As the headiest entry in the Blanck Mass catalogue, In Ferneaux is more edifying than satisfying; abandon all hope for bangers, ye who enter here. But taken holistically—and repeatedly—In Ferneaux reveals the intellectual and emotional journey as the reward.

The melodies for their slower and more winsome songs hit harder and soar higher than the power chord explosions, which can feel a little stale, like maybe someone forgot about that Schlitz can.

Hymn to the Immortal Wind has probably caused floods of tears. That's a description, not a dis. The melodies are more sure-handed than ever. They are like missiles locked onto emotional buttons. More independence in the guitars helps sharpen this aim.

That feeling of being held at arm's length persists no matter how much time you put in with Voidist, and it's the record's only significant shortcoming.

For all the credit given to Luger-- who, in fairness, has upped the bar for rap producers competing with the post-Tunnel nightclub gangster aesthetic-- it's Waka who gives this record its frenetic intensity.

It's as much heady, restive psychedelia as it is a punk rager.

In open air, Sigha's systems are chaotic and threatening, but they have a habit of choking one another off over the course of an album. Ghosts still proves, though, over and over, that Sigha has a single, awesome skill--tunneling, perverse techno.

All the thick atmospheres and heavy sentiments have a gravity that's stronger than mere attitude. Yet despite that heft, Go Easy is pretty entertaining, too.

Unlike the blunt, confrontational NO LOVE DEEP WEB, Government Plates lets you think for yourself and even if it doesn’t have an agenda, that doesn’t mean it’s nihilistic.

As engaging as that bluster is at first, over the course of ten songs Whatever Forever begins to grate not unlike a person who tries too hard to look nonchalant when they would hold your attention longer if they just opened up a bit more.

This valiant yet flawed endeavor feels more like a false start than a dead end, if the Blow keeps watering the ideas seeding the back half and stays away from karaoke.

Condon’s constant obsession with anachronism occasionally yields lovely, even compelling results. Other times, listening to his music feels like talking to friends from high school you’ve lost touch with. There’s good stuff here, but ultimately, it’s hard to be excited about something that feels so seriously entrenched in the past.

Wares are ultimately less concerned with craft than catharsis, no matter how messy it gets. Hardy’s irrepressible personality abounds even in the album’s more delicate moments.

Life on Earth can be a joy to listen to— smooth, sexy, and bright—but it’s missing the searing songwriting Walker is capable of.

While Monument is probably one of their best albums, the narrative beneath their deeply carved patterns remains as elusive as ever.

Even with a side of arena-sized bombast, it remains a pleasure to hear Blige effortlessly rise above the drama.

Musically, though, it is strangely hollow, full of tracks that are technically well-executed but emotionally unmoving. In spite of its high tempos, rave clichés (police sirens, canned spinbacks, a Shephard tone), and rowdy hints of donk and hard house, it only occasionally achieves liftoff.

One-Armed Bandit occasionally overshoots the mark, but when it doesn't, the scenic route it took to get there proves worthwhile.

Despite White Hills' plentiful output, pacing remains a problem for the group. Live, as they run marathons around a riff, that's less of an issue; you're surrounded in the moment, lost in the feeling. On H–p1, though, it means you spend half of your time waiting to reach the crest.

Say hello to Allo Darlin': a welcome reminder that any aversion to cutesy music in recent years may have been due not to the aesthetic, but the quality.

As enjoyable as it can be, Mess is a centrist record from a band without a lot of centrist strengths and appreciating it can feel like a symbolic gesture.

A large, baroque gesture toward the act of what it means to purposefully lose oneself.

Her provocations are tamed, her rasp is sanded down, the limits of her range more strictly enforced. At times, though, Walker herself takes cover in plain sight.

White's natural eeriness and Jones' diffident eroticism certainly fit a sound built around mystical melodrama and chilly Euro heartbreak, but their voices are such complimentary opposites that they turn out to be what gives Rome much of its distinctness, keep it from being just another record collector (or film collector) exercise in getting everything period-perfect.

She is an artist who knows who she is, and Froot luxuriates in the confidence that we do, too, relaxing in the space and power that Diamandis has claimed.

Regrettably, no other song here has a lyric nearly as compelling as "Andalucia"-- a major flaw for what is essentially a pedal steel-enhanced singer/songwriter album.

