Against the stately hush of Moore’s voice, Riley’s bass thunks satisfyingly, and their songs groove harder than ever. Warbled and muffled pianos contrast with acoustic guitars, and a few zany synth choices set Moore up to knock out some vocal delights.

Thug Motivation somehow feels both airless and over-inflated, the sound of an artist trying to revisit something gone.

The fans who'll get the most from it emotionally will be those who are already invested in its singer and his honesty.

With TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone on production, Islands polishes Durant’s sound to a resonant and gently rollicking gleam, brightened by dulcimer, guitar, brass, and woodwind. Durant’s songwriting is fine-boned and small-scale, and her lyrics are quietly epic.

As a whole, the record doesn't quite gel. The songs generally sound better out of context.

The back half of the album becomes harder to pin down, as Ras G switches up styles every few minutes.

So though it does often feel like JJ have hit a wall on V, when they're able to scale that wall and dance with the stars, the album's a treat.

Nun finds Teengirl brightening familiar color pallettes in more noticeably energetic ways and heading in an even more dance-oriented direction with a look not dissimilar to the aesthetic developed by the UK label Night Slugs.

Alternately inspired and frustrating, it addresses themes of lost love (and lost chicness) with Queen-size 70s-rock pomp, neoclassical interludes, and one ukulele-based chamber-pop song.

It's an accomplished sound, one that may not immediately dispense with the comparisons that have dogged the band, but one that does suggest a group more than capable of outgrowing the associations.

Just a few left-field twists could have gone a long way toward breaking up this very conventional set. Thorburn’s best albums sound like nobody else could have made them. A lot of acts have already made ones like Islomania.

At its best, Music brings other artists full of their own personality into the fold and highlights Benny’s songwriting.

Like all of their work, it’s capable and tuneful and reveals a young band of skilled songwriters that put all their faith in their guitars, even if it’s often hard to pinpoint where their own vision begins and their taste ends.

While Violens may know their sonic touchstones inside and out, they're better sticking to the haircut-obsessed sounds showcased on Amoral's standouts.

There is no pretense in their simple arrangements, but you can hear their motor revving, and you know they'll never run out of gas.

Lewis' crisp alto shines on every track... Unfortunately, the songs (and especially the lyrics) don't give Lewis the support she deserves.

Guv IV is a fun summer spin, but doesn’t coalesce into the memorable statement a pop songwriter like Cook could be capable of.

LETHAL is, in spirit, a passion project: Rico Nasty sounds like she’s having a blast. Yet certain moments seem dropped in, as if to meet a rebellion quota. .... The album has highlights if you know where to look.

The Dr Dee soundtrack is a deeply felt but difficult to love entry into Albarn's entirely singular discography.

For better or for worse, Kind is a Slipknot record, one that has more to offer than expected and is still sometimes frustratingly short-sighted.

TOPS are at their best when they keep digging. Elsewhere on the album, though, they’re just chilling. They’re as despondent and nostalgic as ever, but back to the kind of windswept indie rock that is their trademark.

Some moments on Moonbuilding show the Orb, if not regaining their form, then offering up decent ambient music. But elsewhere they revert back to a formlessness that's devoid of their quirky stoner persona.

The compositions are complex, and so fastidiously arranged that you might get sucked into trying to pick out some kind of flaw. Sometimes it’s a little harder to overlook.

Moosebumps will make aging hip-hop fans very happy. But new listeners are unlikely to come running at the good doctor’s call.

If much of it is merely pretty, this is easily the most diverse and wide-ranging Dirty Three record yet, absolutely the right thing for them to be doing at this time.

The band is, if anything, more confident than ever, but the sound's grandiosity too easily verges on melodrama, a too-bold-to-be-believable misery.

The main issue with Songs is that, for an album of "songs," there are too few pop cuts to work well as a whole. It's more of a pick-and-choose affair where the modern ability to fast-forward to your favorite musical moments, down to the second, is crucial.

“True Love,” “Up,” “Everybody’s Saying That,” and “Love Is Enough” bob to the same Chic formula: skanking guitar, twangy bass, canned strings. It’s a solid formula, but the textural sameness makes more idiosyncratic tracks like “Give Me Your Love” stand out.

Personal-feeling moments are the album’s strongest, and Superstar could use more of them. By clinging to the never-ending blank page of the bit, Rose winds up in shallower waters.

At times Davies matures backward, trading the Kinks' tergiversating sophistication for rash generalization.

Even considering all the high points and raw power, II falters under the weight of the band's ambition.

Like their first two records (2013’s Worse Than Dead and the following year’s The Tyranny Of Will), the band’s latest effort doubles as a vehicle for violent, nihilistic escapism. And it’s a compact one at that, clocking in at 18 tracks in 30 minutes.

This is a bedtime record, in both the complementary and dismissive senses of the word: it invites you to relax and soothes like a warm cup of tea, but can cross the line into powerfully soporific territory.

The shadows its shape casts may not always create flattering silhouettes, but there's both comfort and anticipation to be found in knowing that Silver's constantly tweaking the lighting.

