While the productions are animated and spacious, creating openings for his jam-packed phrases, the sound doesn’t take the full step forward that would help spotlight and redefine Seattle rap.

At What Cost is ambitious, slickly-produced, and relies a great deal on live instrumentation. However, where Attention Deficit’s jumbled tracklist smacked of design-by-committee compromise, At What Cost is clearly guided by GoldLink’s vision from start to finish.

Self-consciousness hovers over MAITREYA CORSO like a cloud. She’s comfortable when she can hide—fit neatly inside a shadow, as on the twinkling, toy-piano-poppy “Great Minds”—but recognizes it’s time to outgrow that.

Overall, Texas Rose, the Thaw, and the Beasts is a good mood record, a midnight opus that sounds great while it's playing but doesn't much travel with the listener beyond its runtime.

The songs on Offering are fuller and brighter than they’ve ever been, leaving behind sinister samples and moribund imagery and making good on the promise of uptempo revelry that “Go Outside” offered.

Snoop sounds in great shape and like he’s having the time of his life.

The Post-Nothing cuts fare best; they had fewer moving parts and thus didn’t suffer from being played sloppily or off-key.

The fourth and final part of the EP is by far the darkest, with no respite or resolution. The chords loom uneasily throughout, because that’s how Ranaldo must have felt at the time. In moments like these, In Virus Times is best understood as a snapshot of a miserable year, and one person trying to work through it.

While often precious, it’s never bad or incompetent, but there’s a frustrating sense of bets being hedged, particularly once the more ambitious production gives way to mildly anguished stadium boom towards the end.

Can't remember many bands whose B-sides/rarities comp things I liked as much as their full-lengths, but here's one.

While less exuberant and love-me-or-else desperate than the debut, News and Tributes is energizing in its own right, full of asymmetrical hooks and surprise detours.

Little Joy is not going to stop the world or change your life, but it's one of the sweetest, most listenable, consistently enjoyable records of the season.

Defined as much by its lyrical prism and Angelakos' falsetto (more on that later) as its gooey textures, Chunk of Change walks the line between beat-driven, Hot Chip floor geeking and twee atmospherics.

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.

It's well-recorded, well-written, and teeming with both force and emotional depth.

If Turkey just misses greatness, it's because it's just too short. The whole thing is over in 18 minutes.

Despite the drama in the music, there's no sense of real people in these songs, not as artists in the here and now and not as subjects in the there and then.

Terra doesn't just contribute to the quieter end of the spectrum, it reminds me of the boundaries of that spectrum, and all the sounds murmuring inside them.

For the most part, Havasu strives to build on Phoenix, a continuity that enriches itself and its predecessor and deepens Pedro the Lion’s backstory.

As a record, Eraser Stargazer is sometimes weirdly hookless and ponderous. There’s plenty of stoner fog, but not always much to grip. It is a forward move for the band, though.

By Morissette’s standards, Pretty Forks is a vulnerable, sedate, ballad-heavy album. Most of those ballads are unobtrusive, with songwriting-template piano and strings plush and regular as amphitheater seats.

They’re still figuring it out, but somehow, even their mistakes feel fresh.

Where the Rock*A*Teens played an artful, echo-laden take on rockabilly, Tenement Halls takes traditional pop and plays it through a murky wall of sound.

Don't get me wrong: with its staccato, bonus level synth stabs, keening psychedelia and 1980s-drenched drum sounds, Melt is still very identifiably Truise. But with the exception of the banging double whammy of "VHS Sex" and "Cathode Girls", there's nothing much here to suggest that Truise has upped his game in any meaningful way.

Musically, it’s the grittiest-sounding track on the album, with eddies and distortion clotting the guitar licks and evoking the more destitute vistas of San Francisco. Lyrically, however, the song sounds entirely disingenuous.

Ultimately, though, after making such an indelible and unique contribution to the language of modern heavy rock, Hamilton continues to show that he's hemmed-in by the style he invented.

This band knows how to break new ground, yet they sound as though they’re trying to summon songs that will miraculously slot in with their old material. It’s a balancing act that’s holding them back.

Unlimited Love is competent and comforting—its creators rarely try to grab your attention but never totally embarrass themselves either. (Well, maybe a little during the rap verses in “Poster Child.”)

Their catchier material that front-loads the record is so distinct and stunning, however, that it's hard not to be left wanting more after those opening tracks.

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.

For all the missteps, there are gratifying moments littered throughout. For the most part, the production, spearheaded by David “CDOC” Snyder, is patched together smartly and with regard to tradition.

For the most part, though, from robotic-but-rambunctious opener "Runaway" to the late-album one-two closing swoon of "It's You" and "Overtaken", Feel the Sound leans on Imperial Teen's puppyish charm and love for soft-rock's smooth bliss.

It's lovely, it's pleasantly unsettling, and there's a hell of a lot of it.

Friendly and nondescript.

BEAK>> retains the same eerie, claustrophobic atmosphere as its predecessor.