LongLiveA$AP delivers on and even exceeds the promise of LiveLoveA$AP. Like that mixtape, the album is a triumph of craft and curation, preserving Rocky's immaculate taste while smartly upgrading his sound

Each of Alter's twelve tracks are structurally slippery, shifting seamlessly from style to style in a way that makes it almost impossible to accurately map their paths. The subsequent mazes can be disorienting, but it's the most thrilling brand of dementia, as well as an acute reminder of the tension and balance true songwriting prowess can build.

Like all Luna family projects, L'Avventura has a sneaky way of getting its claws into you-- background music that gets stuck in your forebrain. But also like most Luna product, this little vacation from the less-talked about half of the band starts to bend under its own uniformity of mood somewhere in the second half, and probably would've been slightly better acclimated to EP length.

An extremely listenable, laughable album, a futuristic freakshow of deep, stirring melodies and innovative beat arrangements.

Invoking Disintegration is ridiculous, but The Cure is remarkably more thrilling a listen than the band's most recent guitar-heavy predecessors.

Strays lacks what what made the band great in the first place: believable songs and lyrics.

Manages never to get tired or annoying.

They're no Basement Jaxx, and it's easy to hope for someone with more professional skills to come fill in the Audio Bullys' blueprints.

Though reference points like Daft Punk and Prince have rightly been thrown around, Radical Connector is in fact a strange album that doesn't sound like much else.

Bjorke is clearly an artist-producer who likes to put his finger in lots of different pies, and he should be commended for such restlessness and flexibility. Still, it would be nice to see him pursue some of these avenues a bit more thoroughly as opposed to cramming so many detours into one 48-minute trip.

Fewer generalities and a more interesting narrative would have gone a long way: For all the sharp, intriguing musical experimentation, the lyrics are too easy to forget.

Chet Faker's first full-length album proves that the artist is eager to explore new frontiers.

Distinguished by her sure-footed stride, Quit the Curse sounds like an album by an artist who at last knows where she’s going.

The production has become knottier and more entangled, layering staccato notes with glimpses of field recordings, flourishes of breakbeats, and sweeping effects. At times, Articulation’s grandiose ideas are deflated by an overwrought execution. ... The magnetism of Rival Consoles lies in the chaotic warmth created through an intrepid play on rising and falling, conjuring a sense of turmoil that seems to become louder and more definite with each release.

There Is No End is Allen as his most copacetic, polished self. It doesn’t feel like the finish line, but rather a passing of the baton—to artists who compelled him to evolve, and to fans always willing to be surprised.

Vacancy is rooted in experience and features the most skillful vocal performances of Lennox’s career, highlighting her attention to mood and the patience with which she builds toward runs that feel like falling in love. Still, sometimes the songs feel like they’re trapped in amber, with emotion muted and songwriting that verges on repetitive.

The title track, which closes the album with a missive for those young girls, is anchored by his personal anxieties, making for some of Cole’s most affecting writing to date. ... At its lowest points, 4 Your Eyez Only rehashes Cole’s worst tendencies.

Its flimsiness usually finds a way to sound purposeful, and that makes Aqueduct's personal, cerebral pop worth coming back to.

The not-new songs here don't sound reworked so much as run through some kind of cartoony scrubbing contraption, Wonka Wash-style, emerging stunningly clean out the other end, the curvy surfaces all gleaming in the sun.

The synthesizers, the gang vocals, their approach to choruses--it's all reasonably similar across these 27 minutes. Even Hoffmann’s vocal style, thrillingly furious in its from-the-gut delivery, doesn’t vary too much. But the structures, stories, and overall tones differ enough from song to song that this never feels like a monotone slog. They've created a surefooted, aesthetic defining opening statement.

Despite these superficial similarities [to their 1995 debut album], repeat spins of Strange Little Birds ultimately belie an older, wiser reincarnation of that youthful rage, not just a cheap retrospective.

Count Coming Apart as another fascinating step in that journey, and Body/Head’s musical path as one that she and Nace will hopefully follow for a long time.

Whether Muzz wind up being a lasting band or a one-off diversion, this is a promising debut from three old friends who have an instinctive grasp of each other’s talents.

