Rudimental are casting a wider musical net than their peers, which has the unintended effect of magnifying their flaws by comparison, making for a decent but ultimately second-tier effort in a crowded year for big-ticket dance-pop.

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.

Free Reign II is precisely the sort of risky, rejuvenating album Clinic needed at this point in their career, one that audaciously upends the perception that this band just releases the same album over and over.

It's not the music that sinks Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, it's those lyrics: well-intentioned, certainly, but as deep as the bowl on a one-hitter.

By default, Nextwave is less scattered and more consistent: It’s only five songs. But “Ratchet” indicates that Bloc Party could’ve gone way further off the grid if they gave themselves enough time.

Whichever end of her spectrum Lee swings toward--the harshly noisy or the hypnotically meditative--her sound always commands attention, making Ghil the biggest surprise in a career already full of them.

Practically nothing on the album feels strained, and even less seems compromised.

Given all the blood, jism, and other bodily secretions the dot Bug’s lyric sheet here, Pop. 1280 are still very much the sort of band that demand a post-listen shower--this time, though, you just won't need as much soap.

Hobo Rocket draws out the indulgence, more than happy to engage in dumb fun without bringing much to the party.

Mostly it's like coming across a public-access channel late at night, where it never feels like the people on screen are fully in control. It works because Copeland isn't too rigidly stuck to his aesthetic, instead setting up his stall and letting the chaos pour in.

Now that the veil has been lifted, there’s not much on Tides End worth the price of progress.

It's still questionable how this pretty, solemn music will work in the quirky context of Green's film, but it makes for a nice little album on its own.

Follow-up Swisher doesn’t abandon the beauty of the duo’s earlier work (“Andrew” and “Rei” could easily be lifted from last year’s album) but it uses it more judiciously. This shift makes Swisher less immediately captivating but somehow more involving than its predecessor, establishing the ultimate core of the duo’s aesthetic somewhere deeper and altogether more mysterious.

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.

In the end, Lenses comes off like a proggy, synth pop album that wants to get treated like sound sculpture, but Soft Metals don't fully commit to either endeavor in spite of the record's handful of successes.

II is just about perfectly synchronized with the zeitgeist, and if it’s not a flawlessly executed record, it still seems capable of making the most out of its moment.

It's an uneven but captivating album that sounds like an artist still looking for his stride and trying to balance between two extremes.

While Chance is fond of joking, this album is no joke. As In Search plays out, it becomes increasingly clear that the record’s scatterbrained eclecticism and frantic energy is less a product of eccentricity-for-eccentricity’s sake than a manifestation of the very real anxieties fuelling this endeavor.

There's a weight here that could drag you down if you let it, but mostly this is a band searching for hope amid shattered dreams.

With that frustrating distance between Tiny Rebels' finely tuned sonics and Kelly's uncharacteristically indistinct lyrics, it's hard not to wonder what another week might've done.

Like every Pumpkins reissue, Aeroplane is stocked with extras; the difference here is that they’re jammed onto each single seemingly at random, rather than separated into bonus discs. As a result, the tasteful and accessible arrangement of the original is compromised, negating one of its best qualities.

On Around, Whirr don’t elevate themselves beyond the level of a listener; instead, they remain supplicant to their influences.

McLamb seems to be relishing the chance to get outside of his head, making music that is gorgeous and unashamedly fun.

For all its sprawl, The Argument maintains a brisk pace, with a White Album-inspired sense of irreverence that ensures Hart never gets stuck in place for long.

If Liam seems hamstrung as a rocker on BE, at least he’s showing more promise as a balladeer.

Revisiting All Hail West Texas over two decades into the Mountain Goats’ existence makes a central irony in their story all too clear: it’s not a lonely record anymore. A handful of these songs remain the most iconic in the Mountain Goats catalog.

There's not much wrong with Body Music, but its constellation of contemporary electro-pop elements can sometimes feel too slick for its own good.

The Future Bible Heroes' first outing since 2002's uneven Eternal Youth does offer up slightly more catchy melodies and deadpan quotables than Love at the Bottom of the Sea.

While these songs can occasionally find that perfect balance of catchiness, sweetly familiar sentiments, and home-recorded charm, there a few too many lemons for this to be a record worthy of vibing out.

I Want You to Destroy Me is solid as far as debuts go, though it offers the all-too-common letdown of hearing music that’s superficially loud and aggressive, yet feels like it’s doing so little to actually stand out.

It's the sound of an artist uniquely in tune with his instrument, as Holden coaxes all manner of beastly noise out of his mighty modular synthesizer, trying to keep that sound organized and only sometimes succeeding.

While his prodigious talents as a rapper ensure you might enjoy Saaab Stories on a purely musical level, it’s unlikely you’ll feel better when it’s over.

