Whether Wreckless Amy represents a one-off collaboration or the start of an ongoing project for both musicians remains to be seen, but they sound pretty happy together.

Unclear messages and unspooled melodies break new ground for Hval, and she inhabits it with grace on The Long Sleep. It’s as penetrating a work as Blood Bitch and its predecessor, Apocalypse, girl, but more humble in concept and more suspicious of its own claims.

The subject matter subverts her inherent sensuousness, but this is still Charlotte Gainsbourg singing-- at times, she can't help sounding like the cooing French goddess her father helped popularize. It's dead sexy, reborn.

C'mon feels more like a collection drawn from throughout the last decade than a completely cohesive album.

Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color is more of a refinement than a deviation for Brother Ali, even though there's one prominent change that could set off questions.

The happy-music-with-sad-lyrics shtick has been done often, but rarely so well since the Lucksmiths' namesakes.

Even a casual listener could hear the spark--Staples' first fame came from getting the best of known mic terrorist Earl Sweatshirt--his production values have finally caught up enough to push him past the scrappy sidekick division into the big leagues.

Much like the techno of yore, Persuasion serves its primary purpose as dance music, but is also intelligent, experimental, and above all, fun--all qualifiers that many of Blondes' compatriots could learn a thing or two about.

[The] more chaotic and caustic Sun Coming Down, but the album’s relentless drive and uncompromising attitude constitute their own special kind of thrill.

The album’s hypnotic quality grows ever more romantic and tense with repeat listens, a prescient-feeling experience that matches a zeitgeist: strung-out maintaining in the face of impending doom.

If their first album, 2015’s Momentary Lapse of Happily, was intimate as a dorm-room performance, Driver feels bigger, like it’s performed from a stage. Knipes uses the emotional force of their suffering to propel expansive, layered arrangements that make room for head-bobbing melodies, chilly synths, and guitar solos.

Staking his place as a fully formed singer, composer, and producer with All Our Knives Are Always Sharp, Njoku unsheathes his blade.

The more time you spend with Ambassadors, the more clearly that commitment and joy comes through.

Like all Cat Power records, The Greatest is a mostly sad, heartbroken, hopeless, rainy-day affair; it just isn't damaged. For that reason, it's also going to gain her a lot of new fans.

While Get to Heaven's ceaseless terror and heavy arrangements can be overwhelming, more power to Everything Everything for attempting to offer a nuanced understanding of a broken world at a time when a lot of their significantly less imaginative British indie rock peers say worse than nothing.

Ultimately, the picture that emerges on Twentyears is a simplified version of Air that swaps out most of their quirks for only their most palatable qualities. It’s a lite version of the band, and a frustrating missed opportunity.

This is heavy stuff and as fun as it can be, Cashmere is an unabashedly political record, careening from one geopolitical issue to the next the way that most rap albums treat boasts. Ultimately, though, its most impactful moments lie in the simple act of representation.

La Confusion offers uplift in a time of global insecurity.

Where his solo debut, Yr Atal Genhedlaeth, was a relatively subdued, Welsh-only affair, its successor takes unseriousness as seriously as any official Furries effort.

Director's Cut provides a unique opportunity to do an A/B comparison between a late-career artist and her younger self. But which you'll prefer likely depends on whether you favor a more assured artist working within her strengths, or a brash younger artist delighting in the defying of pop conventions.

On the right day, at the right time, the album's powerfully claustrophobic intimacy is more palatable; on the wrong day, at the wrong time, in the wrong frame of mind, White Chalk may be the longest half-hour in the world.

Thug's best songs are carefully structured, even if they appear effortlessly thrown together, and the most effective moments tend to be subtle, sidling up to the listener.... But the album's true highlights don't arrive until its close, with the one-two punch of "Draw Down" and "Wood Would".

Subwoofers are admittedly very cool, but by volume 4 (“Subenstein (My Sub IV)”) of K.R.I.T.’s magnum opus of adulation for the bass speakers, the conceit has worn a little thin. Still bumps, though.

