These beats are bespoke. The rapping has never been better either, with the music tailored to wring maximum tension out of each bar.

It's gritty and honest. Beneath the surface-layer thrill of some of these songs are subtle character shifts and brave one-liners, all of which confirm VanGaalen's status as gripping songwriter as well as a producer.

Good as these guys are at mashing up genres on the fly, there's no denying the straighter, fist-pumpier stuff here works best.

Jay Rock’s concepts are braver and weirder here, his words more arresting and illustrative, but the major reinvention of 90059 is his delivery.

On a technical level, these songs offer the best performances of Sampa’s career, but in terms of style and emotion, they fall short. Despite the homecoming mood, Sampa often sounds distant, her rhymes functional and indistinct.

Now We Can See is bursting with clear-headed explorations of the ways that fear and neuroses hold us back from truly living, winkingly clinical examinations of the rote machinations that consume our lives, and tales of the savagery at the basis of modern existence.

At just over 40 minutes, Beautiful Rewind is an effortless listen, but when it wanders it feels like a bauble, one from an artist from whom we are accustomed to receiving richer gifts.

For Ween newcomers, FREEMAN is bound to sound odd, even off-putting. I get it. But this is the promise and labor of appreciating a lifelong cult artist like Freeman: taking the time to engage him on his own terms.

Even as its backdrop mutates from deep-house throbs to psych-rock guitar solos, Half Free always focuses your attention to where it should be: on Remy's radiant voice and vivid storytelling.

The new recordings retain their rough edge, but there's luminescence in the production--the percussion is crisper, the guitars are brighter, and Toledo's singing is a lot more pronounced.

It’s tempting to speculate that there are more versions like that out there, just waiting to be discovered. Blackbox Life Recorder, the EP, might seem relatively modest, but the black box that is Aphex Twin’s extended universe remains delightfully unfathomable.

The smarts and spritz of Dupuis’ writing, and the way her mates fuss up the arrangements, make Rabbit Rabbit one of those albums whose complications provide as much pleasure as hooks-hooks-hooks.

This feels like a step down from the last two albums.

As Good as Gone is Nudge's best album so far, the kind of record that indicates a band has found its signature sound, and is poised to deepen and expand it.

If Darcy’s lyrics require putting in some work to decode them, the band makes musical immersion easy by consistently striking the familiar balance of dissonant sound, disjointed melody, and bone-dry production that defined indie rock’s late-’80s/early-’90s golden age, before synths, string sections, and festival-baiting choruses became de rigueur.

It's also quite good, despite the possible failure of nerve on its creator's part.

The back half picks up where the debut left off, full of inspired pieces of paranoia-inducing industrial guitar noise and moribund pop textures--it too often seems like a misguided attempt to connect dots for the listener.

Kylesa's lyrics lean towards the abstract and personal. They avoid grand gestures or obvious themes that allow for easy grasp. This time, though, grasp is almost moot. The band has etched light, dark, sky, and earth so deftly onto wax that it vibrates the very soul.

He doesn’t appear interested in total formlessness, instead reaching a place that gets as close as he can to all-out loss of control then just about pulling back. Getting there is a thrilling white-knuckle ride, like peering over the ledge for 30 minutes but never jumping off.

I’m beginning to think it’s one of the smartest records-- musically and lyrically-- we’ll hear all year.

EarthEE makes one think more than feel.

Instead of a love letter to consuming blazes, Hoop's and Beam's collection appeals to our individual internal pilot lights: those softly smoldering flames that illuminate moments of beauty in ourselves, in each other, and beyond.

Lowly’s previous work hovered in a state of somber, slightly edgy, but otherwise unremarkable introspection. The music on Heba is exponentially more rich.

It's ultimately a spotty album from a guy who has released a lot of spotty albums.

Deep into their career, Dieng at times reveals the advanced stage of its players. The songs are taken a step slower, the rhumbas show a consideration for the pulse as well as the spaces between them, and the themes in some manner or another touch upon mortality.

