There are times, however, when that nodding feels more like mimicry than anything else. Maybe he’ll figure out how to smuggle Donald Glover’s heart into Childish Gambino’s brain eventually, but if he hasn’t figured out what he wants out of Childish Gambino yet, it’s increasingly rewarding watching him try.

There's no overall sense of narrative to Order of Noise, but the depth of the production leaves itself open to interpretation.

Insides is Fort Romeau’s second full-length record, and although it doesn’t continue on quite the same upward trend of his recent discography in the risk-taking department, it does boast some of his most fully dimensional and impressively produced work yet.

It’s difficult to tell if the emcee is mocking a trend in rap—or simply perpetuating it. The air of poetic abstraction on the album doesn’t clear anything up. But elsewhere, the contrast in styles works more successfully.

The new album finds Boris honing in on their most essential quality: their ability to wrest a kind of endless subtlety from thick layers of distortion and volume.

It reveals a manic, uncommon glint in their inventive fires, the unmistakable fervid gleam which accompanies artists who know exactly what they're doing, even if the rest of us don't.

This is one of the reasons it's important to approach Discontinued Perfume as a full album, intentionally put together in a certain order. The Caribbean have never been what you'd call a singles act anyway, but here you need to take in the whole picture the band is painting.

Twenty-odd years ago, when Poly-Rythmo last made a studio album, they were at their lowest ebb. Cotonou Club finds them at another high.

James Blake continues to move as an artist, and the thrill of witnessing those movements hasn't dulled.

With By All Means he completes a three-release run that's as solid as any in recent memory, even if the answer to the question of whether he has another gear in him remains unanswered for the time being.

Throughout the record there are subtle hints of growth—both personal and musical—but they’re often dragged down by the redundancy of her thematic concerns.

That this isn’t a more ornate, Watch the Throne-type album is a bit deflating; the two collab tracks between the duo–“Leadbelly” and “Kirkland”–display how much of their synergy is left untapped across the 31 other tracks. It took some living with this record for it not to feel like a homogeneous, just-decent meld of MIKE and Earl throwing shots up in an empty gym.

Emotional Mugger still feels transitional--either the moment before he tucks in and gets way weirder or another stepping stone before he switches gears all over again.

The album’s just a little over half-an-hour long, and it’s all of a piece, conveying casual imagery that meanders from the hands-in-pockets wistfulness of drifting and kicking on trash cans (“Knockin’ on Your Screen Door”) to turning on the TV and looking out your window. Throughout, he has a virtuoso grasp of understatement.

While it's nice to envision Western acceptance of non-Western music, it's nicer to imagine the universe's collective ass jiggling sympathetically to the best moments on Dirty Bomb--music so thoroughly uprooted that its traditions exist only as pivot points; fragments of sounds we know mashed together so intuitively that we barely recognize them.

[Galaxy Garden is] a wonder, his most complete statement yet, both a refinement and an expansion of the genre-of-one he's been perfecting over the last few years.

Cold of Ages is a big leap forward for a band that had already started out a few steps ahead of the pack.

Her mesmerizing, eventful, and strange album brings these remote voices close enough to feel their breath in our ears.

At least half of The Blood Album’s songs feel virtually interchangeable and the other half sound like AFI wrote this stuff in the time it takes to play it.

The maudlin “Love Never Dies,” the album’s lone ballad, dials things down too far, channeling musical theater over a lilting piano melody and funereal drums. It feels like a strange outlier, especially in comparison with her more evocative, emotionally spare one-off ballad “Sweet Love” from last summer. Still, Kiesza’s gut-punch delivery and melodies buoy Crave into a brief, bright pleasure.

After album opener and slow-burn stunner “Canada,” “Sandcastle Molds” breaks the mood; the rollicking drumbeat, nervous blues licks, and dissonant climax feel muddled and a little overdone when compared to some of their more relaxed songs. But the next few tracks get the album back on solid footing.

The collection is a timely, if at times exhaustive, introduction to the Six Organs origin myth.

Aspiring guitarists might need the alternate tuning suggestions, but listeners won’t really need the anecdotes. Rather, Jones puts it all right there in the pieces, speaking volume about the challenges and triumphs of growing up and older without singing a word of the blues.

