Vollebekk laces his capacious, meandering music with a ’60s folk-jazz sensibility. As with Twin Solitude, he recorded New Ways directly to tape, allowing each song’s mood to dictate its direction.

It’s one of their most contented and effusive albums, and as a result one of their most immediately accessible.

The ideas on Death Jokes, his self-produced sixth album, are clearer. He is blunter and more forceful with specific meaning on this album than ever.

Wincing the Night Away is a lovely and well-executed album and-- for the first time in the band's career-- nothing more.

Now, you can only hear faint echoes of their past greatness underneath the lard-laden production; it’s something that will please the fanbase.

The sprawl is less generous than it is indulgent, rendering the album more intimidating and less accessible than it should be.

The band acquits itself amazingly well, mixing in a few originals with a well-chosen selection of Golden Age songs, folk tunes, and Azmari troubadour songs.

Remember the old Chris Rock bit where he ate broccoli and cheese for the first time as a kid and thought he'd want nothing but that for the rest of his life? Replace "broccoli" with "Jesus" and "cheese" with "Mary Chain" and you're getting close to the charmingly monomaniacal focus Stagnant Pools bring to their debut, Temporary Room.

The Loveliest Time is a solid counterpart to its sister album, trading quiet, introspective power for brassy, headlong joy.

This is guitar as salve, not weapon. Moments when feedback pokes into the mix feel tightly controlled, and you can almost picture him moving the guitar in imperceptible angles to keep the resonant frequencies in check.

The album doesn't have any of the euphorically propulsive standout tracks that held Redman's older albums together.

Despite all the guests, and the nods to global pop, Gloss Drop will still be best enjoyed by groove heads, whether they come from the rock or dance worlds, but if you worried Battles would run out of surprises on album two, who knew they'd find common ground between post-punk devotees, Yes fans, and the children of UK funky?

Festival is refreshingly cohesive, exploring varied themes without drifting off-course.

Madson finally strikes an equitable balance with Level Live Wires, a tightly constructed soundscape that hangs together more cogently than anything he's conceived to date.

There are times on Captain of None where the album’s architecture is so compelling it's easy to miss the resonance of the songs themselves.

He doesn't reveal many new tricks, but his knowledge of his own palette is masterful in every moment. More poetic and thoughtful than ever before, Jaar maintains an ability to fit seemingly disparate sounds together as if they were always meant to find each other.

A Morrissey record you can dig into without caring much about the man's lyrics.

There’s a tense, nervous energy running through all the tracks, which connect to each other like wires that spark electrical currents when they meet.

The album balances the Brewis brothers' predilection for unusual song structures and unconventional instrumentation with a decidedly grown up narrative.

The most fully-realized thing-- if not the most exciting one-- the band has released since 1994's Tiger Bay.

Though some may miss the rough and raw approach of her last two EPs, it's refreshing and exciting to hear music that relies on bone-hard essence rather than gauzy trimmings to create an aura of mystery.

While it might not be as substantial a record as we're used to hearing from him, it is his greatest leap forward, and further proof that few are as skilled at tracing out the complicated contours of pride, success and ambition as he is.

One Bedroom... signals a return to the half-on/half-off inconsistency that marred all Sea and Cake albums except Nassau and Oui, as a handful of misfires trip up the flow.

Nothing here feels like soapboxing; instead, the lyrics are subtle and poignant, with as much emphasis on storytelling as dissent.

It's The Horror's dirgey digressions that actually best showcase his cold-blooded character.

This music is as simultaneously functional and pleasurable as Luomo's more active house tracks, only it's for an opposite function--and a more sedate set of pleasure centers.

Choreography stands as a most impressive debut: one that captures a young rock 'n' roll band buzzing with raw energy and inspiration, while already displaying the sort of rapidly sophisticating songcraft you expect to hear on a sophomore release.

At heart, this is an enthusiastic debut that can’t quite live up to its own billing, but at least it shows two veterans who have bravely embraced the neophyte’s challenge of figuring out their sound.

The savvily sequenced Algiers ebbs and flows between moments of gritted-teeth tension and furious release, its solemn, confession-booth ruminations offset by heart-racing, steeple-toppling rave-ups.

["Sometimes" is] a knockout punch to an already gripping body of music and a fitting last word that cements this album not just as a heartfelt expression of love for John Cage, but for love itself.

Both in the events leading up to this album and in the music contained within, Vincent has proven imperfect. That messiness comes to define this album, making for machine music that’s lovingly flawed and human.

Bazan sings better than he ever has on Phoenix, his voice round and worn with intricacy from years of use, like a hiking stick toted in the same hand for a thousand miles.

Ma is a record rich with takeaways, about how to get by and how to be kind in a social order that tempts us to be indolent and indulgent. It is alternately soft and steely, somber and ebullient, confused and confident—as true to life as “The Body Breaks” and “I Feel Just Like a Child.”

Heavy Rain is a surprisingly inspired piece of late-period dabbling from a dub master.

