It’s a not a crime for a revivalist outfit like the Black Angels to occasionally lapse into flower-power corniness; if delivered with a little self-awareness, it adds to the appeal of the anachronistic package. What’s not forgivable on Indigo Meadow is the pretension.

The album has no grand arc; it's just a collection of pretty okay jams for people who already own everything Pentagram ever recorded. It's fine, but it's nothing more than fine.

Humble and resigned to a fault.

When Krug sticks to his strengths—off-the-beaten-path keyboard-driven rock n’ roll, with taut, wiry tunes that match his voice and wry wit--he generally succeeds. But his tendency to slow it down and draw it out leads him to take risks that often don’t pay off.

Here, and on the album’s other highlights, the air of mercantile anonymity feels generous rather than cynical, the music as anxious to accommodate its imagined audience.

With the Night Sweats, he’s elevated with grit and muscle, but strumming solo on And’s Still Alright, he gets bogged down in a melancholy murk.

Stocked with leftovers and ornery jabs at the status quo.

Now, uneven or not, the songs seem to breathe on their own, benefiting from a shot of rhythm and a healthy sweat.

If anything, Scott’s romantic instincts are accentuated in an unprecedented way on Out of All This Blue because so much of this lengthy album is devoted to love songs.

In her raw, rollicking delivery, MØ does sound comfortable in her skin again, giving the lyric a genuinely openhearted turn. Motordrome occasionally passes through such exhilarating moments, but faceless production too often spins its wheels, making it seem as though MØ is still in search of a sound to match the bravado.

Like a lot of Vedder's experiments, the spirit is easier to admire than the final product. The ukulele might be a great campfire instrument, but sometimes what works best at the campfire should stay there.

Entire swaths of music are cut from Persson’s cloth; she is a known quantity. For better or worse, this lets Persson get away with an album like Animal Heart, one that isn’t much of a statement.

As overblown as You Can't Take It With You is musically, Nigro's not one to be upstaged by guitar pedals.

As much as the record flirts with reinvention—personal, political, musical--its modest ambition sounds exactly like complacency.

On their debut LP, Mind Chaos, Hockey seem to be having a little fun with it, keeping things casual, cracking jokes at their own expense. You'd be surprised how well it works.

ll We Are makes a stylish first impression, showing up so impeccably tailored that you wonder if it secretly fears all of that fumbling human contact that could mess things up.... Meanwhile, the back half of All We Are is filled with slow jams that barely stir from a post-coital heap.

If you isolate any random 45 seconds of Directions to See a Ghost's 70 minutes, you'll definitely be compelled to listen for another few minutes--after which time you'll probably start waiting for a solo or a shift in tone that might not even come.

Creaturesque is an easy enough listen with a few moments that stand at attention, but even the best bits can't compare to Moonbeams', and the lesser stuff's far lesser indeed.

Pluto is Future's album and no one else's, and though it will sound instantly recognizable, his personality, voice, and skewed take on pop-rap make it instantly different. No Stargate beats necessary.

Freak Puke represents a band that's always in motion doing what it's always done: trying a crazy idea, releasing and reveling in the results and, before long, likely moving along to the next instantaneous notion. That's the spirit that's always made the Melvins great, just as it does on Freak Puke, if only in bits and pieces.

Whereas that band [Title Fight] used shoegaze and sludge as references and jumping-off points, Creepoid treat it like the whole point, and the album grows wearying long before it's over.

Despite having a satisfying arc that gently bends through it, there are a few moments where Space Project doesn’t solidify as a whole.

Foxygen have perpetually raised the question: Do they really mean it? On Seeing Other People, they drop the act and give it to you straight: If you are getting tired of Foxygen, well, they are, too.

Guv IV is a fun summer spin, but doesn’t coalesce into the memorable statement a pop songwriter like Cook could be capable of.

Working outside of the framework of the pop song, Merritt is left to explore more exotic sound sources and song structures. Unfortunately, without that framework, these elements often fail to amount to anything significant, providing somewhat interesting, meandering background music, but little more.

Perhaps the duo is just second-tier to begin with, or perhaps they just let the needle swing too far towards the rock side of the dial, but the peak moments on Scorpio Rising offer little more than enjoyable nostalgia for overhead-projector light shows.

The bleakness feels more panoramic than before, and when it zooms inward, it tap into reservoirs of power that Trash Talk are only beginning to explore.

Rapture is ultimately an honest effort devoid of staying power.

Perhaps they’re too-smart-for-their own good, but in the moments they can get over themselves, Althaea, at least for a flash, can offer more than just a thrill.

There is very little happening within his verses right now, and even as he’s pivoted toward the personal, he’s still doing impressions, sonically and stylistically.

Their stuff floats off, and the synths carry the whiff not of a beach breeze but of a department-store escalator.

A no-brainer, easy-to-enjoy production slate gets knocked around by its flaws just enough that even the minor, acquired-taste touches seem like just another bad decision.

