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

His record’s name is meant to suggest a certain sense of incompleteness, but it’s one of the most well-edited, coherent debuts to emerge in recent memory.

One senses a massively missed opportunity, a chance for exploration blown by Jarre's insatiable need to make everything bigger, more impressive.

She does so much work on Get Gone that you wind up hoping she follows through on her promise.

On their new album Bottomless Pit, they stitch together one of their most cohesive grotesques ever, renewing their focus on songcraft, rather than chicanery.

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.

It’s more of a slow burn and a slight step backward from Liquid Spirit’s dynamic nature. The results are nice, but with too few standouts, Alley breezes by.

Throughout the album, Yorke’s everyday enlightenment is backed by music of expanse and abandon. The guitars sound like pianos, the pianos sound like guitars, and the mixes breathe with pastoral calm.

Unlike a truly original record like Ether Teeth, For Good is hardly groundbreaking: it’s an album of warped, melancholic indie-pop that slots in nicely next to acts like Sparklehorse, the Eels, and Radiohead. That’s hardly a bad thing, even if Fog’s current incarnation is a far cry from its more experimental beginnings.

The record is fluid, but front-loaded.

Clocking in at 76 minutes, The Colour in Anything is Blake’s wonderfully messy dive into maximalism.

It still speaks for Cluster’s prescience, to render the mechanistic noise of early electronic devices and warm them up in such a manner so as to reveal that no matter the new technology, such components are ultimately human after all.

All in all, the sparks are overshadowed by poor choices and general lack of direction.

Will may at first seem small, private, and modestly appointed--just a room with a piano, a synthesizer, and a looping pedal--but once you settle in, it feels as vast as the universe in there.

Whether autobiographical or artistic, As If Apart is a powerful, exquisitely realized journey, the sort of bummer that sounds strongest in that alien hour between when you’re supposed to fall asleep and when you should be jerking awake.

The production and Wolf’s vocals are lush and subdued to where the story feels like one long dream sequence. Its best moments come when Geti yanks you violently into a scene.

Not only does the record’s scrappy, lived-in ambiance reflect the DIY necessities of that scene--it creates an intimate, densely packed time-capsule, in which strange aromas have mingled until even the minor curios are a source of wonder.

On Trágame Tierra, Bates is both audacious and original, two qualities that are hard to fault. But in the absence of focus, listening to Trágame Tierra can feel like looking for dinner in a candy store: there's a lot of brightly-colored packaging to take in but not much you can really sink your teeth into.

On Paradise, Barber-Way steps outside of her own body and the assaults it sustains, and creates a searing portrait of what it can look like to love without fear, even when that love doesn't resemble the fantasy we've been sold.

Overall, White Hot Moon is likely to please existing fans of Pity Sex--its 12 tracks largely find the band continuing to leverage what worked on Feast of Love. That said, White Hot Moon isn’t quite as catchy as that record.

The message is encoded into every note: If Anohni's music can manifest into something new, then perhaps we can. There is risk involved with moving from a timeless sound towards one that attempts to capture a moment, but without risk art is worthless.

Despite the omission of obvious classics like “Warm Leatherette” or Fad Gadget’s “Ricky’s Hand” (presumably because the Mute label archive was off-limits to the compiler) Close To the Noise Floor provides a fascinating overview of the formative years of British home-studio electronica: groups who were precursors in spirit, if not direct lineage, to the techno and IDM artists of the ’90s. Still, with the cult for “minimal wave” now a decade old, it almost feels like another task has become urgent: the rediscovery of the groups that did the groundwork for the outfits on Disc 3 of Noise Floor.

Boeckner's melodies are precise and the choruses show moments of bright clarity cutting through the foggy verses: not unlike fleeing a bleak reality to find asylum in a dream. He hasn't sounded this committed and angry since leading Atlas Strategic a decade and a half ago.