A decade after making her solo debut, Stevenson has found her sweet spot as a singer-songwriter.

Throughout Yellow River Blue, you can clearly hear Yu Su joining together different parts of her life, and that fusion of disparate styles is part of what makes Yellow River Blue so inviting. Created with an exacting sense of compositional precision, it nevertheless wanders like a slow-moving river, offering a new discovery around every bend.

It's to Lambchop's credit that their music avoids comfortable resolutions. Instead, it hangs there, no moral, no judgment.

While certainly not on the level of The Days of Wine and Roses, this reunion record could be considered that debut’s rightful follow-up, at least in spirit.

We are hearing someone who risked his physical and emotional well-being searching for catharsis with “Two” and “Bear” and “Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out” and discovered freedom in acceptance. Green to Gold might feel peaceful, but it didn’t come easy.

As is typical in periods of self-discovery, Hideous Bastard is rife with growing pains. But surrounded by a trusted community, and in a few sparing moments of clarity, it hints at real beauty.

Constantly varied yet consistent to her core sound, Love Hallucination is Lanza’s most fleshed-out album to date. She simply sounds more comfortable luxuriating in it all.

Musically, Saturnalia, named after the Roman festival where slaves and masters switch roles, is a concentrated dose of their usual badassery, never straying too far from the territory Dulli explored on the last three Singers albums, and even includes many of the same collaborators.

It works best as group therapy, a 30-minute reprieve from the pervasive judgment of adulthood.

As it is, the more Auerbach changes things, the more they stay the same.

Big Ideas plays like an eclectic compilation of scattered thoughts from her journal. Songs grapple with big questions but offer few answers.

Raised in a library of music and having already dissected his influences, Rollie takes confident first steps as Cadence Weapon.

It is the sound of Iron & Wine returning home, ending one chapter and beginning another.

As a whole, Bestial Burden highlights Chardiet’s ability to re-draw the boundaries of her own artistic approach, ripping out its guts and creating something new out of the decaying remains.

Grid of Points burrows back into ambiguity, the vocal harmonies overlapping in foggy indeterminacy even when they are unaccompanied by any other instrument. And yet they are more heavenly than ever, Harris’ melodies drifting in almost liturgical directions.

It’s this unabashed ambition that makes You Should Be Here resonate long after one has internalized its motivational urges ("Can't nobody love somebody that do not love themselves") and tender observations on the mechanics of relationships (see the wistful "Unconditional").

In evoking Lynch and Badalamenti, Xiu Xiu have made one of their most beautiful and listenable albums, one that highlights everything the band does well while shaving down the rough edges that often turn away foes and friends alike.

King Hannah’s music may initially conjure journeys down America’s lost highways, but they’re well on their way to building a world all their own.

Running With the Hurricane is at its strongest when Camp Cope harness the swirling turmoil and ride it towards self-awareness.

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.

Even longtime fans may find themselves thunderstruck by some of the turns she takes here. But the record also confirms the essence of her creative identity; it’s shot through with sounds and concepts that have defined her work over the years, just presented in a way we’ve never heard them before. ... No Home Record offers something radically new and, in places, almost shockingly contemporary.

But while the sound of this album is more expansive, the influences a bit less obvious, and the approach more varied, the guys forgot to tote along their initial strength: the songs.

The Childhood of a Leader is a clear high water mark for Walker in terms of instrumental writing, but it is also, in many ways, an apt extension of textural ideas Walker has explored on his past two albums.

And whether he finds it lurking on the brink or actively upheaving his characters’ paths, Darnielle sounds right in his comfort zone, leaning on velvety piano and Jon Wurster’s tight rhythm to build the tension, allowing the record to feel progressively more on-edge as each track bleeds into the next.

