The brilliance of Romance lies in its unsettling blend of antic energy with refined craft—in the depths of detachment, Fontaines D.C. strike an engaging pose.

Clinic play with a renewed sense of the same eerie raucousness that drew people to them in the first place; this would be an easy second-album recommendation for a new fan after they've initially discovered and absorbed "Internal Wrangler."

The music is skilfully marshalled: sober and lucid even while hallucinogenic and deranged.

The trio sharpens its focus, marrying clever production with the soul-eating intensity that propelled its rise.

The album is her most accomplished, arresting work yet.

The Ponys make good records, and Turn the Lights Out is no exception, but I'm still waiting on the great one I've always felt they'd had in them.

These two Ghosts volumes feel much more concrete and ambitious than the original quartet. Each has its own clear-cut identity, too: Volume five (Together) has a more hopeful sound. ... Maybe it’s because the tone better matches the animating spirit of the project, or maybe it’s simply because the pair have better ideas in a major key at the moment, but Ghosts V: Together is solidly the stronger of the two.

Twilight of the Thunder God merely refines these elements, but the tune-up is noticeable. In a discography filled with catchy songs, these are some of Amon Amarth's catchiest.

Oh No knows just what he's got to work with on this album, and in finding every angle he can for an incredible array of source material, he's made that much more of a case for his own style, too.

BSP's performance art antics and throwback posturing come with a distinct set of innovations and surprises, and The Decline of British Sea Power proves that BSP have the song-power to back up their bullshit.

Throne might not get butts on the dance floor, but its sense of movement--both within its songs and within the arc of Leigh’s evolution--is profound.

Likewise is more minimal and elegant than any Hop Along record.

Holding to Marshall’s wavelength requires a little more investment than the dingy music asks for, but that’s not to say his shadowland of the heart lacks nuance.

Granted, the record is far from perfect... Despite all of that, it is a Stephin Merritt record. And SM still maintains his charmingly cynical worldview and almost bottomless well of clever turns of phrase.

Gaudet has such a witty way with one-liners, and the band is so effervescent in their execution, that it’s easy to overlook the elevated level of craft at work. Football Money clocks in at a lean 10 songs and 27 minutes, with nary a second wasted.

What doesn’t work as much are the attempts to make Masterpiece feel overly homemade.

The bleakness feels more panoramic than before, and when it zooms inward, it tap into reservoirs of power that Trash Talk are only beginning to explore.

The elegiac tracks of Landfall, most no longer than two or three minutes, are episodic fragments that can cut off abruptly, like photographs with torn or water-damaged edges. This gives Landfall a momentum and a grace that’s slightly askew.

Sonically, the album backs away from the dirge-rock rave-ups that defined the group’s last four albums. That’s a welcome development.

Despite Dâm’s preference for playing tracks pretty much all the way through--which suggests an infectious, wide-eyed passion for the music that fits into his mind-control powers--the mix is properly appreciated as a whole.

Mono and Stereo would be fine records from any musician-- that Westerberg himself is the source makes it all the sweeter.

It’s a lonely album with a whopping heart, a hungry siren call for connection.

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

Oozing Wound have matured without losing sight of the frayed ends that make their music interesting.

Strength of a Woman finds its power in going back to basics. As a whole experience, it luxuriates within the magisterial hip-hop-soul queendom she formulated in the ’90s and the attendant themes that trace back to wronged-woman blues.

The collection is a timely, if at times exhaustive, introduction to the Six Organs origin myth.

“Auster” remains, despite the pauses, a minimalist study of harmony and tone color, and the gorgeous “Third Hour” is languid and drifting. But there’s also more motion here than we’ve heard in her work before.

Even as it draws on new and old songs, 50 presents a startlingly current and nearly apocalyptic vision of America; it’s album full of brimstone and brine, perhaps more perfect for this moment in history than we’d like to admit.