With few exceptions, Small Craft on a Milk Sea's 15 songs fall roughly into one of two categories: ambient and active.

Inviting guests into the fold is a huge step for a longtime solo artist who has previously distanced himself from the world; alongside his sharper songwriting and unrestrained performances, it’s a sign that he’s ready to welcome others into his healing process. By opening up the pit, he’s opening his heart, too.

At 14 tracks, Hysteria is a longer album than Echo, and it doesn’t always maintain its intensity. The push and pull between ballads and bolder songs sometimes sacrifices the momentum. But the wider lens, which allows Sparke to dial up both her indie-rock sound and sweeping songwriting, is still impressive.

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.

This is arguably Oldham's most austere record to date, but there's much to dig into.

It takes a good deal of bravery to write and record songs that are so naked and unflinching, and it pays off: Savage's courage and palpable investment in the material makes it easy to connect and empathize with his subject matter.

It all sounds cleaner and more accessible than anything they've done in the past, but that might actually be part of the problem.

Instead of coming from noise and chaos, they're rooted in pastiche and show business-- especially on their one midtempo song, the 50s pop knockoff "Find Another Girl." Your parents might dig this album as much as you do.

The songs are occasionally great—“Ghosts” and “Burnin’ Train,” in particular—and sometimes they feel remarkable just due to their old-school presentation.

Could easily have been the dullest, nicely produced thing in the world, if not for the fact that the songs are remarkably good.

They worked on about 20 demos there, but none made the record. Shields: Expanded collects the best of these previously unheard Marfa tracks, which amount to captivating sketches, rather than scraps.

The most surprising takeaway from Tha Carter V, it turns out, isn’t that Wayne still has music this vital in him. It’s that after all these years, there’s still more to learn about him.

There are more than a few moments of brilliance, but as a whole, the album lacks cohesion, feeling less exploratory and unbound than simply unfocused.

On her debut album, There’s Always Glimmer, Margaret’s violent view of songwriting translates to 34 minutes of serene and perceptive storytelling.

For the most part, though, King Con's an enjoyable collection, one that presents Winston as an artist with a strong enough personality to overcome that dip and to stand out in a scene where it can be hard to make an impression.

This is heavy stuff, but Ahmed’s wry wit and laser-focused delivery ensures that it doesn’t feel overwrought.

All this means that Fruit Bats, like their contemporaries, could unfortunately be passed over due to sheer familiarity. That'd be a shame, because The Ruminant Band only gets more rewarding as it settles in.

On Man Made, Teenage Fanclub seemed to be suffering a sort of rock'n'roll midlife crisis. Five years later, Shadows finds them at ease once again.

Marathon is an unequivocally beautiful album. But it’s beautiful in the same way as the colors kicked into the sunset by a refinery—it’s unnatural, uncomfortable, a byproduct of labor.

He gives himself over to memory’s full sway, until the project feels a little like thumbing through a souvenir album, Chapman singing about the postcards that help remind him of places held dear.

Goodnight Summerland displays a fresh focus and intention. Here, Deland shifts toward a stripped-back, folksier sound, highlighting her gossamer voice and newfound observations about the ache of grief and the passage of time.

Even with all of the bands he punches the time card for, it's starting to become very clear that, with Is Growing Faith, his solo efforts are the ones that reap the most rewards.

Dark Night is a well-sequenced and unique album that ingeniously balances its contributors' strengths with the overall theme of the work--self-examination, often under stark circumstances, in the interest of understanding one's own existence.

Ultimately, DROGAS Light reaffirms, rather than fundamentally alters, Lupe’s place in the rap pantheon.

English Teacher can’t leave a song alone: Not a track goes by without a twist or complication, whether a time-signature change, an instrumental flourish, or a sudden wall of sound. .... Most promising, and core to This Could Be Texas, is the band’s interest in melding indie-prog, rock, folk electronica, and post-punk into a new package.

Return to Archive is the motley, riotous result, a suitably retrofuturistic collage incorporating over two dozen records ranging from Sounds of Animals to Sounds of Medicine, International Morse Code to End the Cigarette Habit Through Self Hypnosis.

Somewhere between fight, flight, and acceptance, these songs squint at great cosmic mysteries through a tiny pair of sunglasses.

With that title, Songs for Singles practically announces itself as a stopgap release, a breather after the breakthrough. If it doesn't shake the earth the way Meanderthal did, it's not really supposed to. But the EP does show that this band remains in fine working condition, and another full-on album from these guys would be a welcome thing indeed. Until then, this will do just fine.

For the first time in years, he sounds less like a copyright lawyer and more like a contributor to a culture he loves. ... T.I has dabbled in a range of sounds since his debut, but that range resonates as renewal here. The record falters when T.I. gets maudlin.

By lacing arms with Dan Deacon, the duo throw themselves into an auspicious zone, creating an album that remains introspective even at its wildest moments.

If Smith’s earlier albums tended to flush the sound field with twirling synthesized figures like so many kites in the sky, Gush turns up the gravity and clears out more negative space. Each sound bears more weight and locks more readily into prolonged grooves.