Keeping solidly in line with the Brainfeeder tradition, Nostalchic is a forward-looking album, warm and comfortable but never obvious.

SOAK’s honesty, combined with her considerable musical gifts, ensures that Grim Town is always a nice place to visit, even if you’d never want to live there.

It's actually refreshing, then, to hear a record like Raphael Saadiq's unabashedly retro The Way I See It, which doesn't try to "update" old soul sounds to a hip-hop world and a white singer.

Organic and jubilant, it successfully weaves psych, world, rock, and folk traditions into something new and endlessly compelling.

Wanderer drags just the tiniest bit. It speaks softly from the echoes of the best Cat Power moments, which means it doesn’t ice-pick you in the center of your most treasured insecurities the way some of her most celebrated music has.

The most satisfying moments come when the orchestra stops playing, allowing the quartet to settle into its own groove, as it does often for those London sets.

On 925, Sorry lovingly poke fun at themselves and at rock history—but they also prove they’ve got the talent to go further than their gags.

Even as she’s lost some of her range, Williams’ voice remains sui generis. She’s never sounded more tender or unguarded as she does on “Where the Song Will Find Me,” leaning into her vibrato, letting the holes and pockmarks in her voice tell their own stories.

Fuzz consistently run the risk of noodling for a bit too long or pushing one idea a little too far. It's tricky to balance loud and quiet, and Fuzz are still finding their footing.

The transition from happy teenage taunts to cursing and sex talk was probably inevitable, and quality-wise, it's a wash. It's with the sound-- as provided by producers Matt Goias and Fancy-- that you get your payoff.

Love and Curses sounds as much a product of the present as of the past, and the new songs attack with goblin force but vampire sophistication, thanks to another new line-up.

Case remains her own best muse, a strong, feminine presence who demands you meet her songs halfway (she calls herself a control freak in every article I've read), but her band deserves credit for creating the ambient, dark-night setting in which her tales of murder and animals sound natural and compelling.

The music is a heady swirl of baggy beats and unabashed Beach Boys melodies, while the lyrics are wholly uninterested in anything intellectual.

First Taste is sharply paced, sequenced for maximum impact as two separate vinyl sides but also effective as a seamless 41-minute listen. ... If the songs don’t linger as long as the sound, chalk that up to Segall being a “first idea, best idea” kind of guy. This time, he concentrated on production. Maybe next time around, he’ll turn his attention to the tunes.

With The Something Rain, Tindersticks provide a wholly convincing reminder that they are, by definition, an incendiary device.

Beyond production, Grizzly Bear have stepped up their songwriting in every way, assembling melodies that proceed in a logical fashion but never sound overused or overly familiar. Yellow House is a much better record than we could rightfully have expected from these guys, better, even, than we could have imagined them making.

It doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know about Cash in his final months, nor does it sound like an attempt to re-brand an icon or re-shape a legacy.

II is a perfectly balanced record, and its arrangements are so exact and delicate that it almost feels like one buzz of a doorbell or ring of a telephone could send the whole thing toppling over, splattering into useless bits.

Ultimately, Blessed has the feel of a transitional album-- from lonely to married, from troubled to contented, from regretful to joyful.

Everything great about Neil Young, electric guitarist, is on full display, his singular tone veering from feral growls and feedback to blistering fury while the other three egg him on with subtle, perennially underrated counterpoint.

Elk-Lake is a benign, restful listen, showing a once-unwieldy, always-vibrant creative mind having found a peaceful medium. While it's easy to appreciate the man's development, this blunted songwriting is somewhat less resonant-- and seems somehow less Hayden.

It's all good enough, but how many times, really, do you need to hear the term "rock the mic" in an hour? Not this many.

Their bar band approach sounds as if they've taken a book of rock history and, dutifully following along, bookmarked some of the most unremarkable passages.

Man-Made ultimately sounds exactly like you'd expect a Teenage Fanclub album to sound, but with just enough extra to make it feel new again.

