It's hard not to feel conflicted about Apollo Kids. Unlike Ghostface records that presumably get unfairly judged by the standards of his best work, it's tempting to overrate it due a general relief that he didn't try to make Ghostdini again.

Cancer 4 Cure's closest analogue may be Portishead's Third: the textures and tones are distinctly different from past releases, but it's unimaginable that it could be made by anyone else.

At times, these songs go on for a bit too long. A bigger obstacle is their lack of variety. But ultimately, these complaints are for an album packed with huge hooks, which all sound great when you play them really loud.

Almost half of the first CD is made up of Cline originals, and these pale a bit in comparison with the surrounding material. Though thanks to its sly and measured embrace of the experimental, Lovers still has all the originality it needs to endear.

Cabral explodes our ideas about texture and terror on Mazy Fly as she snuggles into a deeper connection to her own songwriting, making an album that connects on a more concrete wavelength.

From the driving blues line in “The Cowrie Waltz,” the lush soundscapes heard on “Ancestral Duckets” and “Bop for Aneho,” and the celestial soul claps that emanate from “Zane, The Scribe,” Georgia Anne Muldrow, once again, engenders her own Afrofuturistic realm, one that is heard, seen, and felt in the here and now.

These eight songs grapple candidly with [family loss], but, like the music itself, the words don’t wallow. Instead, Pallbearer use these tragedies to revel in being alive, or to answer the “gnawing doubts that I ever learned to live.”

At its core, the LP is a straight-up flex, the work of an artist who has learned to distill his many influences and experiments into a coherent, singular vision, and Vynehall himself is the protagonist of this particular tale.

Lambert sings about the one who got away, dreaming of a day when they will be reunited. Randall strums his guitar and joins for harmonies with Ingram every time the chorus rolls around. They are singing about better days ahead but they’re making the present moment sound pretty good, too.

Whether he’s falling in or out of love, going out, or reflecting on the night before, Sivan sounds more credible than ever, pairing a newfound swagger with a heady rush of emotion.

Although Cool World doesn’t stomp with the same weight of God’s Country, Chat Pile’s stylistic experiments pay off.

Murphy once again shows off his encyclopedic knowledge of all things post-punk and zip-tight. But he's also swimming up some serious stuff himself, including Eno and David Bowie's sacrosanct Berlin trilogy. And against his own prediction, it's far from horrible; it's actually pretty perfect.

Bejar's essential complexity ultimately feels human.

The end result is akin to Norman Smith and DJ Shadow sitting in on a RZA-produced session-- spry, voiceless prog-hop by any other name.

No Age’s name seems self-actualizing. And in their psycho-candied sound, which has progressively gotten better, they still know how to locate the timeless, fever-pitched feeling of a beginning.

The sprawl, the surfeit, is the point. You need plenty of room to summon a mood as widescreen as this. It’s a long way from the summer sun to the dark embrace of the universe, and on Once Twice Melody, Beach House are determined to cover the entire distance.

Her skipping cadence and ability to dance around words while establishing that each one is equally important are poet's skills, making you listen to every word without ever seeming overdetermined or obvious.

Shattuck’s voice feels raspier and more raw on some of the album’s 18 tracks, a little less energetic, but the musical chemistry between her, McDonald, and bassist Ronnie Barnett remains untouched by time.

The resulting sense of chaos redoubles Boris’ wrath and gives it a welcome depth, the sense that it’s here to stay because it’s been here all along.

The album is lush and oblique—an approachable standout in two daunting catalogs.

Tasteful and slick, approachable and antiperspirant, less oceanic ecstasy than the pool party of the year.

The group effort renders Humanhood’s songs lush and circuitous, seemingly propelled by an internal logic that’s being pieced together as you hear it.

For those new to his work, The Hex serves as a fully realized glimpse of the universe he spent his career mapping. But there’s also a sense he’s speaking directly to a select few.