The delicately chained unison of the guitar and vocal melodies makes for a standout passage in a record that feels fresher and sharper than we've heard from Veirs in awhile, and perhaps serves as the dark flipside of children's record Tumble Bee.

Thank You is still undeniably a Beach House album, a familiar mix of warm tones and chilly sentiments. With the imprint still fading on Depression, Thank You’s impact is undeniably dulled, causing a strange "too much of a good thing" problem.

On Sixth House, by embracing the spirit of their best records without leaning on those releases’ do-or-die, hard-luck intensity, they’ve found a way to settle comfortably into their strengths.

We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong is a raging bonfire, and although its scale is monumental, it boasts a revealing depth of field, every dramatic arc finely detailed.

Their jangly melodies claw their way inside your brain just the same, making them latest in a long line of Glasgow bands to effortlessly combine celebratory sonics and miserablist lyrics into something singular.

Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd arrives as a sweeping, confounding work-in-process. It’s full of quiet ruminations and loud interruptions; of visible seams and unhemmed edges.

The songs flow effortlessly along, and even the instrumental tracks are fully developed-- none suffer from the half-finished feel that made Places to Visit so dissatisfying.... As with past Saint Etienne albums, Sound of Water is ear-candy all the way through. Still, they've managed to add a layer of subtlety and novelty beneath the glossiness...

The tracks on Yanqui are content to continue building to bored, satiated endings we can see coming 20 minutes in advance.

Do some of the more standard-issue runs seem a bit labored? They do.... But the emotion buzzing out of these songs keeps a great number of them stunning, like indie-friendly versions of scores from period epics or superhero movies.

These are soulful sing-alongs with grit, pop nuggets that hold up to hours of repeat play in humid bumper-to-bumper traffic, and ultimately, the sound of a great songwriter hitting his stride.

Sometimes conceptual ambient albums can feel a bit forced-- Klimek's recent film-centric Movies Is Magic comes to mind-- but here the theme works hand-in-hand with the music.

Cruise Your Illusion holds its ground, but there are sociological elements to Milk Music's story that make the experience of the record even more fun.

Wagner’s songs remain skeletal--still just bone and flaking flesh--but the sound is more polished, crisper and starker and at times even slick.

Sweaty and ecstatic, elevated and pure, The Disco’s of Imhotep weaves quite the spell. This might be the most accessible Hieroglyphic Being album to date, but Jamal Moss remains out there on his own.

The new Rainer Maria is slower, heavier, and more methodical than the old one. They swing less but land more blows.

Throughout the record, each line is given its own story. Every vocal feels deeply considered and felt, yet nothing is over-rehearsed. She knows precisely when to dial in and when to dial back, when to fully commit to her longing and when to step back and shake her head at it.

Wet Will Always Dry is tender, intense, and dramatic. But most of all it is fun, in a way that only the pursuit of the most ludicrous aural stimulation can be.

While based on a text to help the recently deceased reach rebirth, Songs of the Bardo is very much an album about life; a salve as much as a guide.

The Unraveling takes meticulous care with each mix.

The basic material remains familiar—gated synth tones arranged in taut melodies and spindly arpeggios—but Senni has found a new flamboyance in these astoundingly ornate, often song-like pieces.

Regardless of his or his label’s intentions, it’s possible to hear Eight Gates as a fitting tribute. In its blank spaces, it reflects the spectral quality of his greatest music, albeit sometimes for different reasons.

The album has all the hallmarks of the era that Frusciante apes, but offers thoughtful, intriguing embellishments at every turn.

Cohen’s songs can sound loose and jammy on a first listen. The delicate strummed figure that kicks off opener “Milk” quickly refracts into pinwheeling dual leads—both played by Cohen, uncannily evoking a live performance—before the band settles into a groove, anchored by Evan Backer’s sensitive bass playing and Daniel Swire’s crisp drums (Evan Burrows plays drums on two other tracks).

This record doesn't intend to blow your hair back; it wants to get under your skin, and with its twinkling arpeggios, morbidly graceful lyrics, and barely there electronics, slowly, it does.