You still never know from one song what might appear on the next, or even where the song you’re listening to might go, and it keeps the music fresh even when it’s retreading hallowed ground.

Dirty Projectors’ ornate arrangements can’t hide the fact that these songs are as direct and unguarded as Longstreth allows himself to get.

That's what's so great about it, though; save the Vaseline-on-lens Fleetwood Mac number that closes things out, there's nary a dull patch or an awkward spot to be found here, just a sublime (if sorta schizoid) trip through the warmest, spaciest parts of your record collection.

One of those albums where a couple of creative renegades flip out over every stylistic possibility available to them, overextend their ambition, and still come away from it making its missteps sound exciting.

Sylvan Esso is feel-good music on all fronts, and when it comes time to throw on something at a summer gathering that’ll make people feel slightly hipper than they were when they arrived, Sylvan Esso will be a go-to. But it’ll still feel like I’m living in a beer commercial, someone else's idea of an inclusive, hip summer day.

Thomson's lyrics are at once Single Mothers' main attraction and--for some listeners--their presumptive sticking point.

Good for You finds the Portland rapper, born Adam Daniel, sounding charming, clever, and carefree.

That voice is deservedly the musical centerpiece of Anthropocene, a record that, like its predecessor, is given flesh by a wide cast of accomplished collaborators, such as Wilco drummer and tasteful producer Ken Coomer and flashy Sturgill Simpson guitarist Laur Joamets.

With Weighing of the Heart, Iqbal adds another couple of strings to her bow, emerging as a pop auteur and songwriter of impressive emotional heft.

As Liberty proceeds to its final act, the mood grows graver, the music more straightforward and streamlined but no less inventive.

If the band’s homespun and deliriously catchy 2014 compilation record Sunchokes captured the kinetic energy of a sweaty college party, The Refrigerator is the sound of a 10-year reunion, subdued and sentimental, reflective and a little restless.

This time, though, the band at her back gives that point hooks, rhythms, and textures instead, not just tangents. It's a welcome, if obvious, deviation for a band that's finally more than interesting.

So obviously the biggest difference between the Last Shadow Puppets and Turner's main gig is in the lyrics. Though less immediately noticeable than the majestic production, the change in the scale of Turner's songwriting is ultimately more profound.

[“Soft Power” is] an engrossing, haunted fable, a way to link society’s obsession with conspiracy to our basic needs for security and comfort. It’s proof that Tropical Fuck Storm are still clever when they want to be, able to channel obsessive rage into real insight. Braindrops could’ve used more like it.

Whether he delivered on the full extent of what he wanted to achieve is up for debate; luckily, he's good enough that even when he comes up short, he's still better than most.

The Golden Record is an infinitely approachable and enjoyable welcome by an artist who sounds like she's here now, for the duration.

Ultimately, What the Brothers Sang is a tribute to what the brothers sang, not necessarily how they sang it.

Mustard and 03 Greedo make the most of each other’s talents; Greedo’s crooning and rapping melt into the plush spaces of Mustard’s sweltering cookout beats.

Internal rhyme schemes, halting phrasing, thoughtful self-exploration; this is Wale at his best. Not as a preening star filling in the gaps for a king-making debut. A regular person, with doubts and sadness, joy and confidence. There's just not enough of it on Attention Deficit.

There's not a bad song to be found anywhere on this disc, and it remains engaging for nearly its entire duration, only falling into the background in a few isolated spots.

It’s the pro-forma songwriting that transpires between those brontosaurus blasts that ultimately proves problematic. By using their muscular might to prop up otherwise featherweight tunes, Royal Blood have effectively built themselves a castle and furnished it with IKEA.

While the sound on Grandfeathered is deep, it often feels impenetrable rather than multilayered.

The intimate yet anthemic closer “Price of a Man” sounds like a full realization of the resonance the band reaches for throughout the album, but most of the preceding songs lack the tension or texture needed to make the payoff feel earned.

If Ö sometimes sounds bored with itself anyway, it’s probably because Fcukers’ instincts are ultimately a variation on the nostalgia-baiting Y2K and bloghouse revivalism that surrounds them. It’s a simulacra of a simpler, grungier, more innocent time before high-speed internet, now wearing a tracksuit. Still: The fun is dumb and the night is young.

Dessner's mordant vision is uniquely his; these are real, meaty works, troubling and beautiful.

