Son Lux’s avant-pop has always leaned more heavily on avant than pop, and Bones is probably too skittery for a breakout commercial hit (though “Change is Everything” could be a dark horse).

Evergreen is pristine and light, as indebted to Soccer Mommy’s early sound as it is to the restorative effects of nature.

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.

For all the struggle that inspired the record, Shannon and the Clams embrace the change with grace.

Dull tempos, disengaging moments, recycled ideas--all egregious offenses, yes. Luckily, Les Savy Fav have earned a decade's worth of goodwill to cushion a just-OK album or two landing in their discography, which makes Root For Ruin a well-deserved victory lap, if nothing else.

Dove’s punchy ruefulness benefits from sparkling production by Tom Gorman and Paul Q. Kolderie, with whom Donelly has been working since her time in Throwing Muses.

Its deeper appeal is that it's earwormy enough to take a casual listener multiple go-rounds to pick up on that.

h parties click together because they're willing to let genre be an afterthought, yet they still avoid succumbing to a rootless, stylistically overreaching identity crisis.

The band’s effusiveness often feels torrential, which makes its more inane moments come off as collateral damage. On Shadow Offering, Braids isn’t afraid to steer dangerously close to the eye of the storm.

All that tweaking really brings out the details of his songwriting, which are sometimes lost in the orchestration and less polished vocals here. Still, these types of projects can help a songwriter refocus and between them Vanderslice and Choi have made a memorable album that successfully adds a new twist to Vanderslice's catalog.

While these songs can sometimes evoke other major players in her genre, she makes Max Martin’s signatures feel personal, making a mature pop record that feels like a natural progression.

The interplay here is more complex than You, You're a History in Rust, showcasing restraint and more subtle shifts.

Metro is great when he makes Metro-type beats, shaky when he ventures outside of his comfort zone. On Heroes & Villains, he surpasses his standard quota of bangers while also taking a few fun risks.

Wagner’s songs remain skeletal--still just bone and flaking flesh--but the sound is more polished, crisper and starker and at times even slick.

Apple's Acre sounds homemade in the best possible way. It is a quality that speaks to not only the intimacy of the recording, but also the confidence and comfort that Nurses now have in their delicately shambolic sound.

In its squelching synths and vocoded voices, Dorian Concept creates something that ’70s and ’80s electro-funk auteurs like Kraftwerk, George Clinton, and Roger Troutman hinted at: computer music that uncannily imitates the funk, rather than just faking it.

This is where Tell Me You Love Me improves on Lovato’s previous albums: It gives you enough space to see Demi as something other than a no-holds-barred belter.

From the first beat drop, Fever Dream is obviously informed by the vaporized, off-kilter instrumentals of Flying Lotus and likeminded contemporaries: beats shuffle and scatter, bass hits low and leaves space in its wake, samples hiss and dissipate like the air is being sucked out of them, synth lines falter and wobble.

By and large, the band works well in this context, but the first two pieces on the album absolutely dominate the last three, making them feel essentially superfluous.

At times the duo are guilty of excessive portentousness, but there are just as many moments where their grandiose ambitions are convincingly realised.

Vol. 2 dive-bombs deeper into the zonked-out ephemera, letting the outré tape noises and sound effects hold center stage.

She's Gone is delightfully restless teenaged guitar-pop made by grown, well-traveled women, the contrast of which necessarily adds a sheen of introspection over the whole affair.

It's essentially a one-trick sound, but here, they do a better job of adapting it to their post-dated needs than they did on previous albums.

Sure, it's just acid jazz with disco and bossanova inflections; naturally, the arrangements are less than surprising; of course the beat could use some variation. But this is about transference, not transcendence. The Mirror Conspiracy provides the soundtrack your mediated soul requires, and that's all that's important.

Late Night Feelings is not the first recent record to treat the sadness of women as a healthy response to all manner of hurt. It is, however, a worthy entry in this still-developing pop pantheon, authentic and honest in its rendering of many shades of feminine sorrow.

At their best, Szun Waves jams come as swells, with a power that is hard to dismiss, regardless if you can see their intentions from a click away.

Apart from splicing “Bluebird” and “For What It’s Worth” into a Buffalo Springfield medley, Los Lobos stay faithful to these original arrangements, which doesn’t mean they’re replicating records. They’re relying on their collective strengths as a rock’n’roll band.

Ballentine’s strengths are most apparent in the feel of this album, which is consistently rich and gauzy. Even the clearest acoustic guitar licks are somehow buried beneath a persistent field of sustain and mild distortion.

Maritime's musical development has become a compelling narrative of its own, each subsequent record in many ways both improving upon and elucidating the last.

It's music you might hear in a CB2 furniture store-- languorous and luxurious in tempos and tone, but without any sort of sentiment outside of the swooning used to implant the idea in your brain that you might have sex or do drugs on that reasonably priced but fashionable couch.