On all of these songs, Nicki is dartboard focused-- she's rapping harder here than on almost anything from Pink Friday... But much of Roman Reloaded sweats with a too-big-to-fail desperation.

Come Feel Me Tremble suffers for its lack of cohesion.

Track by track, the disc's a sweet thing, but as a whole it's about as light and wispy.

His greatest strength has always been world-building, using a synth-heavy blitz of candy-colored jazz chords taken straight (sometimes blatantly so) from the Pharrell handbook. Cherry Bomb isn’t exactly a hard left turn from this lane, but it is a quick swerve.

As the Gizzard’s two releases this year respectively prove, they’re not afraid to push their sound to its most playful and punishing extremes. But it’s always been more thrilling to hear them excavate the uncharted territory in between.

Feathers seems less a continuation of Logic than a valuable complement, cheerful and heartfelt as the latter was somber and stylized.

The pristine quality of Snow Patrol's music and Garret Lee's production, however, belies the rawness of Lightbody's words, and too often, the songs suffer from the contrast.

For the most part, Gilberto’s voice finds the pocket, and when she’s front and center, the arrangements expertly draped around her, Agora is a rapturous listen. It’s not the star’s finest work—for newcomers, 2000’s Tanto Tempo remains her most engaging set—but in a time of personal distress, Gilberto embraces the familiar comforts of her graceful sound.

Circular Sounds can feel impersonal, especially in how Stoltz hopscotches from voice to voice, some far stronger than others.

Breaks' lyrical thumbnails of lost opportunities and forgotten friends can seem a touch too pathos-addled on paper, but drawn through Bachmann's lungs, they leave their mark.

Personal Life is hardly a failure; much of it is excellent. But it's also missing that anger-meets-energy urgency that made the Thermals' early albums so undeniable.

Past Time certainly isn't background music, but the vocalists' missives might be understood as simply the core of the band's sound--and perhaps something more, if you're able to divert your attention from the charms of the music.

For the first time, it sounds like he sat down in a good studio and carefully assembled a record. That's good, in that Odd Nosdam's production rode out the lo-fi thing for exactly long enough before moving on; but it's also a disappointment, because the new work isn't far off from where he was before-- it recycles a lot of his ideas with none of his usual edginess.

Shine Your Light never gets oppressive, though during its final third, it does suggest what living in a record store might be like after the novelty wears out--kinda lonely, a little bit stuffy, and leaving you subject to others trying to tiptoe around.

There's no real standout track--no 'Fade Into You' for this decade--but it's a good listen while it lasts, a thing of slow, sad grace.

James Pants is his third album, less goofy and party-focused than 2008's Welcome, and a little less brooding and funky than 2009's Seven Seals.

Nostalgia and intimacy suit Frahm’s compositional style, which relies on tugging at the heartstrings. But at times, the surfeit of feeling is overbearing.

Low on anthemic hooks and heavy on riotous noise breaks, Year Zero finds Reznor waving his digital hardcore flag high.

Most tracks on the first half clock in under four-minutes, but as the songs stretch out longer on the album’s back half, there’s not enough structure to support them.

It's pretty good. That much anyone aware of Johnston's past highpoints probably could have predicted.

The two musicians have tasked themselves with bridging generational and genre gaps between black music’s multitudes, but The Midnight Hour finds them still fiddling with how to do so.

On In Amber, Butler may have found a handful more peaks and his share of valleys, but few can emerge from the shadow of what came before.

These aren't songs meant to jump out at you, but spend some time with them and little illuminations flicker to life.

Off/On is a solid record that thrives on the idea of possibility and hedged optimism.

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.

Revealing Rattling Trees as a soundtrack from the jump puts the Llamas at an advantage and a disadvantage. It helps to explain the structure of the album, which kicks off with an overture that touches on all the melodic themes to be heard later, followed by quick instrumental bits that precede actual songs. But without the full text of the play or a chance to see it before hearing the music, these pleasant-but-slight songs become more negligible.

These guys may not be back in their ambition-heavy fighting form on Are You Gonna Eat That?, but they're back to rapping just for the fuck of it, and that can be a beautiful thing to hear. And hearing the album, it's immediately apparent that Aesop is still a major talent, someone who can do whatever the hell he wants and get away with it.

The loops here are less memorable and consistent than his better records. ... It’s these slight inconsistencies that separate the more successful Westside Gunn projects from the forgettable ones. Who Made the Sunshine falls somewhere in the middle, and doesn’t feel like it was devised to be anything more than what it is: Another step toward the expansion of the Griselda Records brand.

Things improve on the second half of the album, when, to follow his metaphor, Jidenna arrives in Africa. The melodies and breezy rhythms of songs like “Zodi” and “Vaporiza” are a welcome shift from his barrel-chested rapping.

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.

She and longtime producer King Ed are clearly drawn to shiny, uncynical pop, and out of the dozens of songs Latham recorded for Quarter Life Crisis, that’s largely what made the cut.

