Subject: Matter might be Sandman's best work yet.

As Durk grapples with leaving his old life behind to create a better life for his sons, he creates his most gratifying and moving work yet. Lil Dirk 2X seeks rehabilitation but finds evolution.

It’s a little unsettling to hear an artist so fixated with death on her debut, but on Pohorylle, such gravity feels earned, even natural.

They sound more inspired here than they have since... well, since they played these songs the first time. New album please.

Not only do they add urgency to familiar psychedelic rock templates, but they pay just as close attention to the quiet moments as the raging ones--each track on their self-titled Thrill Jockey debut displays a careful layering of sounds and atmospheres.

They're this close to being a rock band while still sounding like their weird selves, which makes this their most accessible album to date.

Via a confluence of experience, ambition and glossy production, Engine Down have arrived at a palatable music that, with a little more refinement and promotional support, could cement their place in the mainstream cultural canon.

while Ghost Blonde can feel like it's keeping the listener at arm's length, further listens reveal a record full of vibrancy, the kind in which you soon find yourself fully immersed.

While one occasionally wishes that Frankie Rose could get a few paces further out from under her own shadow, the best of Cage Tropical does something similar, taking her own retro influences and using them to leapfrog her way out of a creative rut.

The music is a heady swirl of baggy beats and unabashed Beach Boys melodies, while the lyrics are wholly uninterested in anything intellectual.

Featuring cements his legacy as a singular, eminent artist — a point he has made again and again and again, but he still sounds so good proving it.

The widest ranging of any of her covers collections yet, Covers pushes beyond the habitual melancholy that has marked much of her work. In bold colors and vivid relief, it illustrates her talent for radical reinvention.

Though some may miss the rough and raw approach of her last two EPs, it's refreshing and exciting to hear music that relies on bone-hard essence rather than gauzy trimmings to create an aura of mystery.

Cherish has the feel of a breakthrough, and Wes Eisold comes across as an artist with a vision that will resonate with a larger audience.

The coherence is most evident in the atmosphere Daniell and McCombs create.

With the futurist sound of Brill Bruisers, the whole band embraces a more electric version of itself—bulked-up in chrome-plated armor, firing on all cylinders, and ready to steamroll anything in its path.

Irony and easy melody spur I Love People’s best songs beyond tribute or satire towards a lived-in equilibrium.

The uneasy beats on Taste are part of what give that album its kick. Guitarist Geordie Gordon and drummer Adam Halferty also make both albums richer by providing dense textures and strong background vocals.

With Hit After Hit, he's made 11 more charming and knowingly primitive bursts of sunny fuzz. He's got plenty more left in him.

She is deft and adaptive, at once inspiring dancing and melancholy reflection: La Havas is always in motion.

It’s essentially Bully’s re-introduction as a solo project, and these 12 songs capture the invigorating energy of the band’s 2015 debut.

There's not a weak second to be found.

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.

Packs is a record by, of, and for New York City, espousing the romantic notion it will never change, no matter how much the world does.

Wainwright does lean pretty heavily on this formula of mild, occasionally rocky folk-pop doused with generous measures of vocal swooping and diving.

With this album, Butler has thrown caution to the wind and his soul-searching has created some of his best dancefloor experimentation in years.

Despite its big tent and low stakes, DON’T TAP THE GLASS is a record only Tyler could make: retro but not nostalgic; tender but steely; jangly yet slick.

Julia's impressive discipline rarely gets in the way of its ability to affect; it's all so deeply felt, it's impossible not to feel it, too.