On the whole her performance throughout Begin to Hope exhibits new levels of control and direction, reaching a point where the song and the singing are inseparable.

Diggin’ is a remarkable transmission: a document of a wave of heady creativity swept under our headlong rush toward tomorrow.

While I wouldn't say that Postcards From a Young Man is quite the late-career masterstroke Journal For Plague Lovers was, it is still a product of a re-energized band. Whether or not it actually garners them the hits and mass audience they're aiming for (and at least in Britain, it seems inconceivable that it won't), they've managed to make an inviting, populist album that deserves the attention.

Jackmaster lets his choices breathe and doesn’t hurry from cut to cut for the sake of covering more ground, even as tracks pool together and reform anew.

Really, no one would ever accuse Islands or Man Man of lacking character and presence, but once Thorburn and Kattner return to their bands after this dalliance, you'll be excused for thinking they'll sound a little bit incomplete without one another.

It's boldly rendered, and somehow crafts a very human world from cartoon sonics.

Shattuck doesn't often telegraph the resemblance, and the band's growl-and-bash obscures it, but if you're listening for Beatles-of-'65 nods, they're all over Whoop Dee Doo.

Eno’s written statement and the gravity of the subject indicate a grand departure, but FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE feels nonetheless like a continuation of his work since the mid to late 2000s.

Sometimes conceptual ambient albums can feel a bit forced-- Klimek's recent film-centric Movies Is Magic comes to mind-- but here the theme works hand-in-hand with the music.

Swimming is less virtuosic than those artists’ [Chance the Rapper, Anderson.Paak and Frank Ocean] recent works, but no less heartfelt, and the album’s wistful soul and warm funk fits Miller like his oldest, coziest hoodie.

Abstract as most of the sounds on Glass are, and as unstructured as the improvisation is, there’s something considered at its heart. The tones, though still sharp as glass shards, are infused with a warmth that slowly permeates the final moments of the piece.

Kooshanejad works by breaking down samples into unrecognizable blips of sound, and then layering them up into thickets of melody and rhythm. There is the sense that any individual noise could be one locus on a larger waveform, any melodic line or rhythmic figure a patchwork of them.

Where past efforts buried its intimacy under coldness and severity, Will To Be Well offers a warm, familiar embrace.

I'm not entirely convinced that this is the best way to present these songs; the live-sounding recordings don't always bring out the full force of the material, and create a sense of continuity that is only undercut by the album's sequencing.

Hidden World is the work of a band that sounds much older and more assured than it should.

The smooth, radiant production doesn’t amount to commercial pandering: It’s assured, exploratory, and warm music that mirrors Andrews’ newly opened heart.

The economical use of space makes Widowspeak feel like a chance meeting with a pining stranger, one who spills their guts then vanishes from sight just as they're beginning to make an impression.

Riot Boi delivers what its title promises--a transgression of pop cultural limitations--most clearly in the final three tracks, socially-conscious slow jams with far more overt political messages than Le1f's usual banger-obscured radicalism.

For a "studio experiment," it's exceptionally listenable.

Despite retaining a relaxed, lightly psychedelic feel, Blondes' songs are properly functionalist grooves.

So when I call Begone Dull Care a "mature" album, know it skirts both the positive and negative connotations of one of the most divisive adjectives in pop's lexicon.

Offering no blandishments, no expressions of we’ll-get-through-this, Kiwanuka is a nerve-wracked, sustained act of whistling in the dark. Absent, though, is any hint of reveling: a tendency that often leads to soul rot.

These lush arrangements seem content to simply drift by, never truly engaging the listener, and making it difficult to fully appreciate the album if you aren't in the mood to be put under.

The Law of Large Numbers is a smartly sequenced record.

Like so many country albums, especially recent ones by Monroe's friend and bandmate Miranda Lambert, The Blade could be stronger if it was more streamlined and sequenced with some kind of overarching narrative in mind, but that's almost beside the point when the album sounds so damn good.

The Marriage of True Minds hits harder and feels more joyfully physical than anything Matmos has done in years.

On one hand, Dear Catastrophe Waitress ranks as one of the most delightful surprises of the year, although that's primarily because I'd completely given up on them. On the other hand, it's a very flawed record that at its quirky worst features harmonies so brow-furringly cheery they'd be comfortable amidst a cruise-ship revue or one of Up With People's halftime routines.

A record where frequencies oscillate with a sense of embryonic discovery; by embracing the fantastical, XXL find a new frequency of their own.