There are moments when Every Loser’s carefree bravado degenerates into puerile silliness (amid the Stonesy trash of “All the Way Down,” you’ll find nuggets like “I’m gonna blow up a turd!”), but such outbursts are balanced by more nuanced, emotionally resonant performances.

A 29-track, 93-minute rock opera that immediately restored their claims to outsized ambition, as only a 29-track, 93-minute rock opera might.

The result is a revelatory experience that requires no legible revelations: vocals of ecstatic defiance matched to music seemingly composed of pure magnitude; melancholic synths, sparse guitars, and bombastic strings and drums. The overall feeling is of an all-hands, against-the-odds triumph against staggering forces.

There’s a moment in virtually every song where a single loose strand seems to break free and float skyward and it’s there, in the languid sway, where Snow truly takes hold.

Its songs are subtly overstuffed, brimming with layers of luxurious melody and imaginative variation.

On Healing Is a Miracle, she’s never been further from the category of background music. Sincerity this pure draws attention to itself. It’s a genuine revelation.

While it’s hard to imagine how anyone involved with the VU’s album would feel about this tasteful tribute, its very existence still speaks to the force of the original vision. After all this time, artists are still peeling back layers of the banana.

Invariable Heartache sounds more like one of Lambchop's more countrified records, which is to say the music is both lush and minimal, the sound of so many musicians giving themselves over completely to the song. It's a gateway album to Chart's back catalog, as well as to an adventurous era in Nashville history.

Most impressive, though, is that Hecker has built for us this make-believe area to inhabit, to explore with him. While there's a bit less room in this space than those he's constructed before, it's still very much an achievement, and one to be celebrated.

Despite Woods' humble production values and their fondness for living room ambiance, Songs of Shame has that almost subliminal ability to make one want to move in to listen more closely.

Geneva's a record with dirt underneath its fingernails and resolute urgency at its heart, and like the place from which it hails, it's worth the bluster.

The songs are long and dynamic, pushing their boundaries to the limit while maintaining spaciousness.

Shilonosova’s corner of Moscow is bubbly and fantastical--a place where you want to live and explore every nook and cranny.

None of these songs sound like demos or leftovers, but Flying High doesn’t reach for the stars, either. This is an exhibition bout for the MCs—the pairings are solid but unsurprising—and, like most Alchemist solo projects, it concludes with instrumental versions of each song.

The tension between those two poles--refusing to grow up and yearning to move on-- is the emotional engine that drives the band and its impressively confident record.

Flirtations with big-sky atmospherics can hardly hold these songs together. What sounds like a hodgepodge of Edgy experiments and raised-Zippo nostalgia is just that: a hodgepodge.

It is more songful than anything Lopatin has done.

Magma’s not nearly as esoteric as the albums that preceded it--and considering how Gojira’s progressive tendencies have distinguished them from the get-go, the catchiest tracks on the record arguably take the biggest risks.

At its best, Remember Her Name captures her steadfastness and grace in equal measure.

These songs store well more than a half-hour of reward and intrigue-- appropriate enough for a record that had to be made three times.

The songs here are shorter, less cluttered, and just generally easier to listen to than Bitte Orca, which will disappoint you only if you love Dirty Projectors because of their relentless complexity.

There are no obvious singles or earworms, but more so than Petals for Armor, FLOWERS for VASES takes a step closer to healing.

Glowing in the Dark homes in on the group’s most memorable set of songs to date—and it sounds like a little extra time curating has helped them loosen up and have fun, too.

The rest of the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack consists of Rahman's evocative score, which meshes pounding technoid percussive-heavy pieces (such as "Riots" or "Mausam And Escape") and slightly less forceful cues (such as "Ringa Ringa"), some of which seem designed to bring to mind specific moments in the film, some to evoke more general emotions.

They sound more into straight lines than catchy arcs, more into the moment than what came before.

Craft’s outsized personality is matched by less flashy, more fundamental skills: vivid, immersive storytelling and sharply focused, fat-free songs that have the lived-in feel of 40-year-old FM-radio favorites.

