The confident diversity of My Love Is Cool indicates a band who have their own thing all figured out, who shouldn't veer from their own strange path to live up to outdated narratives that dictate what a young British band should be.

Its seams show at every moment, in ways that feel artful—spoken interludes, thematic callbacks, a disorienting cover of Violeta Parra’s eternal “Gracias a la Vida” that shifts between settings like the grand finale of an Oscar-bait drama—and others that feel forced.

Quietly adventurous, wise, and a welcome late-career turn, Blue Mountain builds an ethereal home for a rhythm guitarist who was tempered in the chaos-friendly environs of Dead.

For all their wiry energy and staccato sloganeering, Shopping have always embraced pop melody and absurdist humor, and All or Nothing’s more polished production pushes those qualities to the fore.

Evocative images recur throughout Time’s Arrow, which is full of flashing lights, water, and dreams that offer mesmerizing spaces for getting lost. ... Time’s Arrow’s consistency also works against it. The record’s more placid songs bleed together.

King Gizzard tend to get roped up in the flourishes on Polygondwanaland, before giving way to an instinctive simplicity. At times, it works to their advantage, like when they moderate the dynamics of a feverish tempo on “Deserted Dunes Welcome Weary Feet.” Elsewhere, the band dulls itself by overthinking a section and losing their knack for natural flow.

Loving the Alien offers a reset for listeners--to hear these albums fresh, liberated from their composer’s dismissive opinions.

Rarely is electronic music so utterly human as on Still Slipping, its emotional draw as reassuringly complex as a grand family reunion.

Scream From New York, NY harnesses the group’s keening intensity and taps into a vivid sense of place. They’re not the first songwriters to draw inspiration from the chaotic thrum of New York City, but they bring this literary tradition into a troubled new era.

While the brackish pleasure of beauty and noise isn’t unique to HEALTH, the overwhelming emphasis on the mechanical nature of the music makes CONFLICT DLC uniquely resonant when set against their previous work.

They’re just the latest to move these pieces around--to use distortion pedals and droning vocals to unpack the mysteries of the universe. But there’s a confidence that with time they could be the ones to finally solve the puzzle.

It may not deliver the same jolt as its predecessor, but its somewhat cleaner production highlights Love Is All's strengthened pop prowess.

While these [linking tracks] suggest Schneider's appreciation for the short-form work of electronic music pioneer Raymond Scott, they stop well short of giving Wonder the thematic consistency it seeks (and needs).

The question that all improvisers have to answer is whether something you play once can be worth listening to more than once. Experience and forethought ease the answer toward yes, and Drumm has both at his command.

There’s moments where the Very Best show that rather than merely parlay exuberance and global harmony, they can also manage the somber aspect of their music.

It’s also a disco-funk explosion, ecstatic from every direction. Even when the satire wanes, the potency of the music remains. Like the rest of the album, Remy shakes free her sorrows and stretches loose her limbs, sanguine as she moves across the dancefloor.

This mannered, understated virtuosity permeates Collett's music, just like it did the Band's.

They sound more inspired here than they have since... well, since they played these songs the first time. New album please.

Not quite stylistic opposites but still distinctly different, the two producers almost always make sure to stay on the same page, taking skeletal percussive tracks and shocking them with little flecks of light. But as with much of Family and Friends, that light seems to be just out of reach.

Part of Brewis’ duty in Field Music was to keep them from veering over the edge into too busy AOR prog, and he uses that same keen ear to keep Old Fears from becoming too cute or kitsch with the tweed-funk.

It’s an album of fun, feminist pop that is simultaneously wise beyond its years (four of its five members are still in their teens) and refreshingly age-appropriate—and it effortlessly embodies the ideals grasped at by the girl power think piece wave, with a sharp, nuanced perspective that can only come from lived experience.

Seasonal Hire sounds more like a Black Twig Pickers album than a Steve Gunn album.

There are a handful of solid songs on Humor Risk, though, without an outright dud in the bunch-- and if that represents a disappointment, then in the end, the joke might be on us.

All this means that Fruit Bats, like their contemporaries, could unfortunately be passed over due to sheer familiarity. That'd be a shame, because The Ruminant Band only gets more rewarding as it settles in.

This is principled music, not doctrine, and while inspired by its surroundings, it’s defined by its leader making bracing art.

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.

NOW bleeds with the awareness that tomorrow is never guaranteed.

Sus Dog is warm and immediately gratifying, offering the musician’s fragile falsetto as a graceful counterpoint to his intricate and sometimes breakneck production.