Spiel is heavy but nimble, more direct in its arrangements and sentiments, but also moodier, more melancholy; it sounds like shoulders shrugged against a cold wind.

The songwriting is as strong and intricate than on 2006's classic The Warning, even if it takes a few listens for the finer points to sink in.

You sense feelings of longing and unease all over Nepenthe, which makes it a less blissful place to spend time than her previous album. But that also makes it a much more cathartic listen, and perhaps a more rewarding one.

Baird's voice sounds as potent and icy-clear as ever.

The album's second half is slightly more abstract than the catchy pop that precedes it, but these moments are tempered, causing the record to feel more focused.

As exhilarating as Fourteen Autumns is at its most anthemic, the vividness of the lyrical themes ultimately carries the record over.

On one hand, Dear Catastrophe Waitress ranks as one of the most delightful surprises of the year, although that's primarily because I'd completely given up on them. On the other hand, it's a very flawed record that at its quirky worst features harmonies so brow-furringly cheery they'd be comfortable amidst a cruise-ship revue or one of Up With People's halftime routines.

Experience can be a crutch, an excuse to tread water in comfortable waters. But Popular Songs wears its age well, a calm but firm reminder of an indie rock perennial it's all too easy to take for granted.

Pixx is at her sharpest when her doubt and discontent are animated by something more acute.

Carla dal Forno is willing to provoke listeners on a number of levels without spoon-feeding them. With You Know What It’s Like, she manages to do so on her own terms, in a way that feels both distant and inviting and rewards the listener’s willingness to sit with the ambiguity in between.

One of the year’s best and most urgent metal records, Head Cage is a fitting counterpart to another essential bit of 2018 heaviness, Thou’s Magus.

Diet Cig’s debut is almost entirely made of other people’s gestures hastily collected and cheaply executed.

Because Toro Y Moi is so closely linked with the likes of Neon Indian, Washed Out, and Memory Tapes, it's tempting to read into the success of Underneath the Pine as some predictor of those bands' collective staying power, or a direction others might take. But Bundick seems to be following nothing but his own internal compass.

A more immediate, less cerebral album than you'd expect from such a green musician.

Raw Money Raps is immaculately constructed as identity crises go, and there's an uncontrived honesty that feels more like someone working through a multifaceted outlook on life than testing his options for which crowd to play to.

The album is best when it’s at its broadest.

Wedded to the percussion-and-singer-plus-accompanist format, Barnett sounds marooned. It’s her least interesting album.

Whatever actual healing powers she may be channeling probably depends upon the patient; nevertheless, Kelly Lee Owens presents an artist with an unusually focused vision of what music is capable of.

It’s all fittingly scathing, but there’s whimsy under the surface, especially in Dwyer’s berserk vocal performances. His taunting, sneering voice cycles through loose impressions of iconic punk singers—Henry Rollins, Iggy Pop, Ian MacKaye, Johnny Rotten—without ever assuming a final form.

I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone curls into dark corners, exploring the depths of desperation and self-loathing that Chastity Belt only hinted at on their last two albums.

Future raises the stakes considerably, leaving the band's musical talents to play catchup with their new material's epic-sized dimensions.

On the sequel, Curren$y and Ski go even further with that central idea, pushing into sleepy, smooth funk territory that fits Curren$y's rap style perfectly.

The dilution of purist fidelity makes Here Be Monsters one of Langford’s least focused albums in recent memory, but it also ends up as one of his richest.

Part of the revelation of Boots No. 1, then, is witnessing Welch’s music made mortal, to hear her navigating her many influences with a young artist’s enlightened uncertainty, and to hear imperfect recordings that may not necessarily conjure universes on their own accord so much as they recall old-fashioned country music that’d sound at home on the radio.

The Marriage of True Minds hits harder and feels more joyfully physical than anything Matmos has done in years.

Despite Friedberger’s singular phrasing and voice, there’s something inviting and comfortingly familiar about Personal Record’s approach to pop melody.

For all its grandiosity, American Idiot keeps its mood and method deliberately, tenaciously, and angrily on point.

Fortune packs a subtle yet undeniable emotive force whose impact can linger long after the projector has gone dark.

At eight songs and just over 40 minutes, Filo is a fine thank you to friends--human and machine--who’ve stayed true over the years.

Perhaps an entire project of shapeshifting arrangements would be too personal for comfort, a too-clear window into Thornalley’s mind. For now, he seems content to keep us at arm’s length, his exquisite music a shield against the vulnerability of really being seen.

Saint Etienne never identified as Britpop, and fair enough. But with Home Counties, they give us a glimpse of what cutting-edge ’90s pop could have become if it had evolved into adult music with a more earthbound point of view.

He’s lither; he sings with a spring in his step, trusting the deepened range of his indignant burr. After several Pearl Jam albums of material pounded into meat sauce, the airier delights of Earthling’s end run let Vedder stretch—cautiously.