The groove takes precedence over the words, and Murphy gives his studio meticulousness over to the energy of the group. The synths run bright and juicy. The bass sounds like it could knock you out if you stood too close. The drums hit fast and sharp. Murphy slips from his throne as record-geek auteur and dissolves into the group--one musician among many, and better for it.

It is the clearest Dean Blunt has ever sounded and one of his most thrilling releases to date.

The disc is enhanced with gleefully absurd, marginally interactive cartoons, and packed with that Eisenhower-era zip-twinkle.

The combination of the music's essentials-- jackhammer riffs clipped from punk and metal, mid-tempo beats from hip-hop and electro, and supremely catchy sing-song melodies-- is striking on its own, sounding remarkably fresh and unlike anything else right now. But an even greater source of the record's appeal is how it doesn't sound especially referential.

Out Hud also back up their flash with remarkable substance, setting their music apart from anything as one-dimensional as standard club offerings or moody trance cuts.

They aren't inept, amateurish or even exactly boring, but their parlor music takes a slow and emotionally neutral path that almost fights against engagement.

Our Endless Numbered Days is cleaner, more diverse, and generally sparser than its predecessor, and, given the apparent limits of Beam's former setup, it's also an astoundingly progressive record: Beam has successfully transgressed his cultural pigeonhole without sacrificing any of his dusty allure.

The songs are the most intriguing ones to emerge from this Wyoming project thus far. ... A lot of the energy that "ye" seemed to be gasping for fills the lungs of this project, and it’s humbling to consider how much this material might have enlivened West’s own album.

A triumphant counterpoint [to YOL2]--a record that feels like pure, reckless release.

As a culmination and refinement of everything the National have done over the past decade, Trouble Will Find Me couldn’t be granted a more fitting mission statement.

Only a interpreter as shrewd and tasteful as Loretta Lynn could find the inherent commonalities in these songs, and make a grab-bag late-late-career album like this feel not only emotionally grounded, but like a powerful choice.

Letter to Self is a bracing, frantic record designed for both thrashing mosh pits and solo meltdowns, best heard with the volume turned up loud.

While What We Drew is more internalized than past releases, it is not conflicted; rather, Yaeji finds clarity in vulnerability, in the pendulum swing of her humanity. Crucially, the mixtape doesn’t turn its back on one of Yaeji’s strongest traits as an artist: Her music has always been deeply social, and now it is more gregarious than ever in its gratitude for those around her.

For all of her self-flagellation, Teitelbaum is far more potent when she’s pissed off.

She’s an outsider claiming a piece of the mainstream for herself without sacrificing what makes her music so special.

There may be a lot of theory, artistic experimentation, and new forms of inquiry on this album, but typical of Lange’s work, it’s carried by pure beauty, the sort of diaphanous songwriting that makes the noise of everyday life fall away.

Its vivid imagery, anthemic arrangements, and unsuspecting listenability position it as hardcore’s Carrie & Lowell: an autobiographical tragedy that soars in spite of an overwhelming urge to succumb.

More than ever, DEP have songs. They're also the band's most colorful to date.

while other young UK-based electronic experimentalists like Floating Points make it onto the mix, Thomson's heavy label love is a reminder that he's constantly one step ahead of the game.

On their best album yet, Hiatus Kaiyote shine by building an architecture around these emotions, coming alive when they allow themselves to be more than just a great band.

Dust is a dense and heady record, and from certain angles can seem intimidating, even impenetrable. But between the clever track sequencing and a handful of irresistible outcrops of groove and melody, Halo provides plenty of footholds to cling onto while you acclimatise to her lawless universe.

It’s a short album—six songs, 33 minutes--but a substantial one, a deeply personal work that takes us inside the mind of Animal Collective’s most mysterious member, while restoring some of the patience and mystique that’s been sucked out of that band’s recent, more spasmodic work.

Cardinal feels like one big determined push outward, an album-length fight against solipsism without losing your sense of self in the process.

At just half an hour, this is a slight album, despite moments of heart-bursting ambition that at times leave you wishing for more to sink your teeth into.