Nonagon Infinity is overstuffed with so many stomach-tossing thrills that you’ll actually be jonesing to ride the roller-coaster all over again.

He is as detail-oriented with his beats as he is with his raps, providing the right mood at every occasion. Some of them are busy and swarming, while others are pleasantly simple.

Where Little Red saw Katy throwing herself into the occasional ballad, Honey is reduced to a pure set of dance music; within these aesthetic limits, though, it may be her most varied record stylistically.

The 19 tracks that make up this confectioner's array sit in neatly ordered rows, most of them sweet, light, and pleasant, with novel ingredients often cropping in the middle or even near the end of tracks.

Spanning an obnoxious 82 minutes, the record goes through several musical and thematic phases, but the overall atmosphere is bitter, petty, worn-down. It confuses loyalty and stagnation, wallowing in a sound that is starting to show its limits.

Sometimes the hooks on Genesis get wonky, there are portions of the record that feel unfinished (like the second half of "Wanderer"), and every now and then Domo will sneak in a groaner. But for the most part, Genesis is a revelation.

Methyl Ethel’s debut full-length, Oh Inhuman Spectacle, is reflective of the project’s humble, hermetic beginnings, with Webb handling all the production and instrumentation.

If the first half of the album has a lethargic sense that record never quite shakes, the last two tracks suggest there may be more for the group to explore in the future.

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.

As much as the record flirts with reinvention—personal, political, musical--its modest ambition sounds exactly like complacency.

True to that nighttime scene-setter, Nocturnal Koreans ranks among Wire’s most musically relaxed releases, with Newman mostly singing in calm, sometimes hushed tones. But it’s only relaxed in the sense that a sleepless night in your bedroom is relaxed.

Dälek took hip-hop into new stylistic realms before. This time, although Brooks and company may not have specifically intended as much, on Asphalt for Eden, hip hop ascends into the noosphere.

This group is wise and capable enough to eschew nearly every shortcut of today's personality-first music culture and dial into the silence between the noise. It's what confidence sounds like.

A little more editing and pacing might have made the whole album like this, but given enough time, Triangle has moments of clarity to be found.

The Ship is a great, unexpected record.

Skifflin', an enjoyably low-stakes release, feels less like McCombs’ next frontier in tackling the Great American Folk Album than a leisurely sojourn.

They always sound nostalgic, but the immediacy of Dahlström's vocals yanks all the warm, communal feelings associated with that sound into a present where they're in short supply.

Plants and Animals have created something beautiful, even if it's not wholly original.

On its face a seemingly modest project, At the Dam bursts with ambition and ideas, offering a meditation on the ever-evolving relationship Lattimore has to her instrument and the spaces she shares it with.

Production-value is high, with Ferg enlisting top-tier beatmakers like the aforementioned DJ Khalil but also No I.D., DJ Mustard, and even Skrillex. But the beats take a backseat to the lyrics. The overall sound remains intact, but he’s even more invested in what he’s saying.

Lemonade is a stunning album, one that sees her exploring sounds she never has before. It also voices a rarely seen concept, that of the album-length ode to infidelity. Even stranger, it doesn’t double as an album-length ode to breaking up.

You get the feeling as you listen to the entirety of Lost Themes II that someone let their finger linger far too long on the butter button at the movie theater concession stand.

There’s plenty of low and high end, but none of the gray in-between. It makes for an album that sounds more like backing tracks missing the singer and the song to complete them. If anything, Too Many Voices sounds like it has too few.

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.

The album ends strong, from "America" to closer "Off," but much like most of Royce’s solo catalog, there aren't many songs on Layers that really reward replaying or close listening.

It's an impressive influx of new talent, but you would be hard-pressed to hear it for most of the album.

Sonics aside, what truly distinguishes this recent iteration of Sorority Noise is Boucher's newfound sense of responsibility.

Please Be Honest certainly has its charms. But for the first time in Pollard’s career, Guided by Voices isn’t the main event--which, for the band’s legions of fans, is surely a loss.