What Schaff's everyloner routine lacks in subtlety, it makes up in a certain fraught, occasionally uncomfortable relatability.

While Ice Level's an awful lot to process, it's the finest sort of overload; listen closely enough, and you can almost hear your circuits being rewired.

Slime Language captures one of the most boundless rappers of his era operating near his peak. That it has a bill of goods to sell does little to diminish its accomplishments.

On Art Brut’s last two albums, Argos’ act soured a bit, as he lashed out at a world that was buying less and less of what he was selling. Wham! Bang! is good-hearted in a way those records weren’t, and the newfound humility flatters him.

The result is an album that is too vague to have much depth and too absorbed in real-life drama to have the feel-good vibes he wants to preserve.

Favoring the easy gravity of images and ideas over well-crafted sounds and stories, Situation finally drowns in its nostalgia.

Goodnight Unknown feels comfortable and, to a point, casual, too, but it bears the kind of exploratory vigor that "Emoh" lacked.

The tempos remain rigorously uniform across these 13 tracks, as though quickening the pace might change the genre or break the spell. It makes for a warmly moody, albeit strangely static album.

It's dense and impressive production work, but not as listenable as Herren at his best.

Its backward-seeming track sequence improves significantly as it goes along; its instrumental interludes are better than most of the songs. Para Mí may have been the result of a near-fatal car crash, but the album is a happy meanderer.

Most of Weathervanes is serviceable modern rock, so it will find an appreciative audience despite its egregious derivativeness and a lyricist who seems like he'd use the word "inebriated" to talk about how drunk he got last night.

Such an ambitious sophomore outing is a lot to take in, but with its blend of live drumming, textural guitars, skittering electronics, and wistful harmonies, it's worth braving Jojo's, uh, storm.

In the end, Lenses comes off like a proggy, synth pop album that wants to get treated like sound sculpture, but Soft Metals don't fully commit to either endeavor in spite of the record's handful of successes.

The record is a shambling mess, devoid of the bangers that characterized Arular and Kala, two of the stronger pop albums of the past decade.

The band’s songwriting chops are evident on Between Places, and it’s refreshing for a debut to err on the side of being too ambitious, when so many new indie bands nowadays suffer from the opposite problem. But the content of these songs doesn’t quite earn their epic execution.

Though its songs are lightly augmented with overdubs and outside voices, as well as the faintest outlines of orchestrations from Eyvind Kang, Eucalyptus retains its air of bedroom intimacy.

The Black Rock succeeds on occasion, but the weight of McCombs' past is a tough load to bear in situations like this.

It feels like a very French-pop-star gesture, extravagant and essentially useless, and perversely enjoyable for exactly those reasons.

America Give Up is inconsistent and derivative yet promising, and not nearly as impressive as some early adopters would have people believe.

When taking advantage of the opportunity to be as dumb as they need/want to be, West Ryder succeeds, which is another way of saying acoustic guitars have absolutely no reason to be involved.

Night is ultimately hamstrung by a personality vacuum. It's easy enough to enjoy Night while it's playing, but even after so many listens, it's hard to care about it.

There's plenty of highly stylized fun to be had here. Just don't expect to remember many of the details when it's all over.

There's thrilling evidence of compelling, thoughtful craftsmanship.

Tales Told lacks the charm of the Seeds' most ebullient singles, and it's certainly no Crocodiles, either.

Ultimately, Naked is not essential. Unlike scattered moments in the Anthology series, this music (though immaculately presented) doesn't really expand on either the music of Let It Be, or The Beatles' legacy.

Songs' best moments occur when Verlaine complicates the pop formula with serious tension.

Lyrical inscrutability peppered with the occasional waft of clarity has always been a Boeckner trademark, and Face Control continues that.

Finding unique ways to handle empty space and unorthodox arrangements has always been Cohen's greatest strength, and here that skill helps to mottle his most straightforward material to date.

Apple's Acre sounds homemade in the best possible way. It is a quality that speaks to not only the intimacy of the recording, but also the confidence and comfort that Nurses now have in their delicately shambolic sound.

None of the tracks leap out on first listen as obvious show-stoppers, but Pearson's nonetheless collected the most rhythmically diverse selection of tracks to appear on a Kompakt-branded mix in quite some time.

TRE3S, their third long-player (released by the Canadian supergroup's Arts & Crafts imprint), finds them continuing to home in on shapes and textures of their own.

Though these solo works are not as fleshed out nor quite as transporting as the highlights of Red Hash, they provide a fascinating document of a young songwriter finding his voice, and leave behind lingering questions about what might have been.

There's a natural path forged between all the shifts, a sense that the abstraction feeds off the structure and vice versa. As such, Black Is Beautiful nears something that could readily be branded as Blunt and Copeland's aesthetic.