Hunn is an adept mixer, and he plays the long game in a way that rewards close listening.

If you've liked anything Toth has done in the past, whether that's the tunes he's written or the textures he's conjured, Blood Oaths offers both, perhaps better than ever before. If you've dismissed him, though, this is the sound of one musician's prolific and mercurial path, reaching delightful new highs.

More ephemeral than Clor, more cerebral than the Rakes, Field Music has, like the Magic Numbers, fashioned a distinctive voice and near-perfect arrangements, but the songs hint at greatness nearly as often as they achieve it.

A solid set of rock songs that hovers somewhere between the professionalism of Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American and your favorite slice of homegrown emotion.

On succeeds not in spite of its simplicity, but because of it.

What sets the Jurassic 5 apart from the dead sea of generic hip-hop crews is their sheer charisma.... Quality Control serves as a fine follow-up to the Jurassic 5's self-titled 1999 EP, with more than its fair share of top-shelf tracks.

The new Magnetic Fields songs will, thankfully, not raise any eyebrows; the enthusiasm and sparkling spontaneity is, like always, pressed into ukuleles and tucked into preposterously addictive Yamaha sound settings circa 1985.

Though the record does aim for the same kind of prog-rock atmospherics as their earlier releases, Air have managed to alter their sound this time out, drawing from a wider array of rock influences, instead of limiting their scope to Perrey and Kingsley.... Of course, The Virgin Suicides has its dry moments, but surprisingly, they're few and far between. For the most part, the album showcases Godin and Dunckel's dramatically improved songwriting skills.

The bulk of Machine Says Yes draws heavily on the rhythms and studio techniques of FC Kahuna's big beat roots, and garnishes them vigorously with the robotic female vocals and canned electro beats of Ladytron or Peaches; it gets old faster than Wesley Willis.

A matchless combination of scratchy indie rock and post-Oval electronics.

Group Sounds is nonstop, straight-ahead rock for the most part, more reminiscent of Scream, Dracula, Scream!, but with enough flourishes to keep things from sounding too monochromatic.... Right through to the end, every song on Group Sounds is solid, pure, high-octane Rocket fuel.

To be fair, there is redemption embedded within, a few genuinely interesting bits wedged between stacks and stacks of gooey piano ballads.

They rival The Shins, or The Magnetic Fields, or any of the innumerable indie touchstones, but what truly sets Who Will Cut Our Hair apart is the near-total absence of traditional verse/chorus/verse framework in their songs; to nail beautiful, memorable lines with such remarkable ease is a feat unto itself, but to do so in essentially formless compositions is a different class of achievement entirely.

If you value the merits of a singular flow, then what Monch does on this album can redeem nearly anything. Or at least make something likable out of an album that could've been just mediocre.

On South Bank--the most vital and essential document of Reid and Hebden's five-year partnership--it feels clear that, at least onstage, they were finally able to go the distance.

Peter Buck is likely a fans-only effort, but one that showcases a low-stakes spontaneity and a renewed sense of possibility.

A well-polished album that sometimes feels perplexingly one-dimensional.

Petrol, a looser, messier album, does a better job of communicating new ideas, and its emotional depth feels less gestural and more genuine.

The band’s most streamlined, expansive, and melodically sharp release yet.

That ability to blend the real and the absurd, the cartoon and the corporeal, distinguishes CupcakKe from any other rapper. There’s a pulsing power in the center of her songs. It’s the sound of a woman in charge.

Steiner fills Printer’s Devil with half-remembered snapshots of adolescence—sprints down hills in the summertime, a ride on an airplane simulator at the mall—juxtaposed with images of overgrown grass, vacated lots and other innocuous signifiers of the passage of time that carry weight only in the rare moments we pause to consider them. The effect is comforting and sobering all at once.

Perhaps grimmer—songwriting, like therapy, has its limits. Loveless understands. With a sober approach to its less-than-sober characters, Daughter takes life one song at a time. She can’t do more but prepare to accept less.

Against the preceding volumes’ most attention-grabbing moments, they may risk getting lost in the shuffle, but perhaps that is part of their charm, too: The whole fifth volume feels like an Easter egg in a video game—a sparkly basket of jewels collected from the crevices of Arca’s more imposingly monumental works.

