The slower, more agonized songs best reveal Souleyman’s strengths.

The result is a dance record that wears its political themes like a Halloween costume—great for cheap, campy thrills but falling short of striking any deeper, never mind radical, notes of terror.

Each track of Under the Same Sky will undoubtedly find a home in a record bag or set list somewhere, and rightly so, as there's really nothing fundamentally wrong with any of them. As an album, though, Under the Same Sky leaves you wanting more of a moody, immersive experience, and less of its clean surfaces and precise negative spaces.

The late-album arrangement of these two outliers feels unnecessary and out-of-place. Two steps forward, one step back: such is the dance of courting other genres, even if the risks have helped keep Ulver vital.

For all Jackson's personal struggle and exploration, Paradise feels like a safe record, calibrated for the comfort of an imagined audience, working at its best when it becomes almost invisible--the accessory to the experience and not the experience itself.

While the vocal credits might have promised a more straightforward pop route this time around, It’s Alright Between Us… ends up being one of Lindstrøm’s most disjointed and ambiguous projects.

The most innovative and intriguing aspect of Pulaski is not its music, but ultimately its not-quite-definable form.

A narrative concept album that runs a mere 29 minutes and is both more musically ornate yet somehow also slighter than anything Girls attempted, a deeply personal work whose arch presentation serves to keep you at an emotional distance.

The album starts strong, but is uneven, dragging toward the end.

Fur & Gold sounds a little bit too comfortable for its own good. Khan is a great singer, and her band is undoubtedly competent and capable, but the record sounds like it wants to be more than it is.

For the most part, the beats and the synths are the stars of the show here. They're not as compelling as in the past--maybe only four albums into their career, the duo is preferring to color inside the lines.

It’s cinematic music, driven by sprawling harmonies and fluid motion. Rather than dreaming of the future, these nostalgic pieces feel as if they’re looking back at the past, taking in a bird’s eye view of the change that occurs throughout life.

It doesn’t always reach the level of spiritual purity it could, but there’s a touch of steel and a sense of pacing that was missing from Föllakzoid’s prior work, positioning III as a gateway for a much a deeper dive into altered states.

In a way, it's comforting to know what you're getting: Four or five songs you'll treasure, four or five you'll tolerate, and a pretty good band sticking to their guns.

Tonally and instrumentally, the album is a change in style, but there is no moment of surprise; it still feels very predictable.

The Violent Sleep of Reason galvanizes most when Meshuggah rise to the challenge of writing music that matches the urgency and global scope of its subjects. All too often, though, even as they’re captured playing together in a room for the first time in ages, Meshuggah sound a tad more comfortable than agitated.

Tomorrow remains compelling through 'Static Object,' the record's closest thing to a Joy Division moment, but then limps out over its last third, mired in a tone/tempo bog that reveals the group's soft spots and least-appealing features.

It’s not an essential release in the Men’s rapidly growing discography, but as a rare snapshot of a band constantly in motion, Campfire Songs is sensible at least.

That sort of state-of-society demonstration, which has always distinguished Dave from his peers in UK rap, is hardly present on his newest album. And it doesn’t help that The Boy Who Plays the Harp is considerably less dynamic when it comes to production.

Future Brown feels overwhelmingly like a bunch of intriguing ideas left to drift off inconclusively.

There may be no surprises on Doggerel but, crucially, there’s no pandering, either. The band sounds at ease, even agreeable, as middle-aged rockers.

The music on Blue is always lovingly crafted, and the album’s lack of musical pretense makes for an enjoyable, if predictable listen.

With The Mountain, Heartless Bastards have shown that they have the tools and the talent to take at least tentative steps forward into a more ambitious and diverse sound. But it's surprising that they sound so introspective here when they could, and occasionally do, sound world-beating.

The misstep here is the addition of something altogether basic: Vocals.

They still have the riffs, but without the snap of a snare drum to keep things in line, the chiming guitars become repetitive and amorphous.

It's honest music from the noise-­pop couple, both of whom come into this project having broadened their sound within their own respective bands.

Mascis has written so many songs about the same needs and frustrations—his failures to communicate, to be understood, and ultimately accepted—that they can’t help but bleed together. Still, the album’s light touch and content disposition make it a very easy listen, especially when Mascis leans into tenderness.

Almost all of the songs on The English Riviera sound great, yet few of them really emotionally or physically involve the listener, and there's little to take away besides an appreciation of that effortlessly attractive sheen.

If Diarrhea Planet’s goal is just to be a memorable, messily great live band, they’re well on their way. But if they want their records to live on, they need to decide what they're trying to achieve, and figure out how to deliver it more effectively offstage.

A disappointing pattern begins to take shape in each of these long chapters, as the band begins on a promising note during the first three minutes, but exhausts itself over the last nine.

While Preoccupations’ message remains honest and earnest, it doesn’t create enough friction to cause a spark.