You've really got to fight to make your way into You're Better Than This, to carve out a little room amidst its unstable rhythms, its twining guitars, and Maguire's screams-of-consciousness. But that's precisely what inspires such devotion in Pile's growing cohort.

The glitchy, warped surface is offset by the clarity and versatility of Standell-Preston’s narrative vocals, which pull everything into focus.

Despite the blemishes, Cuts Across the Land is a surprisingly galvanized and consistent offering.

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

Frigid, militant, and rhythmic.

As with previous albums, Yours Truly benefits from creative sequencing that winks at expectations.

Its loveliness is a bit more tentative, more cautious, more formulaic than Campbell’s music with Camera Obscura had become. One understands. This project has time to grow. For now, we’re just so glad she’s back.

The Internet’s songs have always felt like scenes of salaciousness happening just out of earshot. Ego Death finally pulls us into the maelstrom.

The Killer works slightly better than either of its predecessors as an album, with the promise of what is to come relieving the earlier stretches of some of their grimness. The gaseous (and Gas-eous) ambient interludes, too, are perfectly sequenced, offering soothing counterpoints to the album's most pummelling efforts.

It’s a dense piece of work and a dizzying journey, but at its best, you get the sense Marsalis knows exactly where his spaceship is going.

Across 11 tracks clocking in at 72 minutes, Romance offers a comprehensive yet concise survey of the best of Oneida’s vast and varied catalog--transfixing ambient loops, expansive krautrock jams, and even straight-ahead rock, while taking less time than ever to get to the point.

The range of Paracosm helps Greene present himself as more of a singer/songwriter than a producer, though the former part of that dynamic still lags.

On Purge, Godflesh strike a balance between communal vulnerability and seething hostility that makes for the most inviting entry in their late career.

Ultimately, Godfather is a thoroughly enjoyable record, one that manages to leverage grime’s elemental sounds in a way that feels vital and forward-looking.

Mulberry Violence isn’t ugly music by any stretch--all of the bleeding, shrieking noises are undergirded by rich chords, and Powers drops little moments of untouched beauty for us to get our breath.

She Loves You treats each song differently while still being carefully sequenced so that its tracks cohere into a narrative of love and loss, resulting in a record that manages to sound as if its tracks were the product of one mind.

Maybe it only all coheres in flashes, but if Meek Mill works best in bursts, then so be it.

Scott Morgan has made a career of showing us waters and watering places. With Monument Builders, we are finally invited to drink.

Overall, Sugar at the Gate is a compact record from a band chugging along smoothly, unspooling sweet rhythms like it is finally their job.

Kraus' arrangements used to be a tad predictable, putting the tools of Appalachian and British folk toward familiar ends; here, in serpentine guitar figures and rich textures, she finds her own forms.

Micah P. Hinson and the Opera Circuit covers more ground and isn't as unilaterally melancholy as we're used to, though the record contains some of his best work.

Despite the lyrical clunkers and ill-advised production choices, The Future’s Void has the feel of a real statement, of an artist trying for something new even if she doesn’t always get there.

Charli is one of the definitive pop artists of our time, but in soundtracking a classic story, she never fully transcends our moment.

Rather than stampeding recklessly forward on the heels of cataclysmic frontman Lee Spielman, Trash Talk have re-directed their energy into mountainous, pile-driving riffs that hit with a lowdown, deliberate force.

This is a subtle refraction of the Ducktails aesthetic, where the brittle abstraction and detours down lo-fi cul-de-sacs are siphoned into songs that are breezier, less inward looking, more in thrall to the possibilities of pop.

Title TK picks up where Pod left off in 1989, with a jagged sound nowhere near as tight as the Pixies' but a heartfelt enthusiasm for creating music.

Widowspeak seem to have found a home in the swamps, and now they're inviting us in to set awhile.

Welcome to My Blue Sky isn’t concerned with filling in the whole backstory; Momma prefer to capture a snapshot with all the youthful romanticism of a faded Polaroid.

On Cascade, he’s back to forestalling that knowledge through repetition, which is what gives his abstract pieces their surprising sentience and unaccountable melancholy. The machine is doing the work, but the composer has done the thinking and feeling, and that makes all the difference.

DOPAMINE, her highly anticipated debut-slash-comeback album, still can’t shake the anonymity of her ensemble days, but it lays the foundation for what Normani will be known for: her Southern roots and a voice as plush as a pair of fuzzy dice.

Between this spring’s cold, uncompromising Droptopwop and the personable crossover stab of Mr. Davis, Gucci Mane is making his most engaging music since his Trap Back/Trap God resurgence.

However exquisitely rendered they may be, and however strange their circumstances may seem, these are breakup songs. ... Doiron’s presence, though, is a welcome balm, warming these cold realizations and offering Elverum a steadying hand for some of the most difficult moments.

What makes Last Day of Summer engaging has as much to do with White Denim's potential future as it does its roots.

