Changes’ lyrics are immediately and sometimes overly familiar, but Bradley’s unmistakable voice is the obvious draw throughout.

The pace is unhurried, and Gibson offers a cathartic tale of loss and redemption, set against a gorgeous sonic backdrop. She sounds newly confident, invigorated, and free.

A Mineral Love bursts with cheerful, candy-colored falsetto funk, not unlike Ambivalence, while leaving out the crunch and glitch, letting the instruments breathe.

The tape plays like a final installment, going out with a bang and saving some of the series' best for last.

We listen to Weezer in 2016 largely for nostalgic dog whistles. We listen because Blue retreads like "Endless Summer" and "Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori" offer Proustian pleasures in spite of their obviously-recycled frameworks, and because the simpering, sweet "L.A. Girlz" is the group's best single since "Island in the Sun."

Though it's Moderat's strongest record, III isn't quite all killer. The very Field-like "Finder" bounces its vocal loop into the pocket, but it doesn't show off the songcraft found on songs like "Reminder," which might have sprung from a solo album by Thom Yorke.

Slow Forever thrives in that existential anxiety, as though Wunder and Fell realized they had a lot to lose but even more to gain. As surprising as it may seem for an album where death, despair, and destruction linger in every word, Cobalt gambled on resurrection and, against the odds, advanced.

Lacking compelling hooks, a unifying mood, or a clear narrative, his debut is oddly inflexible and over-calculated.

Even as they explore alien aesthetics, the Body and Full of Hell are constantly finding ways to uphold the spirit of each other's work.

Wuthering Drum is a work seemingly unconcerned about giving you what you want, but what it does provide is almost enough.

These songs feel personal. They tug at important moments. It's a quietly masterful, emotionally rich work. Of all their records, it's ultimately the one that sounds the most like the image their band name evokes.

Much like the producer’s former offerings, Dame Fortune tries to be everything all at once, making for a good listen with occasional lapses.

Each song is well-structured and wise beyond its years while the messages are confused, delicate and very, very teenage. This is the sound of growing up smart.

At 11 tracks, it's longer than 2 and lacks the experimentation of Drink More Water 5, and it drags.

Daughter is best when it's specifically first-person, when Price bends country to fit her own story rather than bend herself to fit the form.

After two albums that struggled with the growing divide between the serious band they seemingly longed to be and the bubblegum punk band listeners want them to be, The Thermals strike the right balance on We Disappear, an album that manages to satisfy both camps.

A frequently gorgeous, sometimes roiling set that stands out in each artist’s catalog.

Glitterbust is not unlike Gordon's other recent duo, Body/Head, though less bold. Still, it feels like a gift to spend time in the oceanic space Gordon and Knost summon, letting its nuances wash over you.

Vroom Vroom is pointedly uncommercial and abrasive.

At times it almost sounds as if they know they've taken their current sound as far as it can go and seem palpably frustrated they can't figure out their next move.

Baauer and the other artists meet the heavyweight expectations head-on.

Hinton has an ability, not unlike the Books when they first hit the scene 14 years ago, of making shopworn techniques in sound manipulations seem strangely fresh, and Potential is the kind of music that makes you think about what your own part in a seemingly passive musical transaction of music might mean.

While the ground it covers is startling and often picturesque, Grapefruit is an album you feel led through, rather than being left to explore or inhabit.

As put-together as Good Grief’s presentation is, and as ingratiating as its songs are, the record suffers from a distinct lack of identity.

Festival is refreshingly cohesive, exploring varied themes without drifting off-course.

By the fourth or fifth trip through Gensho, the idea begins to slip into pure gimmickry, as though this were a notion that sounded fun for old friends to try but isn't so fun to hear.

Stefani’s focus on the good times alternates with songs where she expresses cartoonish anger by awkwardly rapping and shouting non-sequiturs (“Naughty,” “Red Flag”), and neither mode plays to her strengths as a songwriter and signature vocalist. Her best songs are the ones in which she is audibly upset.

No Burden is an uncommonly warm indie rock record.