Kirby’s competent home production, and his economic arrangements, amount to a rich product that still manages to sound one-dimensional on repeat listenings, with little sonic depth. And his predilection for the occasional bright melody line works at cross purposes with his atmospheric tendencies. The album can never fully let itself recede into pure ambience.

Planet Her is a kaleidoscope of pop versatility that benefits greatly from a market that currently values eclecticism. It feels both premeditated and casual, well-crafted yet trenchantly frivolous.

Each song is a carefully constructed miniature, and the album itself is endearingly small-scale too—a record where life lessons aren’t preached, just lived.

So while the record is pretty and intermittently enjoyable, it feels one-note and ultimately flat.

Breakbeats have become fashionable again, so a dusted-off track like “Undone” doesn’t sound quite as dated, with Paradinas playfully bouncing between tympani boom, percolator bip, and dramatic background strings. ... But “Bassbins” also shows that the more aggro and cartoonish take on it (which anticipated the rise of breakcore) remains out of fashion for good reason.

That the Strange Boys never actually blow their tops may prove a liability for garage-rock heads looking for more fierce, swift kicks, especially over the course of a 16-track album that would benefit from a few edits.

There's plenty to love on Mystical Weapons, but it's not a casual listen, and it's best not to expect one.

Class Clown's odd-angled pop and jittery arena rock keeps the weirdness on par with its predecessor.

Windows extends the filmic dynamism and orchestral spark that carried "Recording a Tape," but instead of remaining in the background, the narrative--impressionistic and imperfect--comes to a often-unpredictable present.

The most satisfying and sheerly transfixing work of the twosome's career.

The best bits of Eyelid Movies show range and attention to detail, so it's hard to care when they downshift into waves of serpentine sound. Eyelid Movies is a sumptuous, seductive record, easy to let fall into the background, sure, but easier still to fall into.

There’s nothing embarrassing here, just a few miscalculations amid some typically strong material, but Mascis has proven that he can muster more joyous ingenuity and imagination than he does on Tied to a Star.

Kairos represents a bold step for Dienel and White Hinterland, a re-imagining of the music-making process and an example of musical experimentation and evolution.

How Long is frequently gorgeous, but even on a deliberately messy side project, Dessner and Vernon still feel like they’re holding back.

All of these songs were available as part of the 2002 Slanted & Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe 2XCD. Right, all of them. Even the liner notes included here.... If you're looking for silver linings, it’s the first time 25 of the 30 songs have appeared on vinyl--purists, there’s that. And, of course, the music itself is mostly great.

The album is spacious and enveloping even as it warns of horrors down the line.

Unfortunately, about halfway through the album, the sound wears itself out, as the samey melodies edge towards the too-familiar.

As much as Ladd continually references the past, from Dr. Livingston and Picasso to Minor Threat, Funkadelic, and De La Soul, he moves the air with a beat that's entirely his own, the sum of too many parts to reflect any one too prominently.

Halstead's knack for stunning arrangements is in top form on Spoon & Rafter, and in this capacity, his music remains compelling, if no more or less than on any of his previous trilogy of Mojave 3 releases.

What makes Reveal so disappointing is that the additions to the classic R.E.M. sound are all merely superficial. The increased reliance on burbling, jittering synthesizers actually makes the album a less engaging listen, turning many of its songs into messy sonic muddles.

Invention has very few peers, in my opinion. Though Schlammpeitzinger's Collected Simple Songs of My Temporary Past and Andrew Coleman's Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt come close, I'm firmly resigned that I'll not hear a more effortlessly charming album this year.

Meadow picks up where his 2004 Merge bow Dents and Shells left off.

Glider 's derivativeness and inertia put a cap on its capacity to astonish, but it has a protracted shelf life. It's consummate mood music, which goes a long way toward compensating for its shortcomings.

The album falls short of a diamond-in-the-rough-caliber discovery, but considering these seven songs are the remains of an aborted 12-song full-length-from a band that reinvented itself every three or four years, For the Whole World holds up well alongside, say, concurrent Blue Oyster Cult or New York Dolls albums.