Yet unlike the more cohesive albums from those aforementioned acts, Immolate is a one-step forward, one-step back proposition, marching in place to an internal setting somewhere between chilly background mood and something more melodic and engaging.

Lady Walton contains the most accomplished and varied music Clogs have recorded to date.

It's probably his most immersive single release--or album, or mixtape, or emanation, or whatever--in a year and a half, better than both Based God Velli and I'm Gay.

With Lovelessness, Bison B.C. prove that rudimentary doesn't mean uninteresting or trendy.

Nothing sounds belabored, nothing overthought. Sheff even allows himself to understate like never before..

Friendly Fires is teeming with ideas, and although the record's consistent sound can be exhausting--there is no release, no relaxation in tempo--it's encouraging to locate a new band with too much passion, so much that it can hardly execute its ideas on one page.

What makes Gem feel like a such step forward (and such a straight-up enjoyable romp) is the way it playfully appropriates the debauched excess of glam rock to achieve its own singular vibe.

When you sleep... has a much more distinct and iconoclastic character than their slick debut, drawing from the effervescent, percolating polish of early '80s Hot 100 pop that they flirted with on "Heart Out.".... That doesn't mean that When you sleep is consistent by any stretch. It's 75 minutes long, which could mostly be solved by trimming the four (!) lengthy ambient tracks on the record.

Milk Famous falters by creating an Uncanny Valley effect by adopting the most easily replicable aspects [of Spoon's sound] without maintaining any sort of human element or offering anything that's identifiable as their own.

Sometimes Ashworth sounds like she’s yearning to startle her own music’s hypnotically pleasant surface, and there are times you wonder if the gauziness of shoegaze is doing her a disservice, hiding her in plain sight. But SASAMI is a powerful first effort, and Ashworth is a compelling presence.

King Tuff feels like the couch surfer friend you invite to your house party, the one who's often charming and fun but will not leave until every last drop of beer is gone.

Carpenter’s bandmates mostly help him resurrect an old sound instead of crafting a newer, fresher one, yielding distinctly diminished returns.

Tie on the celebrity blindfold, and Broken Boy Soldiers no longer seems like that much of an achievement-- just another case of men recreating their favorite vinyl deep cuts, if a bit more skillfully than most FM scrapbookers.

The faster stuff is pretty much in line with the key tracks from "Mag Earwhig!," and the lesser of the slow jams could very well be on any of the records after "Do the Collapse."

In Rubin—as much a guru as he is a producer—Kesha’s found a collaborator willing to indulge her spiritualist tangents. But neither the ideas nor the audio clips feel fully integrated into a broader theme of the album. Her ambivalence is more potent.

So go ahead and grant the Eels an exemption for going the orchestra tour route; the additional personnel justifies their paychecks by saving this live album from being a rote greatest-hits-with-crowd-noise exercise.

As great as all these songs are individually, they sound best together, and hearing them in relation to one another reveals things about them that are harder to catch when they're separated.

Somehow this totem of influences works, stacked one atop another in a monument to the newly refocused Strand of Oaks.

The lyrical coarseness serves an important function, reinforcing the urgency of O'Connor's performances and creating the impression that she has worked hard and fast to document her emotions at their rawest and wildest.

An exuberantly echoing starburst of lo-fi twee-pop gone grand.

Dalliance is the sound of a good band tightening to the point where they become something greater.

Olympic Mess speaks volumes without utilizing language or conventional musical tropes; it's an experience so captivating that language only breaks the spell.

Kamikaze has a slightly slicker, glammier edge than its predecessors, as well as some unobtrusive strings on a couple of tracks, but the peppy backbeats, gang-shouted choruses, and fist-pumping enthusiasm remain.

Enjoyable as it is, EP 4 does seem like smart risk management, a test run that confirms that whatever the group comes up with won’t be a Pixies-style disaster. As such, the rewards are modest.

You can’t knock Czarface Meets Metal Face too much for sounding like a period piece, since that’s so clearly the intention. Czarface has always spoken directly to a specific audience, one that values familiarity over progression. And if what you’re looking for is a hip-hop album that sounds like it could have been recorded 15 years ago, Czarface Meets Metal Face certainly delivers.