Accelerate's broad strokes, big riffs, and beefy production (the album was reportedly recorded in "just" nine weeks) are admirable, as is the disc's concision, but its success is still more as a step forward than a slam dunk.

Tidbits keep the sense of fun in The Beths’ music, they aren’t enough to fully invigorate their second album among the more sluggish songs. They’re mostly a reminder of what’s missing.

Deer Creek Canyon is a deft fine-tuning of her meandering rustic tendencies, the tweaks so minor and carefully placed they're at first nearly imperceptible.

Perhaps they figured dark times call for bright music, but this overly polished record often feels like a missed opportunity.

Night Time, My Time isn’t the reactionarily somber anti-pop drag it could have been--instead, it’s a smart Kelly Kapowski hair-whip and loud bubblegum-crack of a record that lends itself to compulsive listening.

Black Metal offers few definitive answers, but this time around the hazy images he's projecting have come into sharper focus.

It’s exciting to hear the freedom of Jóhannsson’s compositions in autonomous music, and with Orphée he’s reasserted himself as not a just an elegiac film score guy.

Nouns is so cacophonous, so fertile, and so ripe with sound that parsing out the samples and effects and various layers of guitar is nearly impossible; besides, it's way more satisfying to just close your eyes and just enjoy it.

What’s most disappointing about the album is how Ryder-Jones has almost completely abandoned taking any sonic risks. His vocal is dulled and rasping throughout, and the songs never blossom like those on If..., seemingly hamstrung by his limited range.

When he’s not wasting time trying to glower, he proves himself surprisingly versatile. ... There are a lot of guests on Hollywood’s Bleeding, and all of them sound engaged.

It’s as if O’Brien set out to make the paragon of a modern My Morning Jacket album and succeeded in both style and sound, only forgetting to leave room for the surprises that actually gave their early works ineffable power. It’s boring.

Ambition can just as easily manifest itself as a desire to create a relentlessly catchy, "classic indie" album in your own dorm room, and if that's what Surfer Blood set out to do, Astro Coast succeeds wildly.

While this record's sense of self and attention to detail deserve to be praised, a small shift in Lanza's positioning and prominence could be the change that takes her next project from good to great.

Her musical ideas and lyrics have caught up with the ability of her voice. The songs are well varied, and transition smoothly from one to the other.

Temptation is strong enough to stand with any of Byrne's other solo work, that rare film score that works beautifully as an entirely separate record.

What they do well might be best exemplified by "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", which most effectively pairs their sense of theatricality and grandiosity with their penchant for great pop hooks.

They cast a powerful spell and sustain it over 11 tracks, yet at times you wish they'd jam, or perform a cover, or do anything to break it up somehow.

Despite the summery song titles and the beach balling associations that might follow these guys around, this music transcends the notion of seasons.

Chant Darling doesn't hit strike that balance often enough, and very few of these songs allow such a glimpse of the musician behind them. Ultimately, Lawrence Arabia's carefully tailored influences have the same effect as that stage name, as if Milne was intent on absenting himself from his own album.

Mr. Dream have mastered the tricks of alt-rock enough to play these sorts of formal games, but that isn't nearly as satisfying as when they push themselves outside of their wry, cynical comfort zone and hit upon something more nakedly emotional.

Cat's Eyes is the rare side project effort that feels as (if not more) fully realized than the band from which it borrows members.

He has the sound down, somewhere between Factory Records sturm-und-drag and grotty old VHS-tape slasher soundtracks, but you could never accuse Bermuda Drain of being a slick or faceless attempt at mere nostalgia.

Though this EP plows a narrower row than Judges, Stetson still manages to show us two very different aspects of his visceral minimalism.

It's another excellent chapter in CFCF's story, a strong case for how much unexpected magic can be found in the ordinary and, more importantly, in CFCF's ever-mutating discography.