Broken by Whispers shimmers and glitters, alternating from hushed ambience to ringing guitar and synth interplay.... The songs on Broken by Whispers are resolutely catchy, simply bogged down by tried-and-true heart-on-the-sleeve sentiment.

Heaven suffers because its settings imply a compositional weight that the songs just don’t carry; Fear has a clearer sense of itself as a collection of shiny amusements.

Early highlights aside (particularly the bone-rattling 'Paul Revere'), much of the album could be written off as cruise-controlled and that feel definitely resonates.

At its best, this music feeds into a similar sentiment, pushing close to the kind of deep introspection at the heart of Jarmusch's films.

They are a powerful outfit, and Subjective Concepts is cohesive and fierce.

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.

That inferiority complex and desperate need for approval keeps L.A.X. surprisingly entertaining even though there are far more weak tracks on it than good ones.

If the herky-jerky new-waver 'Total Bloodbath,' and the 'Ticket to Ride'-styled charmer 'Partner in Crime' find Reis comfortably adapting to the pop approach, the mix can also leave Reis hanging out to dry, particularly on the smooth '70s-Stones strut 'You've Got Nerve,' where the droning qualities of his rasp are overemphasized by a chorus that simply repeats the title ad infinitum.

Rejoicer is a quality album with some especially strong tracks, but as much as it is refreshing to hear a relatively young band nail sounds from a previous era, the record is more enjoyable than it is interesting.

So while softer and more empathetic the band isn’t quite tamed yet; On Oni Pond is a Man Man album through and through, delivering an occasionally bizarre and fantastical look at the very real human condition.

Her supple singing and the lively production keep Jupiter from being a slog, but the hazy symbolism sours the experience.

As captivating as Cain’s mood-setting can be, Preacher’s Daughter is such a slow burn you periodically wonder if the flame is even still lit.

BENEE gets better results by dropping the cutesy affectations. When the pace slows down, Hey u x strikes a balance between whimsy and moodiness, particularly on “A Little While” or the Frankie Valli-alluding ballad “All the Time,” a duet with New Zealand newcomer Muroki.

As on that album ["Loveless"], the songs feel like they're whirling so far into the stratosphere that they might fly apart any second.

On this one, they fall short of reinvention, which also means they are still—improbably, unmistakably—Pearl Jam.

Civil War shows a band that's matured in some typical ways-- as if anyone was clamoring for "broadened perspective" from these guys-- and some unexpected and not unwelcome ones.

While Deacon’s instrumental command has demonstrably strengthened in the past few years, his lyrics have only gotten more pat, as evidenced by two songs near album’s end.

It's a series of vignettes and at its best it reminds me of amorphous copy/paste artists like Prefuse 73, musicians who wormed their way into a genre by nibbling at its edges.

Pop-metal, stoner rock, doom metal—whatever amalgam of buzzwords you favor, on Admission, Torche remain a reliable supplier of grizzled riffs to test the low end on your stereo. The stylistic guises don’t always fit, but that’s a function of the group’s creative restlessness.

Across Parallels, he seems so committed to the possibility of an open-ended project that he gets lost in the mix—where once he was a maestro of controlling space. Still, these subtle and intentional shifts suggest Chung could make a more focused album in the future, if only because it will be coming from a clearer headspace.

Every part of Life Processes seems meticulously calculated with such antecedents in mind, laid out in every detail and implemented exactly to referential specification.

Break Up the Concrete seems a bit uneven: The faster numbers begin to sound the same after a while, and the album hits a slight lull halfway through.

The Singles traces both Can’s genius and how they ultimately ran out of ideas, losing all of their Vitamin C.

There are a handful of moments here when he turns himself inside-out over the course of a song, bringing him into the orbit of those artists he so obviously idolizes. Now he just needs to figure out how to emulate his starting position.

Even as she extends herself as a songwriter, and as she grows more comfortable in the spotlight, she hasn’t found a way to build on the full extent of her mystique.

Far be it from me to criticize happy endings, but in musical terms, a comfortable, even-keeled existence sometimes comes out as isolated and ordinary art.

The lack of freshness is most apparent on the disc's instrumental tracks, most of which sound like hand-me-down versions of the micro-carols on Mum's Finally We Are No One.

Part stage-managed pop crossover and part pretty-good gay Sheryl Crow record, BITE ME never quite convinces you that it’s got something new to share.

Hit to Hit’s final quarter, which the band recorded as an ensemble, takes a more grounded approach. But after a record of instant gratification, these gentler tracks have a tendency to melt together.

The new album feels at once a return to the Kills' beatbox-blues origins as well an attempt to broaden their palette with more sensitive, intimate turns.

Walk Thru Me’s idiomatic alt-rock composition feels too stable to properly channel it. At their best, Barlow and Davis wrestled with seemingly opposing interests in the primal and futuristic: After a long period of inactivity, they’re still finding their footing in the present.

All That Must Be doesn’t quite live up to its own heartstring-tugging goals; too often, it’s just kind of comfortably glum.

Even though the record is irresistible at times, it's also a feedback loop of nostalgia that's creaking as it turns.