The production on The Block Brochure series roams a little wider and farther than the Revenue Retrievin series did, which helps when approaching such a seemingly undigestible block of music.

A handful of guests aside, though, none of G.O.O.D. Music's personalities do much to justify their newfound prominence. If Cruel Summer is meant to be an argument for the label's other talent, it makes a weak case.

She has indeed stepped outside with S, but perhaps not far out enough; as it stands, Moss’ journey isn’t done just yet, but the final stretches of her expedition are in sight.

Dead is a frustrating record, one that finds the band on the cusp of making something truly great. While consistency and better production do work in Ascension's favor, some of the spontaneity of the first record would have been rendered even more powerfully here.

Strip the clever vocal snippets away from Vibert's productions and you're left with those choice drums and goofy melodies, but there's little beyond that to mind.

He has evolved quite a bit since Excuse My French, coming up with moments of sharpness, but he is still limited in what he can do.

The purpose of Sun City doesn’t seem to be a cohesive project but a vehicle to throw seven different sounds into the world and see what sticks. Khalid comes out of the project, mostly the same, still the least controversial pop star we have right now.

Tucker and Buck remain an electric match, and minus the lyrics, their songs knit together well. They are great and talented musicians. But the subjects they tackle demand more raw nerve than Filthy Friends seem willing to put to tape.

The songs on Welcome 2 Collegrove too often resemble the tenth pass on ideas no one loved in the first place, tweaked and rearranged until they’re perfectly fine.

Cummings linked with Topanga Canyon vintage king and session ace Jonathan Wilson, who freed her to focus on not holding back. That is commendable, but it results in an album that has the dynamic range and limited application of a strong flashlight. You recognize its incredible power, but you’d do best not to stare into the source for very long.

It's ultimately debatable whether or not Four is the "real" Bloc Party, but revisionist history isn't supposed to be a duller version of the real thing.

New Chain, with it's gorgeous smattering of vivid synth patterns, is "Despicable Dogs" reupholstered: It still feels like a sunrise bike ride with a head full of weed, but this time in full-blown technicolor.

Crime Pays has a lonely, defensive, and vaguely desperate Kirk Van Houten vibe--more noticeable than a lack of breakout bangers or guest spots is a palpable and inexcusable lack of excitement and spark.

Liquid Cool is just another likable if unexceptional lo-fi electro-pop record.

Traffic and Weather finds them treading water in the worst possible way.

His is the ambient music of someone else's party, happening far away from where you are, and the distance is part of the allure.

It's a shame to waste the term "spectacular" on such a mundanely depressing, blatant cash-in.

Scott already has his songwriting tools in place; once he finds his voice, look out.

In theory, Diamond Rugs should prove extremely comforting, a celebration of rawk and male friendship in the face of vaguely rendered but all-consuming sexual denial. And yet, there's no catharsis or viscera.

The album is at its best when Jones delivers brisk, bright rock with endearing hooks... Things begin to lag when Jones drops the tempo and tries his hand at balladry.

For all its promises of a leisurely, good time, A Productive Cough plays like a quarantine.

With In Blank, Davis has tapped into something vital that even the best backing band can't automatically afford: confidence.

Work finds these former Next Big Things railing against maturity while tacitly embracing it.

I'm hard-pressed to find a song that's more interesting at its three-minute mark than it is after 10 seconds: 2:54 exposes a band that knows how to make a good first impression but not a lasting one.

The box is scattered, as expected, but the songs collected go a long way to indicate that, contrary to popular belief, Pollard has a measure of control over his songwriting.

Houdini sounds like an attempt to escape from the predicament of the sophomore album, making more nuanced use of orchestration and sticking with a comfortingly sweet and naïve tone while also expanding its perspective.

Lonesome Dreams' instant knock of familiarity will prove comforting for some, but it gives these tracks something of a plug-and-play feel. Many songs are dramatically assembled, and all of them move, but when they move in pretty much the same ways as another, spryer band, it's that much harder to get caught up in their attendant drama.

Unsurprising, and not much of a main course, but a tasty and satisfying side dish nonetheless.

Unexpectedly, though, some of the record's best moments come when Byrne strips away the rhythmic accessories and relies on basic orchestral backing... And yet, the majority of the album still relies on primal, swinging grooves.

Like Japanese toys-- The Dream Workshop, and the Furby and Tamagochi before it-- Tortoise obviously spend hours in the lab honing the science, but the finished product comes with a one-time novelty factor.

Unfortunately, these high points are surrounded by plenty of semi-coherent nonsense about the wanderings of their fictional protagonist soldier boy.

There is no doubt Peace Is the Mission will suffer some criticism from dancehall purists, those exhausted by EDM and people who hate Diplo (a hate that he has certainly worked overtime to earn), but their maturation is palpable across the album's nine tracks.

The Ponys make good records, and Turn the Lights Out is no exception, but I'm still waiting on the great one I've always felt they'd had in them.