Wiltzie spends a lot of the album’s runtime in his orchestral-drone comfort zone, but whenever the terrain threatens to sound too well trod, he pulls out something like “Dim Hopes,” with its twinkling constellation of vibraphones, or “Stock Horror,” which seems in the process of being ground up and devoured by the earth.

Case is a singer first and a songwriter second, and The Tigers Have Spoken is afflicted with the same malady as Blacklisted: Many of its songs are too short, clocking in under two minutes.

Feel Infinite is warm and inviting, a taut mix of R&B love songs to finding your true self on the floor.

Panorama skillfully and subtly creeps towards resonance rather than catharsis, an approach that can make even their own colleagues sound like they’re trying to cheat towards the big release. Even when La Dispute rock, they do so like they’re trying to tiptoe on a frozen pond.

Though it's one of the few songs on Last that isn't sad and bleak, their voices come together just so, and the result is mystifying and devastating.

My nervous system just can’t endure 17 tracks of uncut Jens at once; it’s a giddy squee! sustained for 80 minutes. But it has variety and inspiration throughout, and it works great when taken in two chunks, one spinning a relationship together and the other gently tugging it apart.

Cashion and Willen’s sense of melody is as rich as their textural layering, resulting in pieces that are immediately engaging yet hypnotically serene, and, at times, devastating in their poignancy.

With its amalgam of genres, tones, and tastes, Ivory goes beyond thinking outside the box: It’s as if the box were never even there to begin with.

Nighttime Stories plays like one seamless expression—its 50-minute runtime passes remarkably quickly—but it’s a statement heavy with meaning and memories.

The headspace it produces is calming but frequently, dreamily surreal, and it often seems like a better place to live than the world outside it.

Even if Live at Bush Hall wasn’t intended to be the next official entry in their canon, the accompanying soundtrack album certainly earns its right to be considered as such. Notwithstanding the occasional bit of stage banter that makes no sense without the film (“Happy prom night!”), Live at Bush Hall is as cohesive a statement as any other record in the band’s discography.

Although Heartworms never quite conjures the magic of those first couple Shins albums, it’s further proof that they weren’t a fluke. This guy always did, and still does, know how to write a song that sticks.

For years now, Shabazz Palaces have oozed a kind of creative wisdom, the type that can only come with age and years of lived experience, but The Don of Diamond Dreams demonstrates a sign of even deeper wisdom: living an entire life of your own, and realizing that there’s still value in learning and listening from the youth.

Nots’ third album is a guerilla campaign against surveillance in the service of systemic control. With 3, Nots make fierce rock music equally apt for moshing in solidarity or smashing an Alexa--all forms of control in chaos.

The way that Everything Everything play against the macho, aggressive posturing of contemporaries who could care less about caring should be their strongest calling card.

They cast a powerful spell and sustain it over 11 tracks, yet at times you wish they'd jam, or perform a cover, or do anything to break it up somehow.

Masseduction often feels fragmentary, like two or three albums in the campaign of one.

The quality of the beats easily overcomes the somewhat odd novelty of hearing backpackers in close quarters with hardcore rappers, and with each listen it starts feeling more and more natural to have an all-star CD where M.O.P. and Little Brother both have hot tracks.

Mala is Banhart's best record in nearly a decade--largely because it's his loosest and funniest.

Their songs burst open upon inspection; you must first shrink to their size, but once you do, you'll probably want to stick around for awhile.

Surfing takes the disenchanted bits of Swearin' and blows them out into 34 minutes of honed unrest—it's a self-aware, deliberate, and ultimately truthful sophomore slump.

The constantly-disruptive feel of Hexadic makes it perhaps the most consistent Six Organs albums to date.

Musically, The Next Day isn't as radical or dreary, as it bounces around from style to style, casually suggesting past greatness while rarely matching it. The production is clean and crisp, almost to a fault, leaving little room for the off-kilter spontaneity that highlights Bowie's best work.

It might be their weakest album, but Presence is among the most special; none of these songs sound like they could have come from another record.

She has an urbane sophistication that sets her apart from the likes of Ashanti and Nivea.

The disjointed juxtaposition of styles on this disc is so pronounced that it feels intentional; like The White Album or Jega's Spectrum, this record underscores its versatility at the expense of consistency.

Like Total Life Forever, Holy Fire threatens greatness, and whatever disappointment comes from missing the mark is mitigated by its scope: A bomb needs to be operational more than it needs to be accurate.

It’s a strong album, but it’s not another Forever Changes, whose accomplishments in retrospect were unrepeatable, or even another Four Sail. On the other hand, Lee wasn’t aiming to craft something in that vein.