Outer Heaven's heightened ambitions are best measured in terms of density rather than sprawl: the most bracing songs here pack in more radiant guitar textures, a greater lyrical depth, and sharper hooks without sacrificing Greys' innate moshability and punk-schooled economy.

The Diary is notable for presenting an official release to his intended debut. And, just like any diamond unearthed after many years, The Diary is flawed, but still precious.

If there’s a weakness with Blind Spot it might simply be its brevity, or perhaps the marked absence of the kind of swaggering sonic guitar bombast the band unleashed in old songs like “Sweetness and Light” or “Superblast!.” Regardless, Blind Spot feels like an assured--albeit somewhat tentative—way for the band to dip their toes back in the water

A Sailor's Guide to Earth is such a rearrangement of Simpson's sonic universe that any previous categorization now seems out of date.

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.

While not a record of cast-iron slam dunks, Welcome the Worms possesses enough raw power to cast Bleached in a completely different light, and one that is considerably more sustainable than their debut.

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.

While the musicianship on display is impressive, Cook's songwriting could certainly be sharper. None of these songs have strong enough hooks to encourage repeat listening or stand out from the rest of the EP.

This is instrumental music that embraces its undying capacity for uplift, that shakes off distinctions between bathos and pathos, between mawkish and grave, as it blasts upward.

Single lines don’t really stand out, but Morby’s commitment to such elemental concerns has a cumulative effect, and the album’s lack of specificity becomes a strength. That confidence extends to musical choices, including Morby’s tendency to let the small details of the sound do the work.

Her nervy assessments of the world are filled with equal parts suspense and heart, and beautifully zany riffs, where the feeling of being frayed by uncertainty comes together into a strangely comforting patchwork.

On Jettison, Tanton quietly sits down, picks up his guitar, and, without fuss or self-importance, transforms himself into a singer-songwriter. Surely that is a statement worth making.

It would have been a lot more of an interesting listen, however, had he decided to really get his hands dirty in feedback and digital fuzz.

The Hope Six Demolition Project is her most exhilarating rock album in years, yoking the siren-like catchiness of her last great America-influenced album, Stories From the City… to the swamp-tarnished filth of her classic first three records, Dry, Rid of Me, and To Bring You My Love. It’s leering, brash, and dissonant, but also not without its warmth.

For a technically sophisticated record that doesn’t have a great deal of dynamic range, EARS has a surprisingly strong emotional tug.

Psychic Lovers does try out a few different hues within its fairly limited palette, but they mainly just add to the confusion.

As the band’s tightest, most approachable album, Standards feels like Into It. Over It.’s answer to Transatlanticism, a record that, while not quite a commercial crossover, feels like a trial run for one.

Nothing short of a name change will likely convince skeptics at this point, but Gore proves that Deftones can remain vital as they are relevant, if they don’t kill each other first.

On More Issues Than Vogue, Michelle's third album, the performer and musician delivers her most affecting, skillful, and innovative record yet.

For all the guitar pyrotechnics, Western production, and reggae infusions, Azel never sounds like anything other than a sublime iteration of desert blues.

[Big Sean is] prone to rambling, will drag schemes out too long, and he isn't afraid to overcommit. But he strings together enough solid stretches to keep tracks moving. Still, Aiko is often the saving grace, holding songs together and delivering the better verses.

What’s missing from Panic is some kind of levity or the cutting humor that once personalized Hutchison’s self-loathing.

In the end, though, it’s that feeling of disposability that makes the album’s title resonate more pointedly in the wrong way.

There's no question that many of Lost Time's lyrics are funny, but the attitude that fueled NVM feels crushed. In both the vocal delivery and the driving guitars, the vibe is damper, the color somewhat drained.

Despite its minimalistic approach, the album poignantly illustrates the binary oppositions that cropped up in Hiroshima’s wake: life and death, hope and fear, war and peace, atomic and organic.