With its patchwork (and, as of press time, unknown) 1992 sources, the set's neither particularly representative of Young live nor particularly different from the pleasant Harvest Moon album itself (cheering and lack of backing vocals, strings and session hands aside).

His music nurses a profound ache, and he's now made enough of it that it's become a whole corner to visit, a unique transmission that feels like its own sentient being. As an artist, it's hard to aim higher than that.

There's not a weak second to be found.

Easily the slickest album the Fresh & Onlys have made yet, Long Slow Dance subtly expands the band's sonic palette without overwhelming the band's appealing simplicity.

The tape plays like a final installment, going out with a bang and saving some of the series' best for last.

Three albums in, it’s yet to be determined just where the younger Jeffes aims to take the group, but there’s a rigidity to The Imperfect Sea that approaches ordered desolation.

All Encores takes a step backward [from 208's All Melody], toward a simpler, sparer sound. In essence, it represents a set of rough drafts, avenues abandoned as All Melody assumed its final form.

Hello, I’m Doing My Best often reads as a guidebook for young adults learning to navigate the world, and in that light, Barter’s no-bullshit lyricism is punkish and endearing.

The band’s decision to expand their swagger and invest in more complex synth work pushes them to new territory, and the most remarkable digressions from their comfort zone point towards a future beyond pastiche—but it feels like this is a half-step, not a full leap.

The first three proper songs delve into crisp, clipped percussion arrayed into loping dembow rhythms. All three feel like clear extensions of KiCK i’s “Mequetrefe” and “KLK,” but they also stand on their own. ... The shift midway through from glitch beats to turbocharged four-on-the-floor is the rare case where Arca’s maximalist instincts miss the mark.

Euphoric Recall falters when the band forgets that her voice is the main event. ... Braids may still be searching for a distinct identity. But what Euphoric Recall makes clear is that Standell-Preston knows her voice better than ever before.

These songs are not as impassioned or ornate as “cherubim” or “four ethers,” but serpentwithfeet hasn’t lost his bite.

Macro’s swooning arrangements bloom and bend, revealing a band comfortable with experimenting within the boundaries of a certain sound.

So when I call Begone Dull Care a "mature" album, know it skirts both the positive and negative connotations of one of the most divisive adjectives in pop's lexicon.

It leaves a very hazy, almost spectral impression when it ends. But it's also warm and in some ways comforting, and it improves the more you listen to it and tease out the details in the songs.

Imploding the Mirage has more bangers than a Killers album should 16 years after their debut and without copping to “maturity.” This band remains as absurd—marvelously so—as ever.

You're left wishing the album drew a little more blood.

That atmosphere helps hold up Vodka & Ayahuasca's sense of anarchic, altered-state unease when the lyrics don't quite cut it, though the tolerable-at-worst punchlines and metaphors are easier to stomach the less dead-serious you take them.

Shall Noise Upon is a great record, and an impossible one to digest in just one sitting. That's hardly a problem, though, because coming back to it is so rewarding.

With an opener as strong as Destroyer of the Void, you could be forgiven for being disappointed that it is the collection's sole foray into spacey prog-pop territory and not the tip of the iceberg in a likeminded collection.

This quartet's assured sound-and-fury is perplexingly difficult to care about.

While not as immediately striking as either Crystal Castles (I or II), the streamlined sound allows more maneuverability and subtle variety in the actual songwriting.

The production here snaps with the clarity and force of stadium-sized headbangers while maintaining the intimacy of Buke and Gase’s earlier work.

On Magic & Medicine, the band's frenetic freakout leanings have been stripped away in favor of a more humble approach, placing subtlety and songwriting above the sounds being produced. It all sounds far less interesting.

The songs on III seem to want to be simple folk songs. And unlike on previous albums, the players aren't always pushing each other higher into new celestial realms. Sometimes, they're just getting in each other's way.

A significant step forward from her debut, Two Suns is home to some of the year's most thrilling music so far.

Above all else, it's the best M83 record yet.