Although it has its moments, the end result is predictably uneven. Blondie’s commitment to tense and jumpy pop remains, even though Harry’s voice is more grounded some four decades after the band’s debut.

Cooley’s superlative performance on English Oceans would be more worthy of celebration if it wasn’t negated by Hood’s most non-committal songwriting to date.

An album like this, filled with longing and a bit of resignation, may be an uneasy fit for today's mood of uncertainty and diminished opportunities. Hawley's mined a specific vein of emotion for years, and it's a testament to his skill that his hyper-local focus maintains such a broad appeal.

As with Skying, it’s a high compliment to say Luminous is a giant bowl of assorted, premium ear candy, and it’s about as nourishing, which maybe is the point.

Rather than fully implementing Earlimart Phase Two, as they have hinted, the duo is still dressing up the same minimally satisfying ditties in ruffly fuzz; its still scrupulously orchestrating the same kinds of songs that appear on simpler, better Earlimart records.

CrasH Talk might not have the mean-mugging raps of Blank Face LP or the weed-infused smoker anthems of Habits & Contradictions, but it’s comforting, like diving into the fifth or sixth season of your favorite network sitcom.

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.

Although How Animals Move has solid arrangements and melodies, Parish is at his best when he mixes hard work and detail with spontaneous, rough-edged playing. It's not that the slow stuff doesn't work; it's just not as exciting or even as inventive as his rock music.

Humble and resigned to a fault.

Deep Fried Grandeur has a certain shelf life, but then again, the spirit of its origins was all about bright, short-lived sparks. You savor the brief chemistry, and then part ways, remembering it fondly. Above all, Deep Fried Grandeur is just a joy to visualize.

The moments that work best are when the instrumentation and vocals distill singular, cohesive emotions. Her most literal lyrics are often the strongest.

The album suggests a full story, but it still seems paradoxically fragmentary. After its slow burn fades, after our hero has returned home, what’s best about Conquistador might be the sense of possibility it poses.

With a sense of organizational purpose and of local music history, the first disc depicts Cash an artist hungry for success and willing to sell venetian blinds to get there....The portrait of Cash on this second disc is, unfortunately, fuzzy and poorly defined. It showcases everything we know about him and very little we don't know.

Little Dragon have clearly mastered their style on this album; hopefully next time around they will deliver more songs worthy of their sound.

Sun Gangs is less a break-up record, and more a "relationship" record, in that it has the ups and downs of a love affair, with moments of joy, boredom, and viciousness sandwiched in closely next to each other. And while that makes for a challenging and complex listen--Andrews has certainly proved to be adept at wringing bitterness or misanthropy from bruised melodies--one can't help but hope that his next relationship is a happy one.

The Sun Came Out, whether intentionally or not, is an album for singers, but often it's the music that elevates the songs and prevents even the slickest moments from falling into the AOR mire.

No one's perfect, I guess, especially when they're trying to go from one-note to every note in the space of a single record. Sadly, though, that means that the dancier stuff, though I want to like it so much, is Wild's main casualty.

Hudson can definitely do tweaked, but he has work to do before being transcendent.

An album that retains the precise brutality of London Zoo but feels labored in comparison.

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.

Despite its three-disc bulk, it exhumes too few buried-but-necessary takes and does little to illuminate what Isis did, why they did it, and what it all means.

Freedom Wind includes three of the four songs on the Explorers Club's original EP, and it partly fulfills that record's promise.

On their debut LP, Mind Chaos, Hockey seem to be having a little fun with it, keeping things casual, cracking jokes at their own expense. You'd be surprised how well it works.

They've still got angst to spare, but their wit has been ground down by 'maturity,' or whatever you want to call it, into a bitter thing that saps a lot of that reckless energy.

Connection is the first time that Ceramic Dog has made dissent sound like just a collection of recordings, instead of a prickly, teeming world of its own.

As he tries to return to the ponderous themes of such vague nonsense as love and hate, Acey weighs the pacing of the game considerably.

It's all remarkably pleasant for a CocoRosie album--you leave it not with the feeling of having weathered an intriguing, baffling ordeal, but of having listened to something recognizable as an album.

False Priest is billed as a more collaborative effort, both on the production end with musical savant Jon Brion and in the spotlighted duets with divas Janelle Monáe and Solange Knowles.

Where disco went far beyond mere escapism in the 1970s, Casablanca Nights only gets you out of 2011 for a few sweet minutes.

Joy’All has an amiable listlessness: It’s loveable, but I wish there was more to love.

Hynde responds to the drummer’s studio return not just by writing the band’s tightest rock record in ages but by thrusting the group’s interplay to the forefront. By doing so, she makes an effective case that the Pretenders are indeed a rock’n’roll band, not a singer-songwriter in disguise.

Timms has made some perplexing choices in song selection.

Their influences are all immediately recognizable and their songs all hummably predictable, and yet their Merge debut, I Can't Go On, I'll Go On, reveals the band to be confidently inventive and assured in their collective identity.