Self-absolved from their roles as alien emissaries and newly loaded with personal responsibility, they seem entirely recharged now, a veteran outfit bailing on one mission to start a better and more approachable one.

While it's hard to fault a band for branching out beyond their established template, the tidy electronic textures of Fantasy don't begin to match the mysterious depths of Lightning Dust's best work.

Moving away from the more varied songcraft that speckled the record's earlier tracks, Jinx eventually resigns itself to a pillowy darkness that, while not unpleasant, feels safe and flat.

For all of Dum and Mad's unebbing intensity--it never gets overbearing, it retains a dynamism through Shah's magnetic voice--she makes you want to stay in the darkness with her.

The great leaps it takes sometimes feel less like an aesthetic choice and more like the work of someone figuring out where they want to go. It's a cut above most public attempts to undertake such a journey, if indeed that's what Collins is doing.

This is the rare album that reveals new depth within a catalog that already seemed so deep and ruminative while proclaiming rather unlimited possibilities for a band nearing the end of its first decade.

On Palms, the underlying parts fit together so smoothly that there's never any friction that could lead to a spark.

Scott already has his songwriting tools in place; once he finds his voice, look out.

Hunx's punk rock versatility has made Street Punk his most through-and-through entertaining full-length to date.

Destruction In Yr Soul isn't strikingly original, but it is heartfelt and comforting, and there is plenty of starlit sky here to stretch out beneath for those in search of it.

Electric isn't quite electrifying in the way that Very and Introspective and "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" are, but nearly every track has a moment or two that ignites seemingly long-gone enthusiasm.

On Tiden it's mostly pretty easy to pull apart tracks and figure out who did what, although there's never a feeling of two figures resting on their laurels.

The lyrics don't match the usually upbeat sound, and that disconnect helps make the band even more interesting.

In Chewed Corners Paradinas has put together an LP brimming with fresh ideas-- which, for an artist entering the third decade of his career, is no mean feat.

Power and Hung have made either the year's most introverted party album or the most expansive loner's album; either way, there are few albums this year that offer this much space to get lost in.

From start to finish, Dear Mark J. Mulcahy is a treat. In fact, it may be his best yet.

On Deceiver of the Gods, they are satisfied with plugging 10 new anecdotes into 10 songs they’ve made before and, unfortunately, will most likely make again.

It’s the sound of a rapper more than happy to maintain his narrow lane after being burned by the industry, one who's lost the ambition to leave his comfort zone, at least for the time being.

Alela Diane hasn’t upended the form, but that probably wasn’t her intent. What she needed was a port in a storm, and About Farewell is a very sturdy bulwark.

Slum Village has little to say lyrically.

Inconsistency or complexity? Depends on how much you believe in this music as sincere self-expression versus its status as smartly crafted, artist-as-listener-proxy pop.

Listeners who prefer their folk flashier or wrapped around memorable, poppy hooks might find Pratt's approach meandering or bland. But those with a more patient ear will find her a worthy and quietly distinct heir of Baier, Bunyan, and Dalton's homespun sound.

Based on Andy and His Grandmother, Kaufman comes off like an asshole, a hopelessly naive loser, a crazy person, a hothead, a hopelessly sweet grandma's boy, a sexually confused teenager, and a manipulative monster. In other words, he comes off like Andy Kaufman.

The Shabazz Palaces cut is easily the most interesting song here, and seems to be the one you might still be pulling out once in a while in another six months. Considering that the EP, with three versions of the same song in a row, isn’t really meant to be heard as a whole, getting one truly intriguing track out of it isn’t such a bad deal.

Concert albums never sound like the concerts they're supposed to capture, and with a band whose presence can stifle trite conversation like High on Fire's, it's a disservice.

You get the sense of an artist whose songwriting potential hasn’t been maximized, as Callinan’s got the vocal chops to keep Embracism interesting throughout.

This is ultimately a transitory record, its gate-crashing momentum tempered by songs that feel like holdovers from Gauntlet Hair’s more whimsical debut. With Stills’ crisper production cleaning up the band’s formative psych-pop splatter, the album’s more sanguine tracks.

Blumberg is a capable, if not particularly distinguished guitarist. He is also a songwriter with an unusual gift for sticky, familiar hooks and the issue here is that Unreal puts far more emphasis on the former.

There are plenty of bands that mapped inspired paths to greatness, but Big Star's story, as seen on film and heard on these songs, is a potent reminder of just how beautiful failure can be.

While Cedermark is an ace guitarist and affecting lyricist, his songwriting isn’t quite as rigorous or sharp.

There's a sweetly consistent mood throughout; it’s something you can put on and treat as ambient sound, but there’s also a clever subtlety in their process.

The main weakness is the same one found on Crazy Clown Time: the songs. As songs, they don’t do much or say much.

Joey too often comes out looking like someone who’s already grown weary of the system, an 18-year-old curmudgeon, a sharp contrast with the energy that 1999 promised.