Even where Certified doesn't entirely congeal, Banner gets by on personality and an ever-sharpening focus.

Wiley has kept his formula mostly intact: skittering, hiccuping bounce rhythms, synths that sound like a turbocharged Super Nintendo with a subwoofer attached, and a manic, borderline-toasting flow that plows through everything in its path.

Even while Quaristice is in some ways the most listenable album they've created in a decade, it's ultimately no easier to parse, and can be very rough going indeed if you're not in the mood for their peculiar world.

Rife with suspense, drama, and a grisly cast of characters, Voyager's probably more likely to ignite your inner playwright than get your foot tapping, but it's still a cathartic rush all the same.

For all its wrath and fury, Devil Music feels safe and predictable. It’s a hell of a party, but it’s one we’ve been to before.

As much work as Sweet clearly put into this disc, hearing him glide instead of soar makes it all sound too easy, which sadly makes it that much easier to forget.

This is a cherry on a cupcake.

Doughty is better off when laid bare or with a group of musicians that push him in new directions, rather than ones who simply back him.

The Endless Not features some of the subtlest songwriting of TG's career, playing that knot of tension for all it's worth and all the more disturbing for how pensive and restrained it feels.

Port Entropy is charming and pretty and brilliantly assembled, but utterly two-dimensional, and listening to it even one time completely through yields strikingly diminished returns.

Even in this beatless world, he brings his techno producer's instincts out, dropping just enough in the way of fleeting, right-place-right-time hooks to catch your ear when it's ready drift away from the song.

Title TK picks up where Pod left off in 1989, with a jagged sound nowhere near as tight as the Pixies' but a heartfelt enthusiasm for creating music.

The two-hour-plus runtime is gratuitous; probably the idea was to present the complete show (a la Alive by Kiss), but the effect is mind-numbing, and most of the successful experiments are lost in well-mannered gray.

Though some might say that Armstrong's music is powerfully evocative and serene, such people hate music and all its subtle possibilities and intricacies.

If anything, Disappeared reestablishes Spring Heel Jack as drum-n-bass experts, gifted at layered percussion, and erudite at unsettling listeners with an uneasy ambience.

With follow-up Forget the Night Ahead, Graham takes his cryptic musings into a pitch-black place, but he still connects enough to make all the fraught drama worthwhile.

As much as Tidings rides high on it's own brand of sweaty juke-joint appeal, its finest moments are a grab bag of genre detours.

The lyrical setbacks also help emphasize Dreamcar’s greatest strength: It’s a simple labor of love, as opposed to a grandiose spectacle, and in doing so, it sidesteps the usual supergroup cesspool.

Black Sarabande’s calm surface proves illusory the more listens you give it.

American Gong is also blessedly free of typical Quasi jams-- which work live, but can drag on record. There are still lurching, aggro guitar solos and hints at foundations for what will become showcases for improv on tour, but the album's arrangements are simplified and mostly serve their vital hooks.

On Death Becomes Her, Angel-Ho beautifully transmutes any past anguish into a colorful network of global sonics, a bold statement of trans femininity, and a rallying cry for resistance. At once, Angel-Ho shatters binaries and encompasses dualities.

Hawthorne clearly has the ability to integrate and recreate his influences in his own compositions; it would be revelatory if he added more of his own signature sounds and soul into the music.

Yes, the Buzzcocks are doing what they've always done-- writing raucous pop songs-- but there's something to be said for honing and plying one's craft.

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.

Cabello’s willingness to assist in [the music industry’s embrace of the “Latin” sound] caricature elsewhere distracts from the otherwise interesting Spanish-classical and Santana-esque riffs on Romance.

While they’re not radically altering their own musical DNA, they are still in their own way trying to figure out what they can and cannot do. While that probably sounds like a backhanded compliment for these rock‘n’roll veterans, it might actually be the secret to their longevity.

The high points of the album are the tracks that feature Todd by herself either on guitar or piano, filling the song with the trembling strength of her singing.

There’s nothing wrong with creating a club LP, but when you stack it up against TJM’s other, more adventurous albums, the consistency can’t help but drag.

Like all the best shoegaze records, Agitprop Alterna is a heady, inward-looking listen. But if you’re able to zone out, or simply to begin walking with no destination in mind, its oversized and introspective ideas make welcome company.

“Mr. Solo Dolo III” is only memorable because of its title, which like too much of Man on the Moon III is coasting on a legacy built a lifetime ago.

Even when Beer herself sounds lovely, her explorations of vulnerability and self-definition tangle in stiff, obvious metaphors. The writing relies on flimsy framing devices, shoehorning a delicate narrative about hiding and healing into simplistic slogans.

Even those who decided years ago that this album was going to be great will be hard-pressed to find a great rap record here, only a sporadically enjoyable one.

Walker’s idiosyncratic take is his way of reconnecting the celebrated, cerebral art-folkie he’s become with a past spent dodging beanbags and sucking down Natty Lights in an East Troy parking lot. If you hear a little bit of your own journey in there, hey, all the better.