At its best, Human Performance is Parquet Courts in a mellower, heart-stopping Velvet Underground mode, but it is also at turns upbeat and funny, sensitive and odd. Compositionally, these are the most dynamic Parquet Courts songs yet.

All of those tracks work because they’re never played as straight genre experiments; they all sound first and foremost like Woods songs, even when they draw from a different vocabulary than any that came before.

There's not a lot of forward motion here; motifs and timbres repeat across the record, and while many tracks flow seamlessly from one to the next, his open-ended constructions give the album a rewardingly meandering feel.

Out My Feelings doesn’t have the rawness of In My Feelings, but its production is impeccable where that one was spotty, and it soars when Boosie reminisces on his pre-rap days or makes statements in line with Black Lives Matter about the murders of unarmed black people by cops.

A gorgeous, unassuming little record, it is Silver's most sophisticated virtual environment yet; disappear into it for a while, and you may come back with a newfound appreciation for sounds you once thought irredeemable--yes, even slap bass.

On Slay-Z, there are hints of that power. They don’t shine nearly as bright as her almost flawless debut record, but they keep us watching and listening.

This time Osborne, Kunka, Rutmanis and Crover all sing leads in various spots, which gives Three Men and a Baby a loose, freewheeling vibe, especially when coupled with the variety in the music.

The directness with which it speaks to its audience makes it easy to imagine Celebration inspiring a lot of its younger listeners to start a band. For anyone else, it’s just an inspiring testament to indie rock’s continued vitality.

Still curious, still appraising, Bird offers an intellect remarkably porous to change.

Kooshanejad works by breaking down samples into unrecognizable blips of sound, and then layering them up into thickets of melody and rhythm. There is the sense that any individual noise could be one locus on a larger waveform, any melodic line or rhythmic figure a patchwork of them.

It is a painfully raw, emotionally generous, politically charged, intensely intelligent, sometimes unlistenable album.

The songs here aren't necessarily breaking new ground stylistically, but that really isn't what matters. At this point, Mould clearly has nothing left to prove.

With songs that play like a grab-bag of genres and lyrics that have little of the humor or self-awareness the band displayed in the past, it's hard to muster the patience to uncover anything deeper.

The first five songs at least are totally gorgeous, the strings glassy, the tone all understated seduction, the structures fluid and surprising. ... By the Homme-tinged desert rider "Used to Be My Girl," misanthropy has set in.

All kudos go to Boots for parlaying this influence he’s garnered producing the likes of Beyoncé, Run The Jewels and FKA twigs to help craft this record for a band whose breakthrough moment has eluded them for long enough.

At once cosmically huge and acutely personal, Zauner captures grief for the perversely intimate yet overwhelming pain it is. Long may she keep at this music thing.

The five tracks here differ from their predecessors only by degrees, so if you liked the previous records there's little here to find too upsetting, but as an EP it feels like a stopgap ahead of the next Com Truise album.

Super elaborates and intensifies Electric’s approach: Louder, brighter, more. It doesn’t have the sustained arc of that album, but Price specializes in renovating house and disco, modernizing with care, and his small details still beguile.

It is, if anything, even denser, more dimly lit, more seamlessly contoured [than 2013's Cupid's Head].

He's a skilled enough songwriter that he could probably pull off an entire sobering album about this stuff. Instead he made a really fun, self-effacing one.

There may be no artist more committed to the line as a creative medium than Nisennenmondai; projected through Sherwood's spacetime-distorting lens, their vision of infinity becomes all the more engrossing.

Many of the songs ("Embody," "On the Lips," "Too Dark" and "Sleep Song") on the album have appeared in acoustic permutations in past work, and they make the leap seamlessly. Each are marvelously well-wrought trains of thought, cramming existential questions into the banality of everyday moments and finding something beatific even in the plainest of things.