There’s no question that Jepsen can write songs that transport you—to the heat of the moment, the late-night neon glow, the driver’s seat on the way out of town. With a more defined roadmap, the whole album might have led somewhere worth sticking around for a while.

With Let’s Turn It Into Sound, Smith turns her music upside down, shakes out her assumptions, and lets the pieces fall where they may, all in the interest of finding new connections between things that were never meant to go together. It’s a leap into the unknown, and her excitement is infectious.

Mountain Moves indicates that something better--something made by diverse but like-minded collaborators--might be able to come next.

A solid, consistent return that sounds like the band never left.

The emotions are big and the choruses are bigger, but the production is too washed-out to risk actual vulnerability. It’s music to sink into, an electronic dreamy mush that’s somehow equal parts Foster the People and Mazzy Star.

These go-hard-or-go-home tracks are still sprinkled across Fluorescent Black... But those who've been along for the 10-plus year ride may be looking for more of them.

If Broken Dreams Club is indeed an honest glimpse of what's ahead, it sounds as though Girls have much more to give.

Granted, the record is far from perfect... Despite all of that, it is a Stephin Merritt record. And SM still maintains his charmingly cynical worldview and almost bottomless well of clever turns of phrase.

Walking with Thee is neither an album of triumph nor of disappointment.

If there's one positive remark to be made about What's Next to the Moon, it's that it sheds revelatory light on the subjective nature of lyrics. Yet, that might be the only truly positive remark this album deserves. Sure, Kozelek's voice is still smooth and sad, and his guitarwork is still deft, yet modest. But these are standard factory settings.

Measure is, if nothing else, a truly crafted record.

Deeply atmospheric and richly impressionistic, Under the Sun is an easy album to disappear into.

Though uneven, Lover is a bright, fun album with great emotional honesty.

This is straight-up anti-pop-rap: unpolished, unevenly mixed, structurally unbalanced, primarily self-produced, and polarizing. ... They don’t sound half-baked so much as purposefully unfinished, a move even further off the grid for one of our most promising shut-ins.

Payten’s writing is strong enough that she pulls off worthwhile takes on familiar themes. ... Her lyrics only falter when Payten sounds aware of her audience, becoming self-consciously clever.

Dennis is an album of floor-fillers, especially in its first half, that plays out like a bad hangover, one song shifting into the next like Dante passing through the circles of Hell.

Powers narrates these vignettes from a distant storyteller’s perspective, and a gap emerges between his authorial point of view and the intimacy of the home video material. This dissonance is certainly haunting, but when the album’s final track arrives in a montage of the VHS clips strung together over heartfelt piano, its affecting ambience feels somewhat abrupt. But the record’s final moments remind us that these songs still spring from a singular voice.

Different Rooms’ greatest coup—and what sets it apart from Honer and Chiu’s previous collaborations—is its command of form. The whole album speaks in parallel.

Once again, though, Baldi is simply unwilling or unable to stop writing hook-filled songs, rendering Here and Nowhere Else even more tense and thrillingly conflicted than its predecessor.

These tracks all feel like they were written by a very precocious teenager, and that’s a big part of their charm.

It seems particularly odd that for all the time and sweat Stoltz has put into this music, there's no sense of a real person behind these songs, just a tightly wound bundle of ideas borrowed from likely pop sources.

Lyrically, No Color is a step in a new direction for Dodos -- for mostly better.

Magnolia Electric Co. is no Crazy Horse, and Molina's vocabulary on the guitar doesn't yet have the presence to carry such extended interpretations of his material.

One of Speedy Ortiz’s strengths is that beneath all the instrumental layers, there’s a narrative puzzle to unpack. Sad13’s Slugger solves its puzzle for you, but in the hope that you will be able to go at it alone in the future.

“Breakthrough”, “masterpiece”, “bold leap”--those aren’t words that really seem applicable to With Light and With Love, or Woods for that matter, but they’re allowing themselves to be extremely likable for a larger crowd.

It doesn’t all quite land. ... But with the glow of “Doomscroller” acting as a foil, even those lesser songs still manage to productively contribute to that contradictory posture of solidarity-oriented striving that suffuses Formentera.

It’s that blazingly honest, hyper-personal quality that places Cerulean Salt in the tradition of Elliott Smith, early Cat Power, or Liz Phair's free-flowing Girlysound tapes--the work of a songwriter skilled enough to make introspection seem not self-centered, but generous.

In a year where the likes of Kanye and Trent Reznor have reached deep into the dark circuitry of the Wax Trax back catalog to revive the corpse of industrial music, Factory Floor’s relentlessness suits the present moment.

Even considering all the high points and raw power, II falters under the weight of the band's ambition.

Competent but not always compelling.

As the album plays out with its series of sketches that flip between the trivial and contemplative, and as Skepta tussles to find his place in the world, you’re left wondering whether he craves the bliss of youthful innocence or the responsibility of being a voice for a generation. Unfortunately, Ignorance Is Bliss is a deferral, splitting the difference with a series of half-measures.