The headspace it produces is calming but frequently, dreamily surreal, and it often seems like a better place to live than the world outside it.

There is much more to Heaven Adores You than endearing scraps, however, and none of them are more important than the version of "True Love" that appears here.

At various points, Faraway Reach is: a shrug; a call-to-arms; a balm. At its best, it's all these things at once.

The music hammers with industrial heft, vibrates with nervous pulse, and envelops with tactile atmosphere. Even when her songs achieve moments of transcendence, they still strike you directly in the gut.

The World’s Best American Band is mixed significantly louder than anything else you’re probably listening to right now and it’s equally glittery and gritty like a blood-caked switchblade—far more polished than the similarly indebted Sheer Mag, but with more edge to rule out any comparisons to the ’70s LARPing of Free Energy.

The raw, carnal fervor of Booker’s punk numbers is still present--and sometimes it’s more pronounced--on Witness’ acoustic and naked electric blues and soul, when the opposing forces of a lush or refined landscape and Booker’s gravely voice work in concert.

This duality of lush, sensual guitar music and entropic noise resonates with the album’s implied textual theme.

Wintres Woma is an album that makes itself easy to like.

As impressive as Frost’s music is, he seems always a bit too eager to impress, a sure turn-off. It’s less a matter of the parts Frost writes, which are often lovely and/or awesomely grand, and more in the way he frames them.

Phases isn’t as cohesive as her previous albums but, terrific and revelatory in its own right, it feels like a link between them, a trail of dropped clues to the creative process of the defiantly mercurial Olsen.

These songs suggest the continuous struggle to be comforted, and Shauf finds himself stronger in the company of others. Even in the detail of lonesome battles, Foxwarren’s kinship and warmth persist.

It’s the vocals that provide the color. Nate chops them like confetti, stretches them like taffy, explores every crevice of their contours. ... It sounds complicated--from a technical standpoint, it is complicated--but the results are surprisingly easy on the ear.

Muldrow and Perkins root their work in the present by paying homage to the sound and radical spirit of their West Coast home.

Her striking lyrics take aim at present-day bigots who clamor for closed borders—“Look how these brown hands cook all your meals/But mama says you want us all to disappear”—but she’s more concerned with the persistence of this foundational hatred, and with the people she loves, who have thrived “through so many moons” and continue to thrive in spite of racist brutality.

These feel less like songs than experiments in pushing Stott’s habitual techniques to the breaking point.

The original songs on Peck’s latest Show Pony EP are more vague [than Pony}.

The album doesn’t have enough blemishes, stumbles, or flourishes like this to give it extra excitement and curiosity. The risk level stays relatively comfortable; the payoff never really shoots up.

Bird can sound too clever, Mathus not clever enough. But These 13 allows each to compensate for the shortcomings of the other while playing up what makes them distinctive. Their voices and instruments combine effortlessly, like old friends getting together for coffee.

Established! is perfectly placed to twang heartstrings and hamstrings alike, bursting with audacious energy, liberal sass, and mountains of soul.

Heaven suffers because its settings imply a compositional weight that the songs just don’t carry; Fear has a clearer sense of itself as a collection of shiny amusements.

From the self-deprecating shrug of a title to its brief run time, the aesthetic details of Anyhow suggest a musical trifle. But the reality is a work of profound detail, fascinating musical textures, melodic twists, and stylistic ambiguity that is more diamond dust than pocket lint.

Journey is a carefully curated sampling of Garson’s talents as a composer, arranger, synthesist, and sound designer. It adds to his mystique as a channeler of otherworldly frequencies, a grinning virtuoso tapping into the beyond one patch cable at a time.

There’s palpable joy in the songs’ anthemic structures and Medford’s bright, confident delivery, even though there are reminders that this self-awareness was hard-won. Medford makes the crying and bleeding sound fortifying nonetheless.

When No Birds Sang is the rare metal album whose greatest virtue is its delicacy.

It all amalgamates into a fine late-career achievement for the master bandleader.