Blackshaw's musical ideas are interesting enough that it's easy to see his piano pieces progressing as his technique comes along, opening another avenue to explore his musical concepts.

It's a tricky muse, but every Lupe project has found a way to harness at least 15 or 20 minutes of his fluid, fleeting mind. Tetsuo & Youth is the most generous gulp he's managed in years.

Lane’s most compelling songs come out of her acknowledgements of imperfection and her impertinence toward the status quo.

Sonnet positions Meluch somewhere beyond the insular place he occupied before.

Phosphene Dream is a step up, if only for the little bit of variety that the tighter arrangements and genre-hopping provide.

3001: A Laced Odyssey does an adequate job of reminding us all of Flatbush Zombies’ smart, sharp lyrics. What they lack in hit-single potential, they make up for in talent, but without a calling-card song it's hard to know what their next move is.

It’s a warm, deeply rooted, familiar statement indicative of a real, earned connection.

What Shad reveals of himself on TSOL is spiritual without being preachy, righteous without being self-righteous, and human without sounding mundane.

The 10 songs on Too Young to Be in Love are exuberant snapshots of rock music's earliest years, bursting with teenage romance and allusions to oral sex, but they are also very faithful ones.

Plain’s solo music has always rooted itself in a sense of calm, but with Prize, she also offers up the understated beauty of observation.

Unfortunately, "She Will Only Bring You Happiness" isn't a single, and there a dozen other tracks to account for, none of which live up to that song's pop splendor, and few of which even come close.

C'mon feels more like a collection drawn from throughout the last decade than a completely cohesive album.

Inspired by a dream and grounded in no concrete narrative, the magic is in the satiny vocals and paisley compositions, a world unto itself.

This is an album that asks you to sink into its sounds, takes a left every time you expect it to take a right and moves slowly most of the time, letting things happen rather than forcing them.

While this is a step forward for Shipp, for APC, it's a side-step from their gleamingly tricked-out, beat-tweaked and freaky Arrhythmia.

Being grounded, after all, is what Wolfe was going for. That you have to work in order to appreciate what she went through to get there is what makes Hiss Spun so intriguing.

Oversteps finds them working in a comparatively less rigid fashion, almost organic compared to something like Confield. Focusing on creating tension and release within their compositions, they're still incorporating new designs, not merely repackaging the previous products.

There’s no explicit theme behind Piano Song. It’s simply strong, well-considered jazz, with Shipp’s piano leading a thorough dialogue with bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Newman Taylor Baker.

Roberts' voice sounds in fine fettle as well, and his reedy, keening brogue is the type of immediately distinctive instrument that is virtually impossible to imagine any listener accidentally mistaking for someone else's.

Knotty, distorted, and alien, Shirt operates only in intensity and extremes, an adrenaline shot for a songwriter liable to get lost in dreams.

In the absence of a rare-cuts windfall, Vol. 2’s most novel attraction is a series of one-on-one interviews conducted with each individual band member over the course of 1965-66, a good year removed from their most breakneck period.

There are elegant touches like this on each of Hollow Ground’s 10 songs, resulting in an album whose familiar melodies don’t demand your full attention but earn it anyway.

Lesser Known, then, is about self-exploration in unexplored territory, and how to lose yourself in that void. Boeldt's escaped, and it sounds like he's all the better for it.

For all the album's modest ambitions, it doesn't lack for variety.

The first five tracks here are on par with anything you loved about Us.

The immaculate emptiness is, in a sense, Asiatisch’s masterstroke, helping bolster the pervading sense of dislocation of being exposed to a society that’s been fed through the photocopier one too many times.

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.

Tight, affable, and unpretentious.

Overstuffed and vaguely monotonous, the album could be easily whittled down to a single sequence of impressive songs; Instead, it's a meandering, occasionally moving series of mid-tempo laments, some more memorable than others.

Scream From New York, NY harnesses the group’s keening intensity and taps into a vivid sense of place. They’re not the first songwriters to draw inspiration from the chaotic thrum of New York City, but they bring this literary tradition into a troubled new era.

He skillfully synthesizes his influences, hitting sweet spots that feel purely of his own creation.

No envelopes are pushed on the quartet's latest, The Lucky Ones. But there's an increase in firepower that makes it their best effort in a while.

The best moments here are the most direct, the least demonstrative.

Milwaukee at Last!!! only seems broader than it is: Almost every track, it turns out, is from Release the Stars, and the audience doesn't seem to mind.

Taken together, You Are All I See still can't help but feel like an old cathedral--easy to admire in awe, but somehow cold and remote; hard to really make your own.

Instead of drawing attention to their experimentation, Winged Wheel make those sonic paths feel completely natural, trusting us to follow along even if they’re not sure where they’re headed.

It's lively in its drowsiness, which may be the album's most compelling and distinguishing contrast.

