On Dissolvi, Hauschildt breathes new life into the subgenre by taking it off the dancefloor--and reveals an unexpected facet of his artistry.

Pick any song, and you’ll be rewarded with something painfully precise.

Each track is its own study in loneliness, yet each is in communication with the others, like spirit mediums.

Although Alpers has found a winning sound, she's still scrambling to gather her notes and draft a theme she can deliver with conviction.

Listening to Grace & Lies can be taxing; it feels at moments like succumbing slowly to emotional frostbite. But Krans and Ollsin stir in a few furtive warm pockets to keep their record from freezing over.

They click best as a mass of finely tuned parts. And in the latter three tracks... it really comes to the forefront, sounding so second-nature that you take the complex interplay in the underlying grooves for granted.

Swift's merry melodies and uninhibited sensitivity draw equally on the immaculate piano pop of Carole King's Tapestry and the strummy self-awareness of Jackson Browne's early Asylum Records releases, but it's his noticeable theatricality that sets him apart.

Costello fans will find many delights in The Boy Named If. For one, his 32nd studio album sounds smashing. Sebastian Krys’ mix stresses the textures of acoustic instruments without walloping listeners; Costello’s guitar, as restless as a child at a symphony even on solid albums like When I Was Cruel and Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, burrows right between Faragher’s bass and Nieve’s keyboards, enunciating hook after hook.

It can feel staged at times, even a little stiff. Still, it’s a powerful showcase for his guitar work, his singing, and his ministry.

This self-titled album gives the impression that they're constantly aware of holding back. Such restraint is ultimately unwarranted: Diane is a strong enough presence as a singer and as a songwriter that she can more than hold her own.

When it comes to writing breathless love songs with hooks that rival those of alt-pop idols like Carly Rae Jepsen and Sky Ferreira--both of whom she’s cited as influence--Pilbeam is a prodigy. ... But Pilbeam sounds more distinctive when she’s leaning into bluntness than when she’s reaching for the rarefied heights of poetry.

It takes only a few listens to realize that this album is its own beast. Even with healthy doses of unruliness and a few far-off wanderings, this is Magik Markers' most coherent, self-contained effort to date.

Yes, the Brothers still overuse lyrical gore the way the Evil Dead series did Kero syrup, but their sonic pace and intensity has somewhat slowed.

Throughout Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), Swift sometimes mutes the messy adolescent impulses that gave these songs their spark. But elsewhere, she divests from fantasy archetypes—the knight on a white horse, the helpless child—that once limited her. Think of the new Speak Now as a call and response between who she was and who she is.

So despite a pretty high hit/miss ratio, as a big-step-forward record, Living ain't exactly Armed Forces.

It’s as exuberant as its predecessor, with some honest grit flaking against the more mannered sentimentality; it keeps a popular hearth warm and has a kicking, striving spine.

My Heart was Shoman’s breakout moment as a songwriter, and A Swollen River is foremost a triumph for Tenci, the band.

First Taste is sharply paced, sequenced for maximum impact as two separate vinyl sides but also effective as a seamless 41-minute listen. ... If the songs don’t linger as long as the sound, chalk that up to Segall being a “first idea, best idea” kind of guy. This time, he concentrated on production. Maybe next time around, he’ll turn his attention to the tunes.

Rarely do these songs stray from this sophisticated palette. It suits her well, but it marks Charm as yet another successful but polite soft-rock outing, a format with somewhat diminishing returns.

Without romanticizing their lives, they do manage to find something meaningful in that pursuit, even if it’s just another song to stave off the darkness.

It's rare for a band to survive the death of a key member, but Ra Ra Riot are actually thriving, turning The Rhumb Line from a potential "what could've been" record into a rousing, poignant testament to Pike's life and his former bandmates' resilience.

Despite its long, solitary genesis, I Play My Bass Loud is anything but a lonely bedroom-pop album.

While it doesn’t reach the soaring highs of Gavin’s work with MUNA, What a Relief offers introspective self-portraits whose sound calls back to Gavin’s youth and stories rich with the kind of empathy that’s only gained over time.

[With Memory] they've developed the approach of making high-energy tracks with subdued and subtle components-- beats that move with grace instead of brute force.

“Well Rested,” like the rest of Civilisation II, meditates not on human decline as much as the fables and myths we create in order to adjust to it. KKB are as inquiring and self-aware as ever—only now, their eyes are trained on the future.

Not every song achieves such effortless drama. At times, Carey comes across as more a student than a master. He has obviously consumed a tremendous amount of music, but he hasn't fully digested some of his influences.

With who told you to think??!!?!?!?!, milo both asserts his place within the lineage of underground hip-hop and argues for its continued relevance.

The album would be tiring if were nothing but a sincere homage to the cheesy pop of yesteryear, but F&L temper Channel Pressure with abstract vocal exercises and overcast instrumentals to keep the balance right.