Songcraft is still their priority, and their moments of indulgence are not without self-awareness or criticism.

Their most consistent and propulsive set of songs yet.

Maybe he’s lost the spartan immediacy of his earliest records, but he’s gained a sense of camaraderie that makes his music feel nourishing.

The Truckers demonstrated with 2008's Brighter Than Creation's Dark that they don't need non-stop yuks and grotesqueries to reach greatness, but the best moments of The Big To-Do nonetheless offer tantalizing proof that these guys still possess fascinatingly warped minds when they feel like showing 'em off.

Despite its highs, Ultraviolet is a patchwork of arduousness, with some seams still showing.

With Formerly Extinct, Rangda not only prove themselves to be a going concern as a band, but that they might just be starting to really hit their stride.

Sure, greater dynamic variety and some selective risktaking would be nice, but these precocious upstarts already got the tough part pinned down: subtlety. Psapp have laid themselves a remarkably self-assured template for subsequent outings.

For a record so bent on impressing the listener, Culture of Volume somehow never manages to leave a mark.

With I, Gemini Let’s Eat Grandma not only hold their own with their predecessors, but they also create a world that demands you come to it on its own terms, not the other way around. An impressive achievement from musicians of any age.

COW has some of the Orb’s most gentle moments to date, but in eschewing their own classic album and instead oddly reflecting on one from their peers, they fail to get beyond the Ultraworld and the world of Chill Out, at times mimicking little more than some BBC sound effects.

While it's pleasing to see Ripatti further hone his familiar sound, I can't help but prefer the alchemy of the new: The best moments on Convivial transpose that unmistakable air of aching longing onto a broader, less predictable sonic palette.

Niblett's music is very much an acquired taste, and there are few ways to enjoy this other than on her terms. She's not oblivious to this, and she has a sense of humor about it.

El Perro's brand of pop is certainly easy to love, and a cozy sort of organic warmth--characterized by thick, resonant drums and keys, and treated guitars that seem to lurch and lumber with the slightly irregular rhythms of real life--pervades the new record.

Even with the apparent shifts and changes, all four of Swedish's songs would have fit snugly on Heartland. But Pallett is hardly running in place, either. In fact, he's created such a comparison-resistant framework for his unique sensibilities that no matter where he takes his sound, he'll sound like no one other than himself.

Half the cuts here don’t make it to three minutes, but they still drill into your mind with ease.

It would have been far easier to ignore these complications, play the lovable oddball, and put together an entertaining tour of his home city for outsiders. Instead, Wauters seems to have gone searching for his hometown and found his own reflection.

On Blu Wav, Grandaddy’s first album in seven years, Lytle leans into bittersweet Americana twang, a natural fit for his fatally flawed, cautiously optimistic cast of characters.

They’re crafted artifacts that never quite captured his live charisma. Still, his weathered, yearning voice provided a focal point for Brenneck’s retro fantasias and helped freshen them. If anything, this farewell helps preserve the singer’s charms by illustrating how his revivalism wasn’t pure.

The Chap couch this darker subject matter in their sleekest, most elegantly crafted songs to date, wherein the influence of pop's reigning sardonicists, Steely Dan, becomes as much musical as it has always been spiritual.

Lyrically, Tenderness can be pretty shallow. If these are songs about disconnection and misunderstanding, the lyrics don’t do a great job of fleshing out the concept. ... Still the warm, well-wrought pop of Tenderness is by far the group’s most enjoyable collection of songs.

Bonny Light Horseman gently cut these songs free from aging roots, transplanting them to the present.

Sometimes the writing on The Answer Is Always Yes is more generic than you’d expect from Lahey. .... But Lahey’s gift for imagery shines on songs like the hazy acoustic trip “The Sky Is Melting,” a rowdy story of misadventure: She spars with a deadbeat pal while high on melted weed gummies, trading conspiracy theories and belting out corny yacht rock before vomiting into a ravine.

Every Craven Faults record is immersive and overwhelming, and Sidings is no different.