With unexpected production and left-field samples, Rodriguez’s album is powered by a heady rawness that bucks the trend for theatrical concepts in today’s electronic pop nonconformists, producing epiphanies like hot stones spat from a fire. You could say it is as addictive as modern love.

CHAI’s more explicitly political efforts unfold rather predictably, their messaging losing power as they paint in broad strokes. .... CHAI’s music resonates more when they get more personal, like on the sparkling album closer “Karaoke,” which conveys their tight-knit connection.

Deciphering the Message helps connect these dots. But it also plays like a fantasy come to life, a dream set at the Blue Note, with long-lost titans beaming in from the afterlife to sit in with the young blood, like proud parents watching their children surpass them.

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.

There's a natural path forged between all the shifts, a sense that the abstraction feeds off the structure and vice versa. As such, Black Is Beautiful nears something that could readily be branded as Blunt and Copeland's aesthetic.

On her latest LP, No Need to Be Lonely, she reconnects with the punchy hooks and confidence of her previous work while taking bigger creative risks.

"The Devil Is My Running Mate" a weak ending for a strong debut full of the kind of confident, charismatic songwriting that just can't be taught.

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?

This is the product of a dynamic and assured vision, one that retains an alluring sense of mystery.

indulge his every whim and mood and which emphasizes his songwriting range. As a result, the album repositions Erickson's psych rock as the foundation for a diverse sound.

The most difficult part of making instrumental, non-dance electronic music for an audience beyond your typical avant-garde connoisseur is injecting it with a sense of narrative, a story, an energy that replaces vocals and conventional musical structures to give the tracks an augmented dimension. S U R V I V E are very good at this. They may be one of the best bands currently employing those skills, and RR7349 is their most succinct example yet.

Many of the songs on Isbell's sophomore release don't necessarily aim for (or achieve) such profundity, yet they still compel through sheer verve and Isbell's unwillingness to let an unhip sound or idea discourage him.

The second disc is ultimately little more than a curiosity for most-- and will no doubt be complete anathema for some-- but given that the entire package retails for a single-disc price, that's hardly a reason for a die-hard to opt out.

Serpentine Path is an unapologetically straightforward statement, one that's either going to sound awesomely monolithic or numbingly monotonous depending on the listener's appetite for extreme doom. But on its own terms, the album is highly successful.

While Jurado's records often alternate between vanishing ballads and melancholy pop-rockers, Shadow revolves entirely around the former-- the songs are unstintingly slow, delicate, and sparse to the brink of abstraction.

A boilerplate, but immensely satisfying, noise-pop record.

Kempner has excelled at tracing anxiety, fear, and shame through expertly crafted rock songs, and there’s still plenty of those emotions throughout Black Friday. ... But on her third record, she also allows herself to experience pure joy, and what a treat it is to feel that euphoria along with her.

Carpenter is working in service to his own nostalgia, and he understands intuitively what his score is here to do. It is not meant to be frightening. It is meant to make you feel warm and fuzzy things about John Carpenter, about the first time you saw the original Halloween.

Their inability to come up with truly novel material leaves them stuck at indie's Triple AAA level both artistically and commercially.

Void Worship takes what was essential about Misery Wizard and compacts it while expanding Pilgrim’s overall scope--a fitting progression for a pair of genre loyalists.

Here they are weird and jagged and noisy, occasionally abstruse and often disarmingly melodic. It seems they’re only out to impress themselves, and that’s the sort of stuff that doesn’t burn up with time.

Works is a crisp, punchy-sounding record, not far from the unfussy, live-in-a-room feel of early triumphs like Prairie School Freakout.

It’s fun, sure, but it’s also thrillingly restless, at times almost desperate.

In its best moments, Fire Like This strikes a balance between heartfelt and heavy. Blood Red Shoes may be squat-hall sized, but they are arena-equipped.

This debut itself is compelling but because, at last, it represents a clear synthesis of so many of O’Malley’s activities.

As another impressive portion of his potent '04 output, Will to Death's immediacy and quality should quiet the critics-- particularly those who pegged his early solo records as the work of a narcotics pain-train washout.

While Haxel Princess was full of goofy and relatable teenage dispatches, Apocalipstick shoots daggers. Now 19, Creevy sounds wizened and ready for battle.

Maus has made more profound and mysterious records, but never one that has taken this much delight in its own ridiculousness.

On top of polishing up the band’s sound, Guided by Voices’ TVT releases also showcased a newfound clarity and emotional candor in Pollard’s often obtuse, fantastical lyrics, and How Do You Spell Heaven gamely follows suit.

No doubt, Chilltown consistently delivers solid hip-hop cuts. But in comparison to his 2002 release React, Sermon's well of creativity might be running dry.

The deeper Vile gets into his career, the more his creative process seems to blend with the results.

Despite a few trite lyrics, there are many transcendent moments on Heaven. Sol is able to pivot between multiple emotional states—gratitude, calm, yearning—within the space of a single vocal run, like on album standout, “Heaven.”

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.

Because she can sound mournful even on upbeat songs, ballads tend to slip into melodrama. But when Andrews finds solid grooves to express her bittersweet optimism, Valentine rocks.