Call it retro in service of sweat and smiles, celebrating the ridiculousness of dance music at its loudest and most unmannered.

The sub-demo quality's most annoying attribute is the blocky digital clipping that happens whenever the voice recorder is overloaded, which is often. So if you don't have a tolerance for cut-rate sonics--and this isn't even the warm analog stuff--forget about it. But if you do, the best songs on BiRd-BrAiNs can sneak up on you.

While it's somewhat difficult to reconcile their whole career in one live disc, the material remains unpredictable even as it gets a little more cerebral. For those who had even a passing interest in Trans Am's music over the years, this set is a fine reminder of why you likely tuned into them in the first place.

The album as a whole isn't quite able to leverage that into a recognizable aesthetic, but it comes tantalizingly close.

Reserved and mechanical as it is, Horizontal Structures is a very warm record. Von Oswald and his regulars soak the music in reverb and atmosphere.

Keeping listeners on their toes while also mimicking the way this music was often heard by fans-- it's an odd but effective approach, especially considering the usual keep-the-party-going Fabriclive style.

The guys' commitment to music-as-fun and big, croon-y hooks (Goddard's velvet vocals sound as good as ever here) keeps it enjoyable throughout.

Yet past all the stylistic flourishes, Generals is openhearted, politically engaged, feminist pop that, miraculously, never veers into schmaltz (or worse, didacticism).

Mars is both refined and easygoing, if not a bit aloof at times.

Though it makes left turns and constantly tweaks its formulas, In Focus? is admirably coherent and cohesive, with each little pile-up of ideas finding its place in the big pile-up of ideas that comprises the album.

While the best work of the Clientele created worlds, The House at Sea charmingly aspires to being a photo album, something to inspire your own travels rather than serve as a substitute for them.

With previous releases, he's earned his heroic acclaim in the tough, tried-and-trusted lanes of contemporary jazz. With No Beginning No End, he's built his own road out.

The Evans narrative provides an emotional throughline that connects and grounds this stylistically free-ranging collection.

Three records into his return, on the most Spartan cut of the bunch, James is sounding more energized than ever.

The title of Age of Transparency acts as Ashin's commentary on the way we live our lives out in the open, and his music seeks to pull you through uneasy, emotional dregs with its every turn. But what once felt intimate has started to lean to over-exertion.

It sounds quite unlike any of the electronic music being made in 2016, and is refreshingly unfashionable in that way.

On Unfold, they’ve wondered aloud if the spell of their long-form magic works when stunted by the limitations of physical media and shuffled by the will of the listener. It does.

Feel Infinite is warm and inviting, a taut mix of R&B love songs to finding your true self on the floor.

While Twerp Verse offers no tune as stick-like-glue as Foil Deer’s “The Graduates” or Major Arcana’s “Plough” it offers compensatory pleasures.

The best thing an album like DNA Feelings can do to you is make you feel lost, and it does, frequently.

Wall’s sophomore album, Songs of the Plains, uses the sounds of country icons like Waylon Jennings and George Jones as musical frames for the unfurled feel of those prairie stretches. Borrowing both the stylistic and storytelling genealogies of folk and traditional country, Wall extends a tip-of-the-hat to their golden fields.

On their pressure cooker of a fifth album, Last Building Burning, they rebound with a magnificent course correction. Volume and fury? Sure, they can do that. Still, they meet the demand with almost passive-aggressive relish.

These arrangements may help give definition to a tune as fragile as Vernon’s “Dedicated” but, more than anything, casting these recent songs in the same light as “Touch a Hand” or “Let’s Do It Again”--a number one hit for the Staple Singers back in 1975, but rarely remembered as well as “Respect Yourself"”--helps shift the focus to how Mavis still sounds mighty as ever.

“If I May Be So Bold” and “I Will Stay” are sweet songs about determination and devotion, but they lack a certain, well, je ne sais quoi. Carll’s sharpest instincts don’t show here, so it sounds like he’s writing about self-reflection without doing much self-reflecting, solving equations without showing the math.

