Corey’s enormous productions and Ritchie’s conversational flows feel hypnotic in dark rooms over large sound systems, but on an intimate listen, moments like these meander.

With Heaven, they've turned out a record that finds a thousand affecting variations on contented hum.

The canniness of Album's production choices and the scuzzy depression of the lyrics and the gut-level songwriting instincts, along with everything else about the record, add up to something elusive and fascinating--maybe even heartbreaking.

What’s unique to Exile is the unreal world of the Outer Ring, which is as well developed in the music as it is in the lyrics and videos.

Radiohead's eighth record, The King of Limbs, represents a marked attempt to create a considered and cohesive unit of music that nonetheless sits somewhere outside of the spectrum of their previous full-length discography.

This is the sound of musicians confident in their legacy and what they can do with it.

Arabia Mountain may be poised to push this band further over-ground, but they're not going up without a fight.

The results make for an inspired evolution of his sound, with Blake occasionally glancing in the rearview mirror as he moves in a new direction.

The music is so immaculately tasteful that it's hard to figure out how they chose such a silly band name. (It's from a song by the Belgian band dEUS, which makes it no less silly.) But they got the album title right--they've arrived.

Where “Quantum Physics” is whispery and diffuse, “Brighton 75 Fünf” is emphatic and visceral, hammering at the edges of its central theme until they’re sharp enough to draw blood. The most thrilling moment comes when they abandon the roadmap entirely.

He maintains the foggy tufts of reverb and sing-song melodies of his predecessors, but his lyrics trade unrequited crushes for more practical pining.

Romantiq doesn’t dispose of the past. It just situates old habits amid a more vibrant and fully realized present.

Life Under the Gun explodes out of the basement show without abandoning its energy and essence. The noise of their earlier EPs has become rich and lush, their rhythm section tight and crisp.

The Secret Machines create songs that are just as spacey and concept-heavy, if not quite as quirky, as those on Yoshimi and The Sophtware Slump.

Fans of the group's previous work-- and of Solesides/Quannum-related material in general-- will find treats within The Craft's many folds, but its irregular terrain will likely prevent consensus about which tracks represent the peaks and which the troughs.

The mix won’t convince diehards that Snaith is a dance music demiurge. At crucial moments, it sacrifices momentum for eclecticism. It’s less for club puritans than for adventurous Caribou fans who are willing to follow Snaith no matter which rabbit hole he dives down.

The Highwaymen have often been called country’s best supergroup, but the Highwomen are better. They do here what the men never could—stretch the notions of what country can and must become.

An uneven album that unfortunately contains several such missed opportunities.

Twins doesn't stick to the middle or even pick a lane. It swerves, visiting territory well-tread with a perspective that feels new.

By feeding her perceptions of a vast, uncaring universe through these tiny, delicate sounds, Schott comes closer than most to capturing our vulnerability as living creatures--animal or human--and the senselessness of suffering.

The sound of K Bay is so good—so plump, so crisp, so tapered and whooshed—that White can seem like a studio hermit whose talent keeps thwarting his solitude.

The songwriting lives up to the production value, pleasant but lacking much purpose.

The album is spritely, frequently bright, as intensely melodic as Ex Hex’s triumphant Rips and more playful than a record this heartbroken probably should be.

It's still perfectly effective fuzz-metal, but it's coming from a group of guys who have done seriously indelible work with the same ingredients, so it comes off a bit too slight.

Breaks' lyrical thumbnails of lost opportunities and forgotten friends can seem a touch too pathos-addled on paper, but drawn through Bachmann's lungs, they leave their mark.

Monkey Minds’ sharp, late-act turn into politicized proselytizing may seem jarring at first, but then it’s an accurate reflection of how politics can suddenly intrude upon our lives and upend our worldview.

Hell Bent, while elemental, sounds sincere and grounded but free--a self-assured debut of principled pop-punk that leaves room for growth.

The back half is the water that tames the front’s fire, and together, Morgan’s warm embraces and cooler thoughts attest to her full emotional breadth.