Despite its clear seriousness, Brigid Mae Power runs on that sense of newfound freedom. Power and Broderick find glimmers of light even in the darkest moments, and she learns to trust the kind of love that enables independence, after some period of coercion.

Famously Alive is a beautiful mess of squelchy psych-pop—emphasis on pop—that feels in conversation with the band’s abrasive, dissonant past: As Guerilla Toss turn a new page musically, Carlson turns one of her own.

No single instrument dominates, nor do they act as strict counterpoints to one another. Sounds from opposite ends of the spectrum—felted resonances and sharp twangs—move in the same direction, drifting in parallel. While she rides these contrasts, Cogan sings with a smoky steadiness.

Throughout the album, he’s haunted by both the things that have and haven’t happened to him, what he has and hasn’t done, ruminating over a tight 32 minutes across eight tracks that feel haunted even at their hardest.

If the sentiments are tough, the music itself is tender, borrowing from Belle & Sebastian and Brill Building pop to create a sound that is both pastoral and urbane, straightforward yet sophisticated.

It's gritty and honest. Beneath the surface-layer thrill of some of these songs are subtle character shifts and brave one-liners, all of which confirm VanGaalen's status as gripping songwriter as well as a producer.

On the other hand, Fields' dearth of surprises makes it a little disappointing even for those with more conventional tastes -- listeners who generally value stuff like quality and consistency more than the shock of the new.

Rigorous but rarely hermetic, the album is a small testament to his sustained excellence.

Everybody's Got It Easy But Me answers Finberg's ever-withering worldview with playful, rambunctious performances, enhancing the I-just-wasn't-made-for-these-times pathos of his lyrics by essentially making him sound like an outcast within his own songs.

While tracks like “Credence (Ash in the Winds of Reason)” and “Syndicate II” fit snugly into the band’s previous guitar-driven repertoire (not to mention this current era of peak post-punk), Deliluh are the rare band that can summon the menacing propulsion and imagistic density of the Fall without resorting to Mark E. Smith pantomime-uh.

Whatever subtlety Germano's voice and lyrics might lack is buttressed by the deceptive simplicity of her music.

On her confident and intoxicating first full-length, Good at Falling, she lets go of any lingering self-consciousness and makes the transformation from hesitant outsider to unlikely pop star.

Tapestry of Webs is an encouraging, welcome surprise-- a clear sign that the musicians involved are pushing themselves and searching for something new.

Paradise may forever be lost, but this elegant elegy is worth many returns.

Mars is too amiable a vocalist to express pure disillusionment, but he’s great at communicating discomfort. Bankrupt! doesn’t so much ruefully reflect upon Phoenix’s whirlwind, globe-trotting lifestyle as drop you right in the middle of it.

They’re always the butt of their own jokes, which makes them good company for a late night but also makes these songs hit a little harder the next morning.

Few artists could assemble a group of musicians like that those found on Hubris at all, but Ambarchi lets everyone do their part, then fade into the background. It's the difference between hubris and vision.

There are times when you know exactly where you want to go and this is the music to take you there.

Even when Guidance gets complicated, there’s a more organic and unforced feel to it, as if songs were allowed to grow wild rather than carefully cultivated.

Across 10 country-tinged tracks, Cornfield also broadens her view as a storyteller, but proves that her boot heels are still dug into terra firma.

The songs give the intriguing impression of having been fully arranged, then severely pared away, leaving behind starkly outlined space. It’s a somnolent register from which the music seems to keep waking up.

An Invitation adds a new chapter to that story, told in an unmistakably American idiom fusing Broadway and Tin Pan Alley and Copland, spotlighting Inara George as a sophisticated new voice and confirming Van Dyke Parks, at 68, as an inexhaustibly vital national treasure.

Ring’s orchestral and electronic score communicates the narrative’s swing from complacent luxury to riveting despair, showing what happens when worlds collide.

Insides is Fort Romeau’s second full-length record, and although it doesn’t continue on quite the same upward trend of his recent discography in the risk-taking department, it does boast some of his most fully dimensional and impressively produced work yet.

The whole album has a casual, freewheeling vibe, but it’s a testament to King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s unity that it holds together so well.

Perhaps Baba Yaga might’ve been more digestible if it had lost two or three songs. But for Futurebirds, the rough spots are kind of the whole point.

There's plenty here to celebrate for consistency's sake-- because for what they've lacked in evolution, Guru and Premier have more than repaid in reliability.

The question, going into this album, was whether he could give them purpose and meaning--whether he could put his technical mastery into the service of music at once experimental and lyrical. Where All Is Fled answers resoundingly in the affirmative.