It’s easy to miss the album’s sonic and conceptual ingenuity amid the lyrical bloat. The thing is, even Barnes’ worst clunkers serve a purpose.

The best moments of When We All Fall Asleep play firmly into this formula. Inspired by Eilish’s frequent night terrors and lucid dreams, the album juggles dark compulsions with grim eulogies, balancing her feathery vocals with deep, grisly bass.

A compelling synthesis of the hip-hop producer's talents and the solid ensemble work of the Blue Series collective.

2 Chainz been rapping for over a decade, but now his music sounds like he’s just entertaining himself during late night recording sessions and (correctly) assuming his audience is along for the ride.

Loud isn’t their aim, and Plum’s special, big moments stand out against the quiet.

While Acousmatic Sorcery is interesting and occasionally even great on its own, it ultimately it feels very much like a hyper-creative and gifted artist trying to figure out what he's doing.

Let’s Try the After is a pleasant Andes Creme de Menthe following the feast that was Hug of Thunder, as Broken Social Scene tackle a few of their distinct modes—propulsive and tricky instrumental rock, explosive guitar-hero theatrics, slow-burning balladry—in capable, familiar fashion. That familiarity isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially if you’re typically into what Broken Social Scene bring to the table.

Ashworth melds two distinctively ’90s sound worlds. Squeeze holds Korn, Disturbed, and System of a Down in one hand; Sheryl Crow, Faith Hill, and Shania Twain in the other.

Ten years deep into their career, the Dodos have never actually steered too far from their roots, but the loose, unselfconscious feel of Individ proves that there is something to be said for recognizing and playing to your strengths, trusting your chops, and simply feeling things as intensely as you possibly can.

Overlong albums are one thing, but overlong and sonically derivative albums are usually near unlistenable. But it's the individual songs that make Cabinet worth the time.

Like all of neo soul’s greats, BJ seamlessly blurs R&B’s past and present, but 1123 tends to sidestep the most obvious tropes, both modern and retro. ... In its final stretch, though, 1123 does toss out a few of-the-moment tracks that radio might be able to work with.

There's a gritty, lucid vein [in the album's songs] running just below the top layer of haze, the words' bite stinging all the more for their burial under all those dank guitar tones and harmonies as dark and delicate as black lace.

The songs on here are surprisingly strong, such that any of them could have appeared on a proper album at any point in Beam’s decade-plus career. But the collection never sounds like the sum of its parts.

Their debut doesn’t skimp on outlining the horrors of being a youngish woman—but its giddy, wild-eyed pleasures are also a testament to creating your own reality to survive.

WUNNA is more than an endless barrage of boasts about his designer clothes and foreign whips; the flows are crisper, his puns are more colorful, and the beats are pristine.

This work feels more in tune with decay and exploitation in sexual portrayal, the numbness accrued from a constant barrage of imagery, than anything that’s notionally "sexy."

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.

With Open Here, Field Music rises to the challenge with a set of newly crystallized talking points, offered up along with a glorious mess of noise.

Take Care is less ragged than Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, but it's otherwise a very similar album.

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.

While it often lacks the moodier, polyrhythmic highs of Great Lengths and the character that came with it, Martyn's efforts to make it back through no-nonsense propulsion nearly make up for it.

The Night is frequently cold and lonely, but Saint Etienne make for invaluable company.

O’Connor is pushing herself on every song here--maybe not always in the right or most obvious or safest directions, but always with some purpose.

Its mystery isn’t a gimmick, nor a playful riddle to be solved, but an abstraction awaiting interpretation.

There are no great musical innovations here, but that’s not to say the songs aren’t affecting: Anaïs Mitchell is a compelling, earnest rumination on the desires and possibilities that arise when you start looking for significance in small moments.

By this time, though, even Frank may be chafing at the limitations of their bar-band sound, staunch as he is in refusing to do overdubs or even edits in the recording process. Fortunately, there are just enough tweaks to that process this time out to enliven the resulting album, making it his most diverse and listenable since Teenager of the Year.

In their own way Moore and Paterra write catchy music. That their tastes position them as soundtrack-buff outsiders at the fringes makes the cohesion, listenability, and passion of Shape Shift that much more of a triumph.

Each track offers something worthwhile, yet none raises any question as to why it ended up here.

There are still bands like Earlimart, quietly chugging away in Los Angeles and preserving the West Coast sound with a spirit that's more than just curatorial, as Mentor Tormentor elegantly shows.

Proof of Youth mostly recaptures the enthusiasm and unique sensibility of "Thunder Lightning Strike," further filling that niche for lo-fi sample-based old-school-noise-rap we never knew we needed filling.

The restraint of the musicians involved leaves Chesnutt's fragility at the center of the music and lends the album an air of refinement and wisdom that could have easily been drowned out by guitarists more eager to call attention to themselves.