times pathos of his lyrics by essentially making him sound like an outcast within his own songs.

The bursts of bright energy and amateurish enthusiasm on Golden Grrrls shine on wondrously for several minutes, but after a while the limitations of stunted musicianship and repetitive songwriting take over.

His greatest strength has always been world-building, using a synth-heavy blitz of candy-colored jazz chords taken straight (sometimes blatantly so) from the Pharrell handbook. Cherry Bomb isn’t exactly a hard left turn from this lane, but it is a quick swerve.

The songs are fine but largely feckless, and what could be an animating contrast between glum lyrics and upbeat music is too often hobbled by clunkers both generic ("I am lost in my mind when you go to sleep") and specific (something about tarot cards).

It's still questionable how this pretty, solemn music will work in the quirky context of Green's film, but it makes for a nice little album on its own.

Going Way Out With Heavy Trash is a lot of things-- wild, aged, loose, dangerous, ridiculous, respectful-- but it's not a joke. Even if it is kinda funny.

There's nothing wrong with tempering one's stance or mellowing out--and to We Are Wolves' credit, the slowest, spaciest numbers here are the most unexpected and most satisfying--but the driving momentum and risky harshness of past efforts are missed.

Our Pathetic Age reflects the way much of Shadow’s post-Endtroducing material has lacked structure, with the producer happy to throw ideas at the page, even if many of them don’t stick.

Raw Solutions is more ambitious than the average dance album, both in terms of the span of sonic territory that it covers and its attempts to synthesize all of it into one cohesive work.

In truth, they display a confidence in declining to chase or win over new fans that is exceedingly rare in legacy acts.

When Kele’s familiar voice leaps all over the limits of its range, songs like “The One Who Held You Up” take on a stagey quality. But overall, The Waves, Pt. 1 is a mid-career detour worth indulging. The left-of-center UK rock veteran sounds better here than he has at least since the best songs on 2017’s folksy Fatherland, his previous no-frills record. But this time Kele also sounds free.

Infinite Arms just feels less tender, less personal, more twang-by-numbers than the last couple, despite its familiar sound and many of the same principals.

The farther they wander, the more magnetic they become.

It's boldly rendered, and somehow crafts a very human world from cartoon sonics.

The Diet would benefit from more breezily subversive sing-alongs like that—as the album rolls on, Omori’s predilection for mid-tempo, mid-period Oasis starts to take over, and a certain uniformity of style, scale, and seriousness sets in.

Flat, rather forced attempts at oddballery give Mouseman a scattered, self-conscious feel it never quite shakes for more than a couple of minutes at a time.

Lissie's voice is haunting as always, but the band doesn't match this tone, and as a result it no longer sounds like Lissie's song. Hopefully these missteps aren't enough to put people off, because Lissie is still a significant new voice.

Despite the stumbles, Nights includes some of California X's best work, and these moments are so strong, it's impossible to write the band off.

Spanning an obnoxious 82 minutes, the record goes through several musical and thematic phases, but the overall atmosphere is bitter, petty, worn-down. It confuses loyalty and stagnation, wallowing in a sound that is starting to show its limits.

All eleven tracks on Bad Timing are gems that balance a knack for brain-lodging choruses with the grime and stylistic drift of Exile on Main Street, begging a record collection's worth of comparisons with nary an instance of outright thievery.

On a Wire has that glossy veneer that only happens with the help of a good decisive manager, a fast-talking label guy with All The Answers, and that bloodthirsty, all-encompassing desire for yet another Big Tour.

Walking with the Beggar Boys sounds askew, a puzzle whose pieces don't fit properly. This sort of disjointedness can sometimes make for intriguing work, but here it just feels obligatory and slightly stunted.

They've managed to broaden the nervous-tic angst-rock of their previous band into something more readily adaptable without reducing it to mealy-mouthed pop regurge.

There's something uncomfortably sterile about The Sea and Cake's new, seven-song Glass EP that precludes it from functioning emotionally.

Taken as a whole, it’s a pretty, enveloping record that executes its modern influences with panache, though the intangible, purely aesthetic nature of Woolhouse’s vaguely downhearted emotional state makes it hard to appreciate Defo as anything other than luxurious ambient icing.

