The first third is playful if not quite memorable. ... But as “N” swoops down, with its slow, throbbing bassline, primitive drum machine pattern, echoing chimes, and flecks of flamenco guitar, you wonder if Lissvik might have pulled a fast one and gone back into an old hard drive to plunder some old Studio session, so dead-on is the sound.

If Diarrhea Planet’s goal is just to be a memorable, messily great live band, they’re well on their way. But if they want their records to live on, they need to decide what they're trying to achieve, and figure out how to deliver it more effectively offstage.

Tape-chewed textures and digital glitches initially defined Wyatt’s first few releases, but there’s a remarkable clarity throughout Union and Return that belies the fact that for all the beauty of his fourth album, his inherent weirdness still squirms beneath the surface.

Jackie Lynn’s only significant weakness is that, even though individual songs benefit from brevity, the record is too short. Its eight tracks take up only 22 minutes, and two of those tracks are micro-length instrumentals; it’s half an album at most.

Every darker, weirder impulse got glossed over while the music gives an agreeable shrug.

Many of the tracks on his last album felt like sketches—the kernel of an idea, abandoned quickly. The same sensibility holds here, but even the simplest idea is stretched across a much bigger frame, to six or seven or even eight minutes. That’s important; you need the time to sink into these things. After a spell, you can’t say whether you've been listening to a given piece for two or 20 minutes.

It’s fitting the trio recorded it in a repurposed slaughterhouse, because Fall Forever is the work of a band gutting its sound and watching it bleed out.

Before Wild Things, Brown scrapped an entire album that, from press indications, probably sounded a lot like Anxiety; neither she nor the people she said heard it was happy with the results, but one wonders if it was really that bad, or just not commercial and crowd-pleasing enough. Wild Things collapses over the strain to be both.

Taylor is no stranger to wearing his heart on his sleeve, Piano takes that notion one step further--it’s as if Taylor is taking his heart out for everyone to see, then discreetly leaving it on your coffee table.

The result is some of his most exciting work since Isis disbanded.

Ultimately, the picture that emerges on Twentyears is a simplified version of Air that swaps out most of their quirks for only their most palatable qualities. It’s a lite version of the band, and a frustrating missed opportunity.

Despite these superficial similarities [to their 1995 debut album], repeat spins of Strange Little Birds ultimately belie an older, wiser reincarnation of that youthful rage, not just a cheap retrospective.

Light years from a mere slap-dash rarities compilation, The Other Side of the River takes some of a seminal rock musician's most interesting sketchworks and reimagines them as his magnum opus.

Levitate leverages rave nostalgia to get to a deeper truth: Free your inner child, and your ass and mind will follow.

[“Hard Sleep”] stands out as a rare home-run on an album too blandly ambitious to stick in the memory.

Musically, it’s his most adventurous album since Graceland, filed with strange rhythmic kinks and a junkyard’s worth of barely identifiable sounds.

It's rare to find complex, personal songs about love and relationships matter-of-factly sung from a queer perspective, and in that respect alone Tegan and Sara remain a crucial voice in the pop landscape. Elsewhere on the album, things a just a little less distinct.

The sonics are familiar, as is the trajectory.

Ash & Ice is an album of quality comedown tracks surrounded by run-of-the-mill rockers that plateau instead of peak.

There’s just enough to think about without getting fatigued, as the Strokes continue to toy with the sound of their late period.

Get In was recorded last year, but it sounds like it could have been made at any time over the intervening decade.

What doesn’t work as much are the attempts to make Masterpiece feel overly homemade.

By embracing the expanse, his music has gotten bigger, and more universal.

With its variations in mood, tone, and personnel, Basses Loaded plays more like compilation of B-sides culled from multiple recording sessions spanning several years.

Whitney might not reinvent anything, but they sound perfect right now, and it’s hard to argue with being in the right place at the right time.

When Krug sticks to his strengths—off-the-beaten-path keyboard-driven rock n’ roll, with taut, wiry tunes that match his voice and wry wit--he generally succeeds. But his tendency to slow it down and draw it out leads him to take risks that often don’t pay off.

Despite Dâm’s preference for playing tracks pretty much all the way through--which suggests an infectious, wide-eyed passion for the music that fits into his mind-control powers--the mix is properly appreciated as a whole.

Finally, albeit in flashes, there are hints that Fifth Harmony may reach that peak.