A great deal of Death Set's charm lies in how their toothsome double-guitar attack is deliberately undermined by their tinkertoy beats and new-waved keys; when the band try to overcompensate with the aggro.

Cloudy and labyrinthine at times, airy and placid elsewhere, People cuts a pretty wide swath, an approach that feels a bit more mature and confident than the bending over backwards he sometimes had to do to reach the disparate genres on his earlier solo records.

Ultimately, Avonmore is a fine addition to Bryan Ferry’s oeuvre, if not necessarily a terribly challenging one.

You’re Welcome feels stale, dried of both new inspiration or improvisational allure.

Despite the band name, the album is a guitar-driven record, relying primarily on Stillman's dexterous fretwork to lead the quintet in and out of geometric jams that sound vaguely prog-metal in origin.

As a benefit for earthquake victims and as an outlet for Batoh's grief and fear, there's plenty to recommend. As a pure sonic experience, it is a very novel, very undeveloped idea mingling with some very old ones.

Direct Hits proves the Killers have fewer actual hits, let alone great ones, than you thought and makes you wonder if they made their Greatest Hits album too early or whether they can ever legitimately put one together at all.

Though solidly enjoyable, Electric Lines could have benefitted from some more concretely original ideas to propel it forward. But when Goddard taps into his love for house, disco, and techno, his enthusiasm radiates through the speakers.

Songs for Sinners and Saints doesn’t cover as much ground as Michael, which offered the rich multi-genre sprawl of a classic Dungeon Family release. But the narrower palette and lower stakes of the project restore the focus and play of his “Snappin’ & Trappin” days.

In opener “Freedom.” Kesha fugues over twinkling piano and synths, singing “I’ve been waiting for you/Everything’s changed now.” But the simmering disco bass and house-gleaned aesthetics suggest a much more powerful mission statement, and the song devolves into middling party-pop.

The good news about The Digging Remedy is that it’s lovely and listenable for any longtime followers, or for anyone remotely interested in the kind of melodic IDM defined by this piece. However, it is neither an exciting deviation nor a refinement; as such, it’s really just more of an already-good thing, albeit packaged less delicately.

Considering how he and White have a past history of collaborating, you'd think that Guilty Simpson and White would be firing on all cylinders by now; instead, the Detroit hardhead unfurls cliché after cliché and drops vague, autobiographical teases that don't reveal much in particular.

Gentlemen's about as interesting as middling Pollard records get, but it's middling all the same, a fittingly abnormal end to a most unusual year.

As ardent and inviting as Something Shines and We Are Divine both are, Sadier seems content at this point to coo to the converted.

The quixotic charm wears thin as "Some Slender Rest" dips into lugubrious emo-folk, and the remainder of the album's murdered wives, enraged sheriffs, and luckless roustabouts pile up cartoonishly.

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

Although Cordae can be an engaging writer, on songs like “Momma’s Hood” his delivery is as dry as a teenager forced to read in class. “Jean-Michel” shows his competence as a rapper, but the song sounds like it’s reaching to be a classic ’90s rap interlude and landing at a Big Sean freestyle from L.A. Leakers.

Robed in Rareness is ultimately a less significant Shabazz Palaces release, but there’s something fitting about a casually adventurous album by a vet dropping in the year of hip-hop’s 50th birthday. As the doomsayers look backward, Butler turns his gaze everywhere.

Pollock is clearly in her comfort zone here, both vocally and musically.

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

It's easy to get the sense that the intent is to let the jangling shoegaze wash over you, and if some of the lyrics stick, that's fine. But that's the thing-- they rarely do, and neither do several of the songs.

The run of “Milkweed,” “Detritivore,” and “Aqaba” is quintessential Shearwater in both their titles and the tendency to let the middle of their albums coast by like a warm, welcome breeze.

Someday is Today mostly succeeds in its paeans to frostbitten numbness, its flatness as wistful as the rolling plains and as familiar as the freezer aisle.

The struggle of the wealthy and talented white rapper was never especially sympathetic. And on Ben, his trials are mostly internal, the enduring struggle of man to find meaning and leave a legacy. This Macklemore is likely the most honest version we’ve seen to date.

Though this band was routinely slapped with claims of 1970s plagiarism upon their arrival, it's unlikely that many people have ever mistaken a Strokes song for one by Lou Reed or Television. So it's ironic that their mimicry can be uncanny on Angles.

Despite the looseness and the grab-bag approach, the best of the songs on Unmap feel right as rain, like these weird mash-ups were there all along, just waiting to be discovered.

Get Evens is as quiet and pretty as its predecessor, but the effortless ease is gone, replaced by a sort of busy anxiety.

On a whole, Whatever is milder and gentler than the darker Become What You Are; that comes with age, I guess. But, all said, it does feel like a return.

Even though a release like Lady, Give Me Your Key unearths never-before-heard material, it still doesn’t reveal anything new about the mercurial man.