It’s a perfect union if anyone finds the former too glossy and the other too gritty, but in occupying this middle ground, nothing here would qualify as potentially divisive protest music. In fact, there’s nothing divisive about Twentytwo in Blue at all.

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.

It's all about finding the friendly turtles at the end of the druggy rainbow, yet, since no one's in a hurry to get there, the songs loop along with space between the beats and guitarists who still seem to be learning their craft.

Icarus Falls, as a high-concept pop album, is fine. It shows off Zayn’s reluctant charisma and love-song-ready voice amid R&B ideas that are fully immersed in the present, for the most part for the better.

The bulk of Bad Cameo’s novelty arrives, instead, in songcraft. To Blake’s credit, he’s a master of seeing tracks as living things, subject to as much growth and meandering as the masterminds who make them. Familiar as they may feel, the most striking songs on this project keep some powder dry, sprawling into realms far beyond their starting places.

So Wildlife isn't exactly bursting at the seams with earworms, but it's a worthy achievement for taking a poignant, powerful emotional state and carrying its thread for 42 minutes.

What a pity, then, to find the band more or less dozing off after their spectacular opening tantrum, drifting aimlessly in a space-rock black hole for the bulk of Interiors.

The band's now-routine gospel-like chanting grows tiresome by album end (they miss Vanderhoof's vocals), and, as was expected, Set ‘Em Wild doesn't necessarily expand the band's sound so much as further splinter their interest.

There are triumphs here, but they're modest; there is, after all, little fanfare to be found in just getting up and on with it day in and day out. Consequently, Teeth Dreams--even more than the flavorless Heaven Is Whenever--occasionally feels like the first Hold Steady record that's just going through the motions.

Given its one-off status and unique format, Are You In? is probably a diversion rather than a reinvention, a mixtape-style curio given big business backing, but hopefully some of its reinvigorated sonics find their way to the next proper De La Soul album.

Franz's music is usually as crisp and tight as its constructivist cover art, and though reformatted, stretched out, and slowed down on Blood, it still maintains a strong pulse.

With the exception of James Blake’s “Colour of Anything,” which here sounds like an outtake from the Virgin Suicides soundtrack, Morrissey and White fare better with the more recent material than with the old.

It's understandable if Clipse no longer feel like they have to actually prove shit to anyone, but perhaps that's why Til the Casket Drops awkwardly vacillates between confidence and complacency, between sneering at perceived competition and smarting at perceived and possibly self-made slights.

The Golem is not a Pixies album, but it is a Black Francis record that walks and talks surprisingly well even without the master text of its film.

Deathfix gets its expansive, laid-back feel from the relaxed conditions under which it came together, but that's also the source of its occasional directionlessness.

For every moment that Sov's supreme wit and impeccable cadence is fitfully showcased on Public Warning!, there is a moment when her gifts are squandered amidst anxious beats that try to compete with her huge personality.

Individual moments shine throughout FORGET: a stunning chorus here, a stirring lick of pitched percussion there. But the album’s strangest attribute is the way it can lull you into a state of absentmindedness regarding those same charms.

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.

The abbreviated runtime of Places Like This makes it seem as though they could have given their ideas more space to breathe, rather than piling them up like a stack of pancakes.

Time has allowed Nada Surf to uncover the truth in the trite, but it has also eroded some of the band's personality.

Smile is their exquisite-corpse sequel, a near-automatic exercise in drawing inspiration from anybody but themselves.

Another Fine Day offsets some of what it lacks in freshness with aw heck poker-night camaraderie.

The songs he summons from the synths offer proof that there were more songs left in him, but he's still digging in the same mine. Ad Infinitum might be the sound of an artist challenging himself, but it's not the sound of an artist challenging his listeners.

Here they sound like they’ve settled into their status as a reliable indie rock institution. Strangers to Ourselves is a pleasant album, and one that completes their transition from "inspired" to "sturdy".

Make Sure They See My Face is overdressed to impress when easing up may have been the best way to ease back into the public consciousness.

On so sad, her traumas are too often muted by abstraction and unspecificity. Li is clearly an artist of stormy passions—four albums in, she still seeks the flood of love before she reaches for the life preserver.

[“Soft Power” is] an engrossing, haunted fable, a way to link society’s obsession with conspiracy to our basic needs for security and comfort. It’s proof that Tropical Fuck Storm are still clever when they want to be, able to channel obsessive rage into real insight. Braindrops could’ve used more like it.

Always the intrepid mind, Fink has found a promising partner in LeMoyne to bring out her weirder side, and once they do away with a few lingering old habits, the duo could prove an artistic pinnacle for both parties.

Jackman. takes creative risks in social commentary that often pay off.

Maddeningly inconsistent.

For now, Careers stands up as a testament to the power of serendipity and a decent first effort from a blooming young songwriter.

If the stories are slightly different, for better or worse, the song remains the same.

No peaks, no gorges, just a steady oscillation between adequate and inspired.