Her boozy, morning-after croon is still gorgeous, but now there’s elements of Puerto Rican bomba and salsa, son cubano, doo-wop, and even the spoken-word poetry of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe she haunted as a teen. Her band has gone through a variety of lineups, but this one feels like a clean slate.

Where Semper Femina might have sketched a feminist utopia, Marling instead uses her broad study of femininity to explore flawed, sometimes devastating relationships between women.

Though Salutations is one of Oberst’s most demanding albums, it’s also one of his least ambitious, even before taking these new arrangements into account.

The core strength of Love in a Time of Madness is its range of dance-pop appreciation.

Youngish American is a hapless vanity album, sad for all the wrong reasons, and all the more frustrating because it couches wokeness in songs about the extra advantages afforded to Tomson’s demographic.

Children of Alice is different from its predecessors. Its nostalgia feels less escapist than therapeutic, and its composure amid the mundane and deranged is more of a promotion for mindfulness.

World Eater does not seem like a doomsday device by design, though. It might sound like one now, but Power leaves open the possibility of it being his darkest transmission before the dawn of a new bright tomorrow.

Despite the lyrical punch, Yours Conditionally is hamstrung by Tennis’ drums. The keys and bass on the album are unfailingly warm, but the shabby percussion is one-note, almost the work of a different band.

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.

While a cynic might see New Gen as merely a reflection of Caroline SM and Renz’s taste and grassroots network; an optimist might say it’s an underground scene collectivizing for its mutual benefit. Nevertheless, it’s one of the more impressive collections of underground talent of late.

Just a few years into her adult life, and only one album into her recording career, Melina Duterte has swept past a milestone many musicians never even get in their sights.

The lack of honesty doesn’t really matter--nobody’s going to Sheeran for gritty soul-searching. But the lack of imagination does.

While never able to fully grasp the Japanese sounds they adore, Visible Cloaks nevertheless have created an album along the axis of Fennesz’s Endless Summer and OPN’s Replica, an abstract electronic album that’s readily accessible and an immersive listen.

Ohren’s mix is beefy but not outsized or over-processed like so much modern metal can be. The music reveals endless contours over repeat listens.

They sound exhausted, right where we left them.

There’s no explicit theme behind Piano Song. It’s simply strong, well-considered jazz, with Shipp’s piano leading a thorough dialogue with bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Newman Taylor Baker.

Some minor touch-ups would have gone a long way. Had Sprout tightened a few loose screws here and there, it would have told us more about who he is now.

With Chill, dummy, P.O.S avoids retreating into the program of Never Better, while also one-upping his prior outing.

The album as a whole has a lot of laser gun sounds. It also has frequent sudden shifts between high energy songs and mellower songs, so that even though the record has a unified sound, it sometimes feels disjointed. During the last two songs, however, that contrast works.

Artistic restraint is a new concept for WHY? and it’s understandable if Moh Lhean as a whole feels slightly tentative at points.

It’s not a slight to call Impermanence functional music: If it helps someone else simply cut through the noise in their head, Silberman has gotten his point across.

It helps that most of the album sits squarely in Merritt’s musical comfort zones.

If English Tapas at times veers towards formula, it’s at least Sleaford Mods’ own formula, and one that continues to serve them well.

A decade ago, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah were a modest, rickety band bearing the albatross of hype; today, they’re an amorphous, musically adventurous entity basking in the freedom of no expectations.

His mixing is never ostentatious, but it generally emphasizes action. It’s rare that a song is left to play out unaccompanied; far more often, he’s got two and even three tracks running in parallel, resulting in a dynamic, shape-shifting fusion that’s far more than the sum of its parts.

Over a well-played hand of wistful, bright-eyed and reflective beats, HNDRXX strikes a near-perfect balance between a man still licking his wounds and a man emerging from a long, dark night.

A focused beam of hip-hop soul that rattles loudly in our present political moment.

Guided by a more mature sound, Infinite Worlds is the rock music we need nowadays, when it seems like home, wherever it might be, is getting farther away.