Kiri Variations feels like an album that has lost its way: a soundtrack (though most of the music never appeared on the show) that shoots for terror but settles for unease; an “anti-muso” work that is far too conventionally musical

hese pieces are more sedate and less distinguished than some of his others. The dulcet murmur of the concert hall seems to be overtaking him as his classical career grows in stature.

The album can become a slog, almost oppressively upbeat, but The Big Day isn’t without wonders. Chance is still one of the most talented rappers working, and there are signs of that latent brilliance across about a dozen songs.

At first, Krlic’s soundtrack captures the instinctive panic that comes with the upset of environmental and cultural norms. But as Aster’s characters grow acclimated to their new surroundings, he relieves us with symphonic moments of clarity (“The Blessing”) and triumph.

With such simple arrangements, Sprague’s writing can sound like an intimate conversation, with larger context left unsaid. ... The more directly she composes her thoughts, the fuller the music becomes.

Its backward-seeming track sequence improves significantly as it goes along; its instrumental interludes are better than most of the songs. Para Mí may have been the result of a near-fatal car crash, but the album is a happy meanderer.

Unlike many similar compilations, the album fits seamlessly into Molina’s existing canon—his work already blurs the line between “impulse” and “finished track.” And where his official albums tend to focus on a specific aesthetic, Songs From San Mateo County touches on every style he’s explored, making it the ideal entry point.

The album dips in and out of tempos, themes, and varying degrees of intensity without losing any of its urgency.

For much of the record, Nas sounds like he’s trying too hard.

On Simian Angel, we get a glimpse of something new: something sensitive, probing, and even whimsical.

CHORDS is a strong, occasionally astonishing next step.

Dunn’s approach has remained so consistent across his career that the difference between this album and its predecessors is one of degree, not type, but it’s safe to say that From Here to Eternity plumbs newfound depths: There is a coppery burnish that was not there before, a tendency to float just beyond the bounds of our usual limits of musical perception.

Though not fully comprehensive or that musically far-reaching (due to its prioritization of African genres that have already experienced crossover success), the album still succeeds in introducing a whole new musical universe to the average American listener.

The riskier these covers get, the better they demonstrate what made Frightened Rabbit’s music compelling.

Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks gets a sparkling remaster and almost an album’s worth of okay-to-pretty-good new tracks.

By reimagining the weighty concept record as light, escapist entertainment, King’s Mouth is as strong a candidate as any for Baby’s First Prog Album.

Beyond a few other fleeting moments of experimentalism on ERYS—the second half of “K,” when the buzzing of an electric razor slowly morphs into a heaving trap beat, or “Fire Dept,” a decent ode to the fast and distorted energy of SoCal punk—it’s mostly a slog, the sound of an artist with a blurry vision and too many resources at his disposal.

Even in its moodboard looseness and nostalgia, Angel’s Pulse has all the charm and careful attention to detail of Blood Orange’s last two magnum opuses.

While she can’t always shake the anodyne songwriting that plagued her past work, it’s still her best album to date.

Ada Lea vacillates between timidity and aggression, are what make what we say in private so exciting. But it’s Levy’s willingness to wrestle with her own vulnerability that leads the album to its highest peaks.

At a time when some ambient music can feel like it’s drafted solely for inclusion on a “chill” playlist to anesthetize the overworked, Cantu-Ledesma’s explorations have been steering towards deeper waters. On Tracing Back the Radiance, his most profound work to date, he finds them.

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.

Some songs miss the mark—“I Get What I Need”’s creeping, bluesy bassline proves awkward—but most of them work, if only because the band sounds like they’re truly putting their all into their melodies and riffs, rather than leaving the heavy lifting to distortion.

Few releases have been as baldly transparent and destined for ubiquity as No.6, which has all the conspicuous mining of a Drake album, but very little of the finesse or cultural fluency.

While there are flashes of wisdom on Case Study 01, there are also a handful of clunky moments when Caesar’s out of his depth. ... Like his contemporaries 6LACK and Brent Faiyaz, Caesar is clearly talented, but he’s got a lot of learning to do.

The strongest cuts on Con Todo El Mundo are also the standouts on Hasta El Cielo, where they’re run through the usual dub effects: echo, flange, drop-outs, and more.

The subject matter of Purple Mountains is grim, but he’s still David Berman, and he can still dazzle with the sheer beauty of his writing or wink at the camera to lighten the mood when necessary.

This new album is in line with what fans of the band’s more recent (as in, post-2006) material have come to expect, but with a new twist—namely, the outsized impact that traditional doom bands like Candlemass and Solitude Aeturnus seem to have had on the songwriting. Darkthrone still stand firmly in the heavy metal (with a dash of punk) camp, but they’ve definitely got a soft spot for old-school gloom.