The variety of genres and sounds that emerge within her compositions give Lipstate’s work a multitextured feel, but in moments I found myself wishing for more concision in the way such ideas are digested.

Punctuating The House’s actual songs are occasionally baffling interludes (one, “Åkeren,” is sung entirely in Norwegian, a first for Porches), which play more like unfinished sketches than intentional moments of quiet.

Whatever vision Martin and Shellback set out to realize here is not really serving her strengths and, intentionally or not, appears to signal a disinterest in evolution.

Sure, they're a very raw talent, but a formidable talent nonetheless, and this record's peaks hint at even greater musical epiphanies to come.

Slaughterhouse­'s biggest weakness is what brought us here in the first place--for a record that's supposed to be so lyrically godbody that aspiring rapsters will retreat to a lifetime of Auto-Tune in fear, the lyrics display no real wit or inspirational spark.

Most of the songs are solid, with the possible exception of the slackened "Keep Still", but none after the first has much capacity to surprise us or deepen the palette.

Clay Class feels disappointingly stagnant. But it does offer encouraging signs that a blade of grass or two can sprout up from cracks in Prinzhorn Dance School's cold, concrete world.

The record's easygoing pace, sturdy songwriting, and sunbaked production make it the third solid effort from the Sunsets.

This is evidence of true artistic growth, but these successes share space on Scars with creative cul-de-sacs and uninspired genre exercise.

It's hard to begrudge a band a transitional record when its in the midst of a substantial transition, and Apes wear it better than most.

By aiming for so many different styles, settling for subpar-at-best lyrics, and trying to pay the bills with rock'n'roll, they never find a sound that's fully captivating or convincing.

Nocturnes finds her settling on one that aspires to the distance of Saint Etienne's Sarah Cracknell or Sophie Ellis-Bextor. She’s not quite there, and when her approach doesn’t work, it really doesn’t. Nocturnes is a big improvement over Hands, though, where even the biggest singles' hooks were made of saccharine, not sugar.

Long and lush isn't a bad look for the Soft Pack, so long as they're keeping the beat.

Instead of focusing on one idea and shaping it into something unique, though, the album tries its hand at everything that is "now" (noise-pop, dance rock, etc.) and owns none of it.

It is a work that shows a band still struggling to come to terms with itself, discovering on record the music it wants to make, and settling for a safe middle ground in the end.

Without Your Love ends up becoming a loose survey of Dexter's work instead the Nihjgt Feelings statement he intended it to be.

Still, for an album that pushes the limits of how much you can say about so little, the stuff that's said rarely fails to be entertaining in the pure linguistically structural sense.

It's a record played in the red, and it's not afraid to have a good time there.

Like a lot of free internet mixtapes, The Narcissist II is compelling but ultimately shallow, and shallow is a fault, even if that's what Blunt was aiming for.

Forever a slave to rock history, Gallagher feels like he's biding his time for the third act reunion rather than breaking from the well-trod path.

If you're willing to fully take Alpers on her own terms, however, there's value in Bachelorette. Specifically, there are a few songs here with lovely vocal melodies and harmonies.

Gardens & Villa’s self-conscious, spindling attempts at regression and societal contemplation are admirable and occasionally catchy, but there are so many other albums--Reflektor, Kid A, even the oft-maligned, ahead-of-its-time Metal Machine Music--that navigate the intricacies of technology and society more compellingly and less heavy-handedly that you can’t help but write it off as another brick in the firewall.

Goulding can certainly inhabit a soundscape. Her next step is to inhabit just one.

There's isn't much in the way of clues as to why they wrote and recorded in secret, but this, their debut, sounds like an album that wasn't yet ready to be heard. It is beautifully crafted and rich in demure detail, but Street of the Love of Days is largely bereft of energy or direction.

Freeze, Melt nods to the conceptual artist John Baldessari, whose death at the start of 2020 might have warned us of the waves of bullshit to come. Its own concept is unimpeachable: Climate change does suck. Ice is a memory. Mostly, though, Freeze, Melt just feels like a nice warm bath.

If Lerner just keeps on doing his thing, he's clearly getting better at it.

While there's nothing revelatory production-wise if you've heard Lootpack's Soundpieces: Da Antidote, there's a little workshopper's insight in these protoypes for The Unseen-caliber bluntedness.