Entrench is the work of veterans who earned the rare second chance to make a first impression. They do not waste the opportunity.

On Blue Skies, they made the best choice, which is the only choice: Change nothing. Not one thing.

Rather than sounding as if they’ve been optimized by a digital studio, his beats tend to impart the illusion of different objects crashing to the ground at varying distances. They’re loose, anxious assemblages that leave plenty of space for the ear to play in.

Audacious and spectacular high stakes.

While Sulphur English is their least welcoming album, it is also their most rewarding. ... They’ve delivered a cohesive vision of internal destruction, all the more explosive for everything they’ve left behind.

Most of Lost and Safe is pleasant enough but not much more.

As a listener, you pay attention not just to those steps but to the overtones that fill the air in between. Each chord is a burr of wonderment.

Excavation gains power from gathering a little dust for a while, becoming a dark treat to occasionally sink into.

As a portrait of this ageless artist as a truly young man, Sugar Mountain is an invaluable document--and a pretty compelling one, too.

Instead of coming from noise and chaos, they're rooted in pastiche and show business-- especially on their one midtempo song, the 50s pop knockoff "Find Another Girl." Your parents might dig this album as much as you do.

Abstract, yet brutally honest, Burma shame the transparent, insecure and phony, reminding us that ideals can be standards.

Given its fragmented genesis, it's surprising how listenable and of-a-piece Fall Be Kind is.

Holley does with music what he’s done with visual art for decades: He collects our ugliest obscured objects and transforms them into singular reflections on our troubled world.

The profane marriage of old and new, big ugly riffs and shrieking noise, beauty and brutality seems like the clearest marker indicating where Full of Hell may intend to head next.

Even at its most inexplicable, there’s not a moment on Dolphine that feels careless. As her imagination roams, Birgy understands that sometimes irrationality is necessary to make sense of reality.

Though still self-produced and recorded in Stoitsiadis’ house, Melee levels up like Dogleg are clutching some kind of glowing orb that allows them to jump the gap between their rowdy live shows and 2015’s scrappy Remember Alderaan? EP.

A hushed collection that floats through the subconscious like a tender dream.

Alongside a cast of musicians who help bring her kaleidoscopic world to life, NV emerges with a visionary avant-pop record that offers an escape from gloom.

Red Moon in Venus luxuriates in the most sublime sounds of Uchis’ career. It’s a fantastical record, illustrating lush, lovesick vignettes and high-femme escapism without relinquishing control.

Even the most direct songs here have a precision craftsmanship rarely heard in something that is still, at heart, a rock album.

Hval is a clear disciple of Kraus. On paper, Kraus moves fluidly from reference to reference, dense with ideas; Hval’s music is like this, too, and never more than on Blood Bitch.

Feels is an excellent record, one that, despite a more conventional approach, happens to get better over time.

Blue World falls just off-center—not a major addition to the Coltrane canon, but certainly an addition to a major part of it. ... But the strongest moments on this offhanded, unintended artifact are remarkable even by the standards of this band at this juncture, and the historical record will reflect that. Finally, the cat’s out of the bag.

Bruner is still getting tipsy and pondering what waits for us in the beyond. There’s growth and acceptance in that wonder—the title suggests as much— but not necessarily in the songwriting. The album lacks the anchoring power of a full-bodied jam like “Them Changes,” “Heartbreaks + Setbacks,” or even his 2011 George Duke cover “For Love I Come,” leaving us lost inside Bruner’s mind. hat isn’t always a bad place to be.

Its curious track listing is split between a disc of Wyatt-as-frontman and a disc of Wyatt-as-guest.

Gwenno is in the business of pop artistry, not broccoli-boiling, so Tresor’s touch is light and breezy, even as its songs dive into analytical psychology, the patriarchy, the colonizer lurking up and to the right.

Alpha plays like a clearinghouse more than a finely-edited set but, largely thanks to its bevy of well-chosen live tracks, its sidelong view of Wilco is worth a peek.

