There are brooding, rhythmically strong pop songs that fall halfway between the poutiness of Lana Del Rey and the hyperactive fizz of HAIM. The parts where it deviates from that template, however, are baffling.

Impersonator gently twists your arm like this, song-by-song and note-by-note, and it is as discomfiting as it is transcendent.

As a culmination and refinement of everything the National have done over the past decade, Trouble Will Find Me couldn’t be granted a more fitting mission statement.

Mvula's music hearkens back to an earlier era than that of her many British contemporaries: She hovers on the edge of pop, but the majority of her songs are too reserved to fully break through.

Even as harrowing and discomfiting an experience as Emma is, it's the most listenable record Niblett has made since her debut; caustic in a totally different way than usual.

The record will remain, something that channels the past but sounds like little else right now, an album about rediscovery that's situated in the constantly-shifting present.

Most of the cars in The Great Gatsby crash and so does Luhrman's soundtrack.

These eight tracks serve as a swift, sinister reminder of why Cathedral mattered at the start and why they intrigued for so many years in the middle.

Although the sensitive side it reveals is less developed than their established one, it's just as intriguing.

Black Pudding might not be High Plains Drifter, but it’s a suitably entertaining bad-ass diversion a la The Gauntlet.

Getting forcibly pinned down in her personal cycle of attack and retreat is a dark, visceral, utterly compelling thrill.

Raw Solutions is more ambitious than the average dance album, both in terms of the span of sonic territory that it covers and its attempts to synthesize all of it into one cohesive work.

[A] light, infectious, effortlessly cool debut.

It's this sense that nothing is (seemingly) too private for him to share in a song that makes Pale Green Ghosts so potent and, ultimately, accessible

It’s messy and menacing in equal measure, a bar fight that ends in broken glass and slippery floors, but not before landing a few killer strikes.

Perils from the Sea may not be a seamless collaboration, but neither artist has sounded so purposeful in his reverie in years.

The live album (recorded in Stockholm in 1994) and disc of rarities and demos put the finished product in context, while the array of EPs show off the wide stylistic range of everything the Breeders could do well.

The problem is that while Ambivalence Avenue was a pleasant surprise in all forms, an astounding leap from an unexpected source that constantly offered new sounds, Silver Wilkinson provides the same thing without the surprises. And all that’s left is the pleasant part.

Empty Estate tries to guide Wild Nothing towards a more physically charged sound, and it’s not always an easy transition.

Most of the songs on Mind Control are worth a few spins, but nothing on here quite matches “I'll Cut You Down” from Uncle Acid's 2011 album Bloodlust.

For whatever perverse reasons we want to be unsettled by their music, and made psychically uncomfortable. They’ve always delivered, but never before with this sense of style.

While it’s exciting to hear a veteran band sharply change course on the fly, Tera Melos doesn’t always have a grasp on the mundane things like pacing or sequencing that make for a smoother LP experience.

He not only has an impressively deep knowledge of traditional song forms, but takes liberties with the country's past in order to document his own personal present.

You get the feeling that Small Black do want to break free of their past, but they’re not always convincing at showing how badly they want it.

Along with the more lived-in sonics, Modern Vampires has the band taking a leap forward into emotional directness. Koenig and Batmanglij truly seem of one mind here, as the vocals and music interact with each other in an effortless flow.

That sense of being loosely unanchored from the world gives Cloud Room its alien appeal, making its instrumental drift ripe for personal interpretation.

Pharaohs succeed principally because they don't feel the weight of all those influences bearing down upon them.

It doesn’t shy away from sorrow, but as far as heartbreak albums go, Volume 3 is surprisingly resilient.

Indicud has the sheen of a cinematic blockbuster.... Unfortunately, it also has no substance.

It's got the breadth of a comprehensively adventurous band, able to balance a steady motorik churn midway between Kraut and deep soul while letting the pull of improvisational tangents and dub distortion shift the picture.

By drawing this deeply on both the physical and sonic landscapes of their forebears, and with too many go-nowhere solos blotting out its songs, Fain winds up feeling stuck in time.

With the Screamadelica nostalgia out of their systems, More Light primes the Scream for their fourth decade in the best possible way, serving as a summary of everything they’ve done before, yet sounding nothing like it.

Nocturnes finds her settling on one that aspires to the distance of Saint Etienne's Sarah Cracknell or Sophie Ellis-Bextor. She’s not quite there, and when her approach doesn’t work, it really doesn’t. Nocturnes is a big improvement over Hands, though, where even the biggest singles' hooks were made of saccharine, not sugar.

