One of the joys of Django Django is that even though it's rendered in two basic colors-- natural and synthetic-- the scenarios it conjures are significantly more multifaceted.

Although the tone can get a little one-note, this personal and cultural lineage deepens the poignancy of Fuse, in which Thorn and Watt broadly consider what we lose and hold on to over the course of a lifetime.

The record's most interesting bits--a keen sense of melody--disappear too quickly and can't carry the album over its production bumps.

Whether you end up jumping on board with Performance will depend on the extent of your own predilection for “real music” nostalgia, but those who do find themselves in the passenger seat are likely to have a pretty fun time.

What makes Losing Feeling so solid is how it begins and ends.

This is a merely pleasant album, and especially after 11 long years, pleasant is a low hurdle for such an inimitable singer.

Social Rust proves that real experimentation does not require impenetrability at every turn.

All the deconstructions and rebuildings on I’ve Been to Many Places are more visceral than theoretical, and you don’t have to know anything about jazz modes or music theory to drown yourself in Shipp’s waves.

Through little fault of Goatsnake’s own, listening to Black Age Blues can sometimes feel like watching wizened blues musicians play the music of their now-distant youth. The style is familiar enough to be comforting, but it’s also inherently trite and redundant.

WORRY. is stuffed with so with many sugarcoated melodies it’s almost headache-inducing. Yet there isn’t a single insubstantial lyric here.

Coupling their graceful, intuitive musicianship with a resolute outward-bound gaze, Feathers appear ready to join the elite of the avant-folk underground.

This ability to summon intensity without a lyrical shock factor is new for Goat Girl, and they’re better for it.

This is electric music in every sense of the word-- amplified, processed, and imbued with a neon glow.

Farmer’s Corner is an album about labor and its rewards, about wanderlust and rootlessness, about memory and regret, yet for most of its fifty minutes, its mood is affable and laidback--as though Toth wants to make it all look easy.

Despite some missteps, Halsey’s appeal is clear: It’s a singularly difficult time to be a young person, and she is warmly attuned to that reality.

Vernon himself sings with more texture and conviction than ever before. He’s shifted fully from vessel to commander, steering the music instead of seeping into it.

Awfully Deep makes for churning, menacing background music.

Surrounded by young artists, it's remarkable how well Jansch avoids buying into his myth. The kids add spirit without the avant tendencies of their regular gigs, and Jansch seems rightfully at ease and assured with this new band.

This is smart, well-plotted music, which makes its anger all the more effective.

On The Hum Goes on Forever, the Wonder Years deliver the shredded vocals and taut palm-muted guitars that made them Warped Tour heroes without sacrificing the depth and nuance in Campbell’s writing.

Despite their detailed imagery and alluring melodies, the songs on Roach are ultimately less complex than Folick’s earlier work.

The Hard Quartet lets us into their circle for just under an hour; it’s hard not to want to bask in its stoned brilliance even longer.

This time they’re turning abrasive guitar chords and the dim roar of shoegaze feedback into weighted blankets that salve. The cacophony is consistent, but Robber Robber prove they know how to navigate it with a controlled burn.

Calvi's outstanding vocal tone and arrangements carry the emotional punches, while her lyrics can occasionally take a backseat role.

More inventive than Soundtrack of Our Lives and less chillily austere than Oldham, Mercury Rev prove to be his most dynamic partners, framing his songs but never infringing on them.

Like many albums recorded over many years, at various studios with different producers, This Side of the Island can feel a bit scattershot and piecemeal. .... Still, his ragged charisma holds it all together.

Without risking pastiche, the band gets plenty of mileage from its sonic references.

Electric Brick Wall is a far more coherent synthesis of those disparate influences, and possibly her strongest record since the Trux’s peak.