In one sense, The Other is a logical extension of its predecessor’s more lustrous moments, like the jangly acoustic outlier “Eyes of the Muse” and the stargazing ballad “Staircase of Diamonds.” But the execution here is more sophisticated—and the overall tone far more serious.

If the album makes for an occasionally uneasy listen, that only speaks to its authenticity: Anyone who’s ever lain awake at night wondering where their life is going will feel a cringe of recognition in these songs.

Rome shows how precise the National’s alchemy is: If Devendorf is replaced with a drum machine, if Dessner confines himself to the piano or quiet noodling, if Berninger rambles too far afield, the whole thing falls apart. It’s Alligator deep cut “The Geese of Beverly Road” where Rome best demonstrates the band’s collective power. On record, it’s patient but stiff, held back by a lo-fi drum recording; live, it’s the massive, sweeping anthem early believers always hoped it would become.

Forever Is a Feeling turns the most transcendent, hopeful, horny moments of a young lover’s life into maddeningly safe background music. It’s so frustrating, you could scream.

Romance Is Boring smacks of that feeling, knowing more than before but still trying to hash out just where to go with it. It's fun watching bands grow; it's been a pleasure watching this band grow up.

Everything about this song -- and this entire album, for that matter -- suggests this heart's still got a lot left to burn.

While the Lemon Twigs’ sound is far older than their years, this set of concerns is remarkably age-appropriate as they enter their 20s and look toward the future.

Fingers, Bank Pads & Shoe Prints is a nice reminder that footwork's version of classic rock still overflows with bizarre juxtapositions and high-wire pileups.

The details of Kavinsky's intended narrative are blurry, and possibly nonsensical, but he succeeds in making an album that suggests that it's the soundtrack to something, and at least making it clear that it has to do with cars and the 1980s.

There’s something sadly anonymous about Sunlit Youth. It’s cloudy, distant, and inert when it should be effervescent.

The band's lack of swagger is refreshing amid the hot fussed-over convicts and misogynistic sun kings of the New Wave sphere, but it also hampers the less convincing tracks.

It's one of those odd albums where nearly every track sounds good, but it's all so singleminded and monolithic in its approach that taking it in as a whole almost feels smothering.

20/20 is akin to another recent album that successfully teased-out excitement from satisfaction, Beyoncé's 4.

Gordon’s most impassioned singing on the album helps here, too, but it’s the pair’s frame accuracy that makes the track so dramatic. The results are far from predictable, but they serve as further proof that Body/Head are fully in control.

Lekman's new An Argument with Myself EP is a compact gem.

Wire feels at first almost strangely normal. Lewis is credited with most of the lyrics, Newman does most of the vocals in his gentler speak/sing mode, and the feeling generally is calmly inviting.

Indeed, when the strings are given the spotlight, the strongest songs are created; ditherings with Theremin, xylophone, and scuttling drum machine are less impressive.

The extra thematic layer gives the music a depth that bodes well for this band’s future.

While The Mutt’s Nuts was never going to slot perfectly into place for anyone looking for Speed Kills 2, a suite of three songs on the B-side scratch that itch. All under two minutes long, they implement the same wildness and breakneck pace that defined their first album.

True to its title, Magic Pony Ride embraces Paradinas’ sugary side. Synths froth and squeak. Kitschy piano riffs ascend to euphoric heights. ... The lower end of these mixes feels less inspired.

These songs have more muscle than the typical McCombs song, with “Wheel” chugging like V-12 pistons, and “Satan” smoldering with sticky saxophone smears. This befits their subject matter as well as the vibe of the album, on which McCombs plays with genre more explicitly than usual.

Listening to M. Ward is nowadays perhaps more deeply pleasurable than it ever has been, with glistening strings and big slabs of piano occupying more and more of the terrain once almost entirely populated by his nimble fingered guitar, trashcan percussion, and creaky room noises.

Stripped of the cut-and-paste studio trickery and celebrity cameos that defined the band's records from the mid-90s onward, the self-produced Meat and Bone boasts no ambition beyond capturing the Blues Explosion in straight-up, no-bullshit rock'n'soul mode.

Between the spirited music and Hütz's delivery, you're not likely to walk away from Pura Vida feeling uninspired. But if you want to really hear what Gogol Bordello is saying on Pura Vida, a little history with the band is going to go a long way.