It’s a vivid world, although less singular or startling than Khan’s previous creations; these touchstones have become so deeply embedded in the cultural fabric that they offer the same comforting glow as an episode of “Stranger Things” rather than the shock of the new.

Household Name could easily feel too formulaic, but with tongue partially in cheek, moments like “Speeding 72” come as a welcome indicator of a band that isn’t taking itself too seriously.

Dal Forno is a perfectionist, but instead of letting that tendency crowd her music, she stakes out a few places in her compositions to plant each refined detail. Many of the songs are grounded by a sturdy, repetitive bassline.

Although he's now logged as much time as a solo artist as he did with his former band, Isbell sounds he's still finding his voice.

No longer experimenting for experimentation's sake, every beat-breaking decision on Myth Takes serves to reinforce the monumental rhythms.

Despite the sparser arrangements and increased focus on direct lyricism, it's every bit as aurally hypnotic as his previous work. It seems like he realized there was someone he really did want to sing to.

Her voice also takes up more space on this record, going deeper and flitting over Stack’s melodies with such abandon it’s as if she might float away.

Etiquette gives up the homemade purity of Casiotone's first few records, but it hasn't entirely gotten where it's going, either.

Throughout, the songs on Obsidian are physical in a literal sense, mimicking the human motion of the characters described therein.

Illusion of Time is a confidently relaxed listen: Created in a pressure-free situation by two artists with no road map and nothing in particular to prove, it is expansive in scope, charmingly rough around the edges, and brimming with possibility.

By only gently nudging the musical formula on It's a Bit Complicated, Art Brut have succeeded in crafting a satisfying half-mature sequel, but may have only delayed, rather than thwarted, the sophomore jinx.

On each of his many releases to date, Collins is always trying to reinvent one wheel or another, and even though that's traditionally seen as a fruitless exercise, what he and Desree have ended up with on Silk Rhodes is an invention worth marveling at in its own right.

You can start to see trajectory to Container’s LPs after this fourth edition, though the changes are deceptively subtle considering how unruly any specific release is. What’s never changed (and likely the reason the series remains so consistent) is simply how much fun Schofield makes all this mayhem sound.

Mae’s Jack White-produced 2017 album Forever and Then Some had a hard-rocking veneer, but Other Girls (still under White’s label Third Man Records, this time produced by Dave Cobb) invites more natural light into the mix.

It’s more a personal reckoning with their own past: a rummage sale of dusty enthusiasms.

Songs like "Vesuvius"-- not to mention "Rambunctious Cloud" and "Gnats"-- have depth, a cagey charm, and an elusive mystery that demand not just repeated but aggressive listening. Chesnutt and his collaborators don't make that level of attention easy, but they do make it worthwhile.

Admittedly, if you own MGM's three 12"s, then there is nothing new for you here. And sure, there is something about Expressions that feels akin to listening to karoke--but with a voice like Meredith Metcalf's singing the sort of addicting, tangy melodies that her briny soprano was made for, even karaoke can be thrilling.

The only times Plaza comes across as less than convincing are the moments where Shane Butler and company tip their hand a tad too heavily, such as on closing number "Own Ways," which falls just short of featuring faux English accents and sounds like Quilt’s musical answer to a '60s mod costume party. Elsewhere, though, they steer clear of slavish recreation, cleverly revealing new wrinkles in the arrangements from one song to the next.

The album is full of nebulous renderings like this, where we’re left to interpret Dare’s personal mythology. It makes Milkteeth feel suspended in time, more dream than recollection.

It feels personal rather than global, and as gnarly as it is, it’s not quite extreme enough to work as a visualization of the horrors of war. It works much better as a record of a man of the wild wandering through the modern world, anxious and a little amused.

In keeping with the album's title, Never is uncompromising and direct.

Sometimes what seems like a forward move turns out to be a lateral one, and right now it's an open question whether Delt’s more professional environs were preferable to his messy charm.

M:FANS is less reclusive, just by virtue of its premise--Cale is collaborating with himself, the ultimate glum foil--but also because it fills every swatch of white space with his later-career electro-industrial leanings.