What’s most disappointing about the album is how Ryder-Jones has almost completely abandoned taking any sonic risks. His vocal is dulled and rasping throughout, and the songs never blossom like those on If..., seemingly hamstrung by his limited range.

To See More Light shows impressive range.

At best Songs Cycled deals in quick-pivot moments.

The record alone makes for the latest solid effort from these two outsize talents, but the stage show ought to be the ideal way to enjoy it

Prisoner is marred by weak analogies (“colder than Minnesota,” “buzz like Georgia Tech) and Kweli’s bumpy writerliness (“ornithology” and “onomatopoeia” are just two less-than-melodious words used here), leading this to be his most underwhelming record yet word-for-word.

The album cuts through a world of chatter and distraction because it practices what it preaches, transmitting its message directly through the primal, bone-rattling force of its songs.

Discipline & Desire--the title’s a tip-off--is aloof and commanding, with an expertly honed sense of how far to take the tension it builds before offering relief.

Monomania is certainly a strong effort on its own merits, and more importantly, they’ve avoided making their deflating “diminishing returns” record.

He's an excellent pop craftsman who knows how to turn the power up for maximum effect.

Gordian is never boring, and none of the songs drag on past the point of entropy. That every listener might bring their own meaning to each song is an provocative approach on Nicolae's part--but it'd be better if the songs made their own purpose just as clear.

The goofball virtuosity of these tracks is fun if not especially memorable. Where Everybody Loves Sausages hits hardest is when the Melvins assert their personality on the material, rather than vice versa.

Fabric 69's most impressive quality--especially given the tough stuff involved in its composition--is how luxuriously listenable it is.

Sub Verses proves we shouldn't take Akron/Family for granted; their restlessness is rare.

Triumphant as the return itself has been, the records themselves have really only skirted triumph. English Little League is no different.

At times, these songs go on for a bit too long. A bigger obstacle is their lack of variety. But ultimately, these complaints are for an album packed with huge hooks, which all sound great when you play them really loud.

For all of Thr!!!er’s reliable pleasures, the requisite cover-image riff on the triple-bang logo is the boldest idea here, which makes for an awfully modest record to hold up against the pop-canon cornerstone for which it was named.

It’s Laura Stevenson’s third album, and the third that leaves you feeling warmly disposed but unconvinced, gamely professing your interest to see what she does next time around.

Beyond Yudin’s massive artistic debt, Cayucas’ main flaw is failing to recognize the difference between leaving something to the imagination and making the listener do all the hard work.

Iggy's delivery is too wry to exude rage, the songs rarely rise above a mid-tempo chug, and Mackay's jovial sax blurts are way more roadhouse than Funhouse.

The music is more unmemorable than bad, though occasionally Gonzalez's inexperience, which seems to limit what Trapanese can do as well, shows.

Perhaps Baba Yaga might’ve been more digestible if it had lost two or three songs. But for Futurebirds, the rough spots are kind of the whole point.

Like 90s pop stars turned 10s pop sophisticates Justin Timberlake and Beyoncé, Charli XCX stamps her personality across the entire project, and True Romance suggests she'll be worth following for a while.

It’s no slight to say nothing on Ultramarine matches its opening triad--not much does. The remainder of it is solid, though it shows a band still using established pop framework in lieu of a personality.

Sky Burial will likely land as one of the year’s great breakthroughs for a heavy act.

While improving on the sheer sound of Ghost Blonde on nearly every level, No Joy are still more suggestive than declarative.

Too much of it is an ill-advised cultural safari that’s too weird to fly but too monied to fail. But where it succeeds, Reincarnated forces you to forget the principal ridiculousness of the enterprise, and that is no small feat.

For the curious listener, the definitive nature of Illumination Ritual can cut both ways, as Appleseed Cast demonstrate their capabilities without having too many definitive strengths come to the fore, consolidating a decade and a half of intriguing, and occasionally compelling experimentation into a manageable 45 minutes.

Ultimately, Junip keep their distance, offering a comforting hand on your shoulder rather than a full and unreserved embrace.

The flaw here is that all these songs together are too much to absorb, but Miller probes deeply without ever coming off as sappy, skillfully weaving through breakups, self-loathing, skipping school, and poor decisions without sticking to his own sadsack introspection.

[V feels] both transitional and incubatory.

Mars is too amiable a vocalist to express pure disillusionment, but he’s great at communicating discomfort. Bankrupt! doesn’t so much ruefully reflect upon Phoenix’s whirlwind, globe-trotting lifestyle as drop you right in the middle of it.