Some songs bleed into each other, but the album also has gaps between many of its tracks, making it feel like a more traditional rock album than an experiment in fusing genres. Two of its best cuts together feel like one evolving piece.

Even if the emotional intent often feels recycled from other records, Tamer Animals is a record that takes you places.

Boot! is the Thing’s sixth full-length album and it’s among the group’s finest efforts at pairing bludgeoning physicality with heady free jazz chops.

The undercurrent of darkness in La Luz's music is what makes their work so fierce and intelligent. You could blink and miss their sneaky, underhanded way of slipping unease into their cheerful-sounding songs.

While the record delivers on joyful bass drops and club life vignettes, it occasionally leaves you longing for just a bit more unchoreographed chaos.

Whatever caused DOOM to scale back his output and go off the grid, he's only come back from it sharper, stronger, and more powerful than before.

The ideas are articulated much more distinctly than on past recordings, bringing added significance to the gorgeous compositions.

By downplaying the elements that made the Depreciation Guild initially stand out from the crowd, Spirit Youth is a decidedly less distinctive album than their debut. However, by making that choice, they've made what turns out to be their best.

Invisible Life is the clearest and most dynamic Helado Negro record to date.

At War With Reality is, above all else, an At the Gates album that feels like a pastiche of At the Gates. At least it’s a spirited one.

McCaughan has a gift for capturing simple, affecting moments without tipping the scales to sentimentality.

Cellophane Memories may be pretty, but it’s not easy.

This collection isn't for fans, but for those who haven't dug deeper than Ships, or for those wrongly convinced Ships was a blip in an otherwise dense and unrewarding discography.

This time, the inevitable transition from vocalizations to near-unison saxophone shredding doesn’t carry quite the same charge. But on the whole, Blade Of Love shows that there’s plenty of sax-quartet innovation left for these artists to explore.

When it comes to writing breathless love songs with hooks that rival those of alt-pop idols like Carly Rae Jepsen and Sky Ferreira--both of whom she’s cited as influence--Pilbeam is a prodigy. ... But Pilbeam sounds more distinctive when she’s leaning into bluntness than when she’s reaching for the rarefied heights of poetry.

It’s a more straightforward and accessible sound that might leave past admirers missing the all-out weirdness of albums past, but the evolution that Tasmania represents also speaks to the fact that the main constant in Pond’s approach is change. Even as the sea levels keep rising, they’ll doubtless find new waves to ride.

Dorji’s music is rapturously motivational, bolts of pure feeling that at least make me want to be a better citizen of the world. It is perennially honest about the long odds of the struggles that inspire it, too, how the work of fixing this place is never done.

Though it can feel a bit too calm and sedate, the album also reflects the group’s greatest and most instantly recognizable strengths. Their sound might suggest that they’re wound up in nostalgia, but that’s never been the case: They are able to tap into a performative naïvete.

Even as Scott’s ambition sometimes clashes with the content of the actual songs, Tongue is both her most intimate and eclectic album thus far.

For one reason or another, Modeselektor seem unwilling to trim the fat and here again, are a handful of just-okay songs that probably should have been lopped off. Cut some of them and you've got a great record instead of just a darn good one.

Despite feeling like the work of a couple laying themselves bare, it's also music to get lost in, to block out the real world.

Process carries with it the possibility of Yvette evolving into something even more ambitious and imposing.

Somehow, they’ve retained all the messy spirit of the vintage classic rock they venerate. That It’s Real feels so exciting and alive only shows how thoroughly they’ve absorbed the lessons they’ve learned.

Elseq feels like an advancement of the duo’s recent live sets, offering a similar ratio of rhythm to noise and order to chaos, but a richer palette of sounds.

Mostly, En Är För Mycket och Tusen Aldrig Nog offers driving, instantly catchy songs that would sound excellent blaring from beneath a laser show, some ferris wheel spinning in the background. The destination is almost too familiar; before, Dungen often led listeners down a thornier, less trodden path. The preferable voyage will depend on who’s listening.

The vibey, occasionally anesthetized sound can begin to feel flat and mushy at times, but Rashad’s nimble flows and sharp songwriting keep the album in focus, even when the thematic and sonic heaviness feels like walking through the desert in a weighted vest.

When Wainwright falters, it's for familiar reasons, usually some combination of overindulging and oversharing.