It's hard not to compare the two albums and find this one wanting; even the best songs, which are quite good, wouldn't bump anything off of Illinois.

It's only when Apache Dropout indulge their pulpier interests too faithfully that they run into trouble.

At times GUV I can feel like indie rock cosplay, especially coming from a shapeshifter like Cook. When an artist genre-hops with such agility and totality, with titles and performances as goofy as Young Guv’s can be, it’s harder to lose yourself in the familiar comforts of a fuzz pedal and a charmingly off-key vocal. Even so, there’s an ease to the mimicry.

Dood and Juanita works so well because Simpson sounds comfortable within this form and just beyond it.

Like the band’s classic LPs, Sanctions locates a strange beauty in plaintive sadness and offers no easy answers, just the feeling of being let into a secret world you don’t entirely understand.

But while Random Spirit Lover is dense and thorny-- even opaque, at times--it's never haphazard.

No doubt that the best halves of this and "Tournament of Hearts" would equal a breakthrough album for the group, but taken as a whole, Kensington Heights sounds like a decisive break in the band's stride.

And that's the odd thing about this collection: If it provides people with a bridge into appreciating Ono's work, it won't be by making it more accessible.

To those without the stomach for Joakim's waywardness, Milky Ways will often sound as much during the course of a listen. For those who are feeling adventurous but forgiving of the same, Joakim is a worthy companion.

Pretty much any way you slice it, Images Du Futur is just too clinical.

The frequently overstuffed, occasionally scatterbrained album is far from perfect. But even when going for broke gets them into trouble, Portugal seem happy to get up there and overshoot the mark.

Real Emotional Trash is determinedly unified, even if it isn't always clear to what ends. At its best, the record hints at opening a whole new musical world for Malkmus--one in which his well-worn style is effectively played down in the service of a mighty rock'n'roll band.

An album’s gotta end sometime, but these songs, two of the record’s most propulsive, seem to grab us by the arm to yank us into the shimmering neon starlight--and then it’s all over. If it’s good enough, the audience will linger through the credits. King could let it linger a little more.

Even as it soothes, Violence in a Quiet Mind is more concerned with demonstrating how it feels to get better. It takes patience, attention, and self-awareness, qualities Black’s music amply displays.

For decades, this kind of shambolic aesthetic has signified immediacy over virtuosity, heart over chops. But it’s hard not to be distracted by the moments when the lyrics fall flat or the singing goes awry. Their chord progressions are smart and the production is appealing, but neither is enough to carry the record on its own.

Everything pops, but the gloss never makes the songs here feel processed or too glossy. It simply fits them well. And the songs are strong, too.

Leaner and more direct than its predecessor, "Hocus Pocus," few fans will be disappointed with Grass Geysers...Carbon Clouds.

Javelin's best tracks may hold up under professional production in a year where many a group's cassette-tape flaws will likely sabotage similar leaps, but trading in their boombox for a proper stereo isn't necessarily an upgrade.

Taking the greatest-hits route through Gorillaz's career, it's impressive how few of the tracks sound dated.

Editors sound like an earnest rock band who grew up loving the same bands as the current batch of revivalists, but beyond the workmanlike interpretations of their heroes, it's hard to swallow.

It can be difficult to hear Cash’s charms through the bright, digital clang that plagues his ’80s recordings. The refurbished warmth of Songwriter makes it easier to concentrate on the clever turns of phrase and solid construction of these excavated tunes.

The band's self-titled debut record is the heaviest, most dissonant music that Moore has put together in recent memory, easily out-skronking Sonic Youth's 2009 LP, The Eternal.

Quiet River of Dust Vol. 1 is an enchanted forest of a record--deceptively tranquil, but always buzzing with hidden life. Parry’s other band famously told of us of a place where no cars go. This is what it feels like to actually be there.

On Perfect Shapes, Kenney builds a comforting space for her own reflection and growth. It reflects a welcome boost in confidence, Kenney at last stepping onto the pedestal of her own design.