The album shows that Grubbs’ music and his relationship to pop convention remains as distanced, fitfully frustrating, and stubbornly idiosyncratic as ever.

The perfectly pleasant Rat Farm [feels] strangely wanting.

Too often it sounds as though Beam is less interested in defining a new sound and more concerned with distancing himself from an old one.

That A Quiet Darkness doesn’t offer much in the way of immediate pleasure shouldn’t be entirely to its detriment, but this album doesn’t grow on you; it wears on you.

[Producer Nick] Raskulinecz brightens the band until the mystery and suspense disappear, turning these evil thoughts into baubles that sound safe enough for big money and rock radio.

It’s all about context with Live: each moment is a build to and release from the next.

Twelve Reasons is generous comfort food for Ghost's fanbase, a group slowly being whittled away by time and creeping indifference.

Unfortunately, at least in the narrative that Top of the Pops spins, everything that followed Bang Bang Rock & Roll did so with increasingly unbecoming shades of bitterness. They'd have been better off reissuing Bang Bang for a second time than opting to tell this glum take on events.

Excavation gains power from gathering a little dust for a while, becoming a dark treat to occasionally sink into.

Call of the Void are no exception, and they're proving that Denver is a hotbed of serious vitrol and passion.

If it doesn’t quite show the knack for experimentation and variety hinted at via Inspiration, Wings is a quietly amazing document of Otis’ doggged determination over the quarter century between leaving the business and the first Inspiration reissue.

Desperate Ground is a record that really wants to convey having something to say and Harris has run out of ways to say that something.

A no-brainer, easy-to-enjoy production slate gets knocked around by its flaws just enough that even the minor, acquired-taste touches seem like just another bad decision.

The trio unlearns everything that distinguished them as instrumentalists on snakes, ending up with something that’s more entertaining when seen as a potential document of alternate history.

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

Although Floating Coffin does quite well with its searing powerhouses, the quieter moments add a much-needed sonic diversity.

Much of Birthmarks is catchy enough to get stuck in your head, if not necessarily memorable enough to stay there.

A few too many other tracks, such as "Away", compensate for thin material with sheer bluster, and they can feel unwarrantedly grueling. But there's a conviction here, and that's nothing to feel sorry for.

Mosquito is not without highlights, but it requires some patience to unearth them, because when this record is bad, it's loudly, brazenly bad.

Way to Blue is too rigid in its approach and too timid in its interpretations to challenge or enlarge our perception of Drake.

On Totale Nite, they manage to use small-scale elements--jangling guitars, cheapo drum machines, toy keyboards--to project the urgency of bands with louder screams and bigger amps.

FM Sushi, then, is a stepping stone for a group suddenly poised to do great things, things their debut never even suggested.

The North Borders is not a bad album--for the most, it’s as inoffensive as those decade-old chill-out compilations--yet a frustration persists because Bonobo is better than this.

Coming on the heels of 2011's stellar Cervantine, Other World feels like it might've been stronger had Trost and Barnes held a few more things back.

Recurring Dream's a slinkier-sounding record than its predecessor: the songs are more spacious, less prone to snarling, and they've lowered the volume on Black Earth's stuck-between-stations fizz.

Being from her country means contending with the legacies of some of West Africa’s most internationally successful artists; at this point, I’d say Traoré fits comfortably alongside her forbears.

English Electric, the British new wave band's second full length since the reformation of the classic 1980s lineup in 2006, neither escapes from the quartet's past nor fully aims to.

Araab's willingness to stretch keeps For Professional Use Only engaging throughout, which is no easy task; it's 67 minutes long, about 15 minutes longer than a typical festival set and probably 15 minutes more AraabMuzik than anyone needs in one sitting.

These songs don't ever feel overstuffed. Everything is faithful to White Fence's well-established aesthetic, but simplified.

Wakin on a Pretty Daze breezes past like a Klonopin dream, and radiates an easy confidence that is as rewarding to return to as a melody.

For Now I am Winter is competent, reasonably varied, and efficiently rousing.

Overgrown is not as wall-to-wall great as his debut, but fans of the first LP will still find much to admire.

Monkey Minds’ sharp, late-act turn into politicized proselytizing may seem jarring at first, but then it’s an accurate reflection of how politics can suddenly intrude upon our lives and upend our worldview.

Ministry of Love does come off like something of a fashion victim, sounding expensive but uncomfortable, looking good but doing little to stand out.