These avatars introduce a record that favors new sounds and perspectives—he often sings as a shadow or a visitor, giving credence to a recently revealed habit for crashing strangers’ funerals—but remains carefully rooted in his history.

Each fluorescent strike of noise, incongruous tempo flip, and warped vocal is bolted into its right place across the record's fast 40 minutes.

Salvant has found a fine match in Fortner, a New Orleans native who has played with the likes of Wynton Marsalis, John Scofield, and Paul Simon. He doesn’t accompany her so much as join in the conversation she’s having with these songs, occasionally even arguing with her about them.

Focusing on Wildheart's overt eroticism is one way of listening, but it's impossible to overlook just how seriously he's taking craft.

The arrangements on Tears of Injustice skew closer to that style than the rock’n’roll on Funeral for Justice, and it’s poignant to think of the sad circumstances of Tears’ creation leading the artist to seek out the sounds of his youth.

For a trio that has reveled in building its own little worlds for three decades, Body feels newly reflective of our space and time, a stark and jarring statement about the precipice of modern life.

An album that refuses to draw a neatly conclusive arc. Instead, Gentle Confrontation offers an invitation to bear witness to a process that’s human, hard to define, and close to the heart.

Re-Animator still holds its own against their other music; at their most traditional, they remain smart songwriters, and even their weaker lyrical moments are more thought-provoking than their peers.

Ten deserved better than Ten Redux and the paltry bonus tracks. Fortunately, the reissue also includes a DVD of Pearl Jam's 1992 performance on "MTV Unplugged".

His masterful way with configured elements provides the illusion of a story without dictating the narrative: Here, you decipher the tones and rhythms, and conjure your own ideas of good and evil.

Her lyrical tricks are unexpected and endlessly quotable .

The album is beautifully and judiciously arranged, but a collection of bonus tracks on the expanded edition show how Countless Branches might have sounded with more instruments and more people.

Anticipated for decades, apparently made in just a few months, the album is an instant party-starter and a statement of intent. It threads together the last 40 years of dance music into a solid hour of new standards.

Through whatever process they use, the band has also managed to create yet another wonderfully singular indie rock record, unafraid of unfettered passion or self-sabotage, and which affirms a shrouded, hybrid style as unquestionably theirs.

Sophisticated and subversive in equal measure, their staccato sing-alongs come on pristine and precise, then unspool in surprising directions as decorum gives way to abandon.

Sledge is a very straightforward lyricist; he doesn't stunt, he yearns. His lyrics favor plainspoken confessions over catchy turns of phrase, and when the album falters, it's because his words reduce a pair of lovers to their mouths and hands.

Blues is as thoughtfully and carefully constructed as either of Matsson's albums, revealing the nuances of his sound and subtly putting the lie to the notion that he needs anything besides his weathered voice and beat-up guitar.

There is still something magnificent about what Gibbons, Penderecki, and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra have accomplished here: They have managed to make the “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” feel dark, even dangerous.

Like Vile, Polizze writes lyrics as if he’s muttering them to himself, even when he’s gesturing toward something universal. And if his language rarely feels bold on its own, it does establish an undeniable mood paired with such laid-back music.

The nine songs here follow their own innate paths, often beginning with a simple acoustic arrangement before blossoming into vivid daydreams.

It has less of the soul-searching of Ware’s previous album Glasshouse, yet zooms in on a lighter facet of her personality, and is threaded with a camp sense of humor that reflects disco’s frivolity as well as the cheekiness that is all over Ware’s Table Manners podcast but has been largely missing from her recorded music. ... It is a joy to hear Ware sounding so relaxed.

You crave a little more wreckage in their wake—a more wanton relinquishing of control, perhaps—but their abundant debut more or less lets them have their cake and eat it.

The tendency to descend into new age goo is still present, and Takk, like all of Sigur Rós' discography, is not for the viscerally-minded. Regardless, the record is more than just meaningless wisps.