Her strongest, most distilled release. The playlistification of mainstream music has not hindered this refreshingly concise collection of pop, rap, and ’90s R&B resilience.

Finn has already built a sturdy legacy, but his solo records yield their own durable pleasures: I Need A New War shines like a beacon of light in a dark time.

Anger Management is a hell of a rap-production slapper, but most of all it’s a turning point in Rico’s evolution.

On tracks like “Olden Days” and “Rainbow of Colors,” Young’s basic folk melodies are rendered grittier and heavier by the band, if no less tender.

That split between sound and spirit lends another layer to the forlorn songs she’s been singing her whole career. In the genteel melodies and floating arrangements, she suggests that it’s still possible to find meaning when you’re weighed down by these feelings.

The Slow Rush is an extraordinarily detailed opus whose influences reach into specific corners of the past six decades, from Philly soul and early prog to acid house, adult-contemporary R&B, and Late Registration.

Through Water refines her sound: heavy piano chords; wistful, solipsistic duets with her own pitched-down voice; high, ethereal backing vocals; and low, mournful synth pads like artfully arranged clouds.

Confinement prevents the EP from reaching GREY Area’s heights, but Drop 6 still contains deeply affecting moments.

The eight songs on the new record are all original compositions written and developed over the past six years, yet there’s no mistaking it for anything other than a Cabaret Voltaire album. While not as pulverizing as the group’s early recordings nor as sleek as the techno and house-inspired work found on 1993’s International Language, it blends the various eras of the group into a mostly satisfying whole.

While city pop and environmental music thrive in functional settings that immediately translate across cultures, Somewhere Between feels part of a broader refusal to be understood on the same terms, forcing listeners to engage with a history that goes deeper than immediate feeling.

Despite its tight construction, Garbology is at its best when it succumbs to a certain irresolution.

And yet as much as Everything Was Forever consolidates the band’s strengths, it also blurs the traditional contrast between Sea Power’s principal songwriters.

It’s self-assured in its awkward swooning, forthright in its faith in four-on-the-floor. In its own way—in its belief that its own way will triumph—Sad Cities is its own kind of triumph.

The record’s complexity reveals itself over several listens, its slow-motion quietude opening up into a not-quite-happiness; what might be described as flow, or else, focus.

Candy defile hardcore’s typical structures with elements of industrial techno and noise. While their spewed condemnations of society feel expected, Candy occasionally wade into the muck of lust. It is their love songs that feel the most extreme.

With fleet-footed beats, breezy woodwinds, and impassioned lines in Yoruba, Fireboy invites the world to the lively sounds of his hometown.

CAZIMI, Rose’s long-delayed third record, makes a complete song cycle out of those entanglements, with each cut reflecting the proper amount of neon.

No matter how unambiguous the references, these don’t feel like imitations; they feel like Nathan Fake tracks.

On Selvutsletter, Hval slips into rabbit hole after rabbit hole, and all we can do is follow her down.

On their second album, Harm’s Way, McGreevy and fellow guitarist Lewis don’t do much to upset their winning formula; they just execute it with more militaristic precision.

It’s ambitious, stadium-sized, and risky—the sound of Hollis wringing his newfound star power for all it’s worth. Hollis’ two brief stabs at building up star’s world through balladry feel extraneous by comparison.

A Study of Losses has some of Condon’s most effortless songwriting in years, melodies flowing with the easy appeal of the best of Lon Gisland and Gulag Orkestar.

Rae is at her most delightful balancing camp and sincerity on starry-eyed numbers in which all the world’s a stage.

Worldwide fortifies Snooper’s sound by forcing the stiff loops of a drum machine to warp under the weight of their ricocheting guitars. Studio time didn’t kill the punk band. It granted them space to play faster and looser without losing any of the fun.

An undeniably sad record, but one of understated beauty: a lonely, faithful votive flickering brightly against the odds.