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.

These are angry, sad, hopeful songs that offer catharsis and solidarity. This mixture—of pulsating brains and jangling nerves, beating hearts and open minds—may be the closest we get to the essence of Stereolab; and in this, Instant Holograms on Metal Film is a laudable comeback.

Delete two-thirds of I’m the Problem, whose back-end filler tracks are not even worth noting (save for the bizarre “Miami,” which sounds like a The-Dream song for the Don’t Tread on Me set), and a more interesting album emerges.

They have to be heard as part of a larger experiment, an inquiry into what happens when you reject the careerism at the heart of the pop machine and decide to go a quieter, less goal-oriented way.

Sincerely plays better as a whole rather than as tracks excerpted for a playlist, which is fine, though “Sugar! Honey! Love!” and “Daggers!” rank among Uchis’ most lived-in tracks.

Was it really his idea to add the distorted microphones and insectoid buzzing into the overstuffed “Alien Nation” or the lopsided drum panning on “Stuck in my Head”? Aside from those curiously tacky outliers, Lanois’ tasteful ambience dampens the band’s everlasting, pulsating indie rock

It’s not merely a return to their old ways, nor does their long-teased reunion feel like a cynical, nostalgia-fueled cash grab. Instead, the record is a series of reminders of what Mclusky are still capable of—whether that’s melting faces in under a minute with “juan party-system” or the razor’s-edge guitar hammering driving “the digger you deep.”

Their bumbling composite of generic pop and trendy metalcore is both schmaltzy and dull: a vacant wasteland where joy, excitement, and intrigue—sensations that all good metal and pop should evoke—go to die.

She occupies the space between the bouncing, full-bodied bassline and plaintive keyboards with a plainly stated want that would be unthinkable on her introverted early releases. Having come so fully into her own, PinkPantheress still aspires to reach out to you.

If the results of Lifetime’s solo writing process are mixed, de Casier’s work behind the boards is wall-to-wall dazzling, from the extraterrestrial rave stabs that pan across the stereo field on “Seasons” to the mournful cyborg whose voice echoes her own on “December.”

In a first for PUP, the best tracks on their album are slow songs and mid-tempo romps, which bolster Who Will Look After the Dogs? after its rambunctious opening track.

Animaru has no duds but also no true stand-outs, shining most when Semones takes on the unexpected—suggesting a more idiosyncratic artist underneath all the virtuosity and polish.

GOLLIWOG masterfully uses that spooky proximity for self-reflection and thrills. Like the late MF DOOM, who he interpolates twice here, woods is perfectly intelligible despite his layered lyrics and elusive public profile.

What Tall Tales lacks in razzle-dazzle it makes up for with risky maneuvers, particularly Yorke’s in the vocal booth.

Car Seat Headrest is a band almost predestined for the kind of high-stakes storytelling a rock opera requires—if only Toledo could let his own ideas breathe.

This is road trip music for the new normal. Yet you might also hope the widespread devastation on the West Coast would inspire something more substantial than a strong offering by an artist coming up on 30 years of dauntless consistency. It’s hard to shake the feeling this porous music can soak up any context in which it’s presented.

The songs may arise from turmoil, but the production is enveloping and inviting, suggesting there’s a path out of the darkness.

Rather than raucous and eruptive, the music is now icy, clipped, and clean, a step away from Einstürzende Neubauten and toward Crystal Castles and Circus-era Britney. It still has teeth, but they are oh-so-white.

Samia’s voice alternates between plainspoken and liltingly melodic, occasionally suggesting doubt and ambivalence. But an edge often enlivens her bittersweet, uneasy lyrics.

Even the album’s most notable song still doesn’t feel distinct from its peers. This is how Tennis sail into the sunset: as likeable and as intoxicatingly smooth as ever.

Impermanence is a symptom of transformation; on Iris Silver Mist, Hval extols this reality, inviting us to seek out the beauty in each stage.

Thackray’s talents as a singer and arranger are key to the album’s success. Her voice is airy like crepe-paper streamers, with a bit of Georgia Anne Muldrow’s pinch and some of Erykah Badu’s snap.

You can trace a path from the band’s beginning to this point, but that fact doesn’t make this latest step any less impressive; even longtime fans might be tempted to do a double take in admiration, as if to ask, “Wait, this is the same band from back then?”

Tyler uses major-key guitar melodies judiciously, instead of sprinkling them throughout, which makes their shapes more memorable: After the blown-out tape distortion of opener “Cabin Six,” his six-string enters at the start of “Concern” like morning sun through a window.

A Complicated Woman’s wide-reaching, mollifying remit feels like Taylor trying to be too much to too many people, to live up to the validation that her last album occasioned. Its best moments are the most personal.

Bitchin Bajas remain flame-keepers of the sphere where Teutonic poise meets new-age fuzzies, but here they act as patient collaborators instead of scene-stealing spacemen. Still, this seven-headed hydra of head music remains a great ambassador of vibes.

Feels like an evolutionary leap akin to that of Cocteau Twins between Blue Bell Knoll and Heaven or Las Vegas; the first was pretty, the second is sublime.

The album radiates a deep appreciation for the communities and history behind the global rise of dance music—and, as WITH A VENGEANCE’s title implies, a successful campaign to enshrine SHERELLE in its ranks.