Time Off’s biggest asset is its ease. There’s a real sense, listening to these tracks, that everything could be a little simpler if we all stopped trying so hard.

Every song on this album could stand to be tightened. Most could lose a verse or two, and a lot of them would sound much better if they were played faster.

With its quaking rhythms, twisted riffage, and jet-black wit, Major Arcana is a redemptive ode to the broken bones that grew back together a little crooked--the ones that taught Dupuis how to walk in her own weird way.

Southeastern is easily Isbell’s best solo album--his most richly conceived and generously written. If it’s not quite the album that lives up to his considerable talents, it’s mostly the music that’s to blame.

Ciara feels slightly (though only slightly) weaker when she swims against the current of her own charm and tries for “raw.”

Though repetitive, the record is consistently engaging, with plenty of distinct highlights.

Style trumps niche every time here, and in its efficiently compact sub-hour runtime there's plenty of opportunity to let that style run through all kind of territory.

While All Hell felt imbued with danger and intrigue, on Me Moan, the people pulled off to highway shoulder are never in any real distress upon closer inspection. They just stepped out to check a map.

It would sound overproduced for 1998 yet seems curiously rinky-dink compared to the current pop maximalism of any continent; Scott & Rivers splits most of its time between ruthlessly utilitarian power pop and midtempo, jangly acoustic alt-rock that reimagines the break between Pinkerton and the Green Album as one where Cuomo ditched Harvard for higher education in the form of Stroke 9 or Eve 6 CDs.

Without Your Love ends up becoming a loose survey of Dexter's work instead the Nihjgt Feelings statement he intended it to be.

Rather than dour, however, the album sounds concerned, perhaps even worried, which illuminates even some of its weaker or seemingly extraneous tracks. It focuses Pollard, who sounds like a man who has said so much already but still has so much left to say.

On The Dusted Sessions they both deconstruct and reinforce the tenets of Americana and make something transcendent in the process.

The weirdly distant and safe Magna Carta Holy Grail abides by the tried and true business principle that the customer is always right: you just have to remember who the customer is here.

Occasionally plodding, and too ruminative by half, Anarchic Breezes is a journey in need of a destination, stuck between staring at the sun and gazing thoughtfully at its own navel.

Yeah, it's a fun album, and it's probably the most affable thing they've done so far together. But don't take that for a weakness.

Unfortunately, on Planta, they only seem half-awake.

Despite its clever syntheses, there are times when it's not much more than pretty. But the good is not only good, it's promising.

Hanging Gardens is a decadent trifle to lose yourself in, a deceptively simple record that has the potential for great longevity.

The album is at its best when Jones delivers brisk, bright rock with endearing hooks... Things begin to lag when Jones drops the tempo and tries his hand at balladry.

There's potential in The Visitor's mix of electro, new wave, and pop, but it's obscuring or distorting Aguayo's personality, which is the engine that has driven his songs for so long.

The music on The Gifted sounds fantastic, with intricately arranged keys and strings, stacks of soul and gospel-inspired backup vocals, and deep, rubbery bass lines. The problem is that Wale and his team made a really decent soul rap album without a rapper soulful enough to carry it.

Stelmanis has said she listened to a lot of early Cat Power while recording Olympia, and while nothing here sounds anywhere near as stark, the lyrics often do, and lead appropriately tense, nervy sounding songs.

Their search for large-scale anthems and keenness to replicate a formula that doesn’t come naturally to them leaves them sounding boxed in, and imbuing Heart of Nowhere with all the grace and flexibility of four concrete pillars.

One True Vine tarries too long in doubt before finally breaking that dour spell and inviting the listener in on the celebration.

It updates the IDIB sound without losing its buzzy neon charm, which remains a hugely attractive mode.

Even if it’s stretched thin and unsatisfying in spots, Four is our most distinct glimpse of Harvey yet.

Kenny Dennis is definitely a type, but he's a type that feels real enough to want to hang out with, even during his downer moments.

Watching Movies with the Sound Off is a quantum leap in artistry, but it’s not without faults; the album’s about three songs too long, and a couple of the tracks in the back end just plain run together.

The music is a heady swirl of baggy beats and unabashed Beach Boys melodies, while the lyrics are wholly uninterested in anything intellectual.

Lacking both the demonstrative lo-fi sprawl of its predecessor and the hermetic perfectionism that often marks long-gestating albums, Jackleg really does sound like the Baptist Generals made it first and foremost for themselves.

Antenna to the Afterworld may have all the dressings of science fiction and fantasy, but like many great works in those genres, it's a strong, emotive character study.

Their stuff floats off, and the synths carry the whiff not of a beach breeze but of a department-store escalator.

At its best, Born Sinner, showcases J. Cole's overall musicality, pairing his ability as a lyricist with a more broadly developed production palette.