For now, on record, Chvrches know how go big on an intimate scale, to remind us of the stuff that keeps us living.

Music this theatrical demands a stage. On disc it plays a bit like a conversation-starting party favor: colorful and bright, but no substitute for actually being there.

Are the Roaring Night sounds richer, and while it doesn't rewrite the formula, it contains many small refinements to the band's songwriting and production skills.

It's brilliant at points, exhibiting the casual, grimy grace that laced Up the Bracket through English countryside benders, sing-alongs, and pub anthems, but evidently, The Libertines are creatures of excess, and even a good thing can be overdone.

It’s a complex portrait of a man in transition. The album is an evolution for an artist who still may have his best in store.

There’s no denying METZ’s ability to summon a white-knuckled, visceral disgust where tension and release are indistinguishable. It slaps, but it doesn’t leave much of a mark.

Time and again, the most powerful element of Gulag Orkestar, and what ought to be emphasized, is Condon's acrobatic, powerful, emotionally nuanced voice.

Good Time invites emotional confusion along multiple vectors. Lopatin’s score opens fissures that let its beauty and ambivalences burrow deep under your skin.

On Belong, Duterte’s re-emergence as Jay Som, she exudes the confidence of those six years quietly but well spent. What the album loses in raw shaggy experimentalism of her last records, it gains in understated poise.

Frustration and grief animate these songs, but it’s their simplicity and specificity that make them compelling.

This is one of those albums that creates its own little sound world, and a lot of its appeal has to do with qualities like texture and atmosphere.

YG and DJ Mustard have been dress rehearsing for nationwide stardom all along, but My Krazy Life is ratchet music’s Technicolor reveal.

A creeper, an album of broad gestures that reveal vivid, flickering details over time, its pleasures unfolding as what it actually is gradually erases speculative notions of what it might be.

3001: A Laced Odyssey does an adequate job of reminding us all of Flatbush Zombies’ smart, sharp lyrics. What they lack in hit-single potential, they make up for in talent, but without a calling-card song it's hard to know what their next move is.

It’s a testament to how a complicated love survived through self-reflection, compromise, and ruthless honesty.

Eternal Home is as ambitious and cerebral as it is self-indulgent; but unpacking these strange, messy depths has always felt like the whole point of Marcloid’s music. All of her searching yields some dazzling results.

Alone is less stripped-down than Impersonator, but it feels less confrontational, too.

Assume Form is aggressively pastel and suffocatingly serious. He has lost the playful sense of surprise that guided his falsetto’s agile twists and turns on his debut.

We, the Vehicles not only exceeds its predecessor, but serves as a corrective to every one of its deficiencies.

Twilight of the Thunder God merely refines these elements, but the tune-up is noticeable. In a discography filled with catchy songs, these are some of Amon Amarth's catchiest.

Never pedantic or didactic, never extreme or aggressive, Poor Moon is a warm hand on a cold shoulder, a vintage piece of soul music for new times in need.

The third album from this Canadian collective is their strongest yet, and clear proof that while yes, everything old is new again, there are a scant few armed with the passion and power to craft something worth revisiting.

It's a tricky muse, but every Lupe project has found a way to harness at least 15 or 20 minutes of his fluid, fleeting mind. Tetsuo & Youth is the most generous gulp he's managed in years.

At times, White’s knack for simplicity lapses into the slightly generic.

There is a lot of music about anxiety in the air these days, but Ellen Kempner’s voice is specific and visceral.

This album seems smaller than every record he’s made since 2011’s Chief. That modesty is the key to its very appeal: This is an album designed not for the moment but the long haul.

As a sit-down listening experience, the album frequently feels too repetitive to remain consistently engaging. Still, taken as a microdosed jolt of electronic psychedelia, a song or two at a time, Translate has the potential to lift you up, out, and beyond, to a better, stranger place.