If there's emotional utility to be found in Epic Jammers, it's in how meditative, trancelike, and overwhelmingly positive this hour of music is.

Many of the songs here sound not just derivative but generic. Compassion still feels like the album that Lust For Youth have been working toward this whole time--it just turns out that the journey may have been more rewarding than the destination.

For the most part, the songs on Cosmic American Music slip into the ether without much to keep them earthbound.

As a guitarist, Forsyth has a clear and immediately identifiable voice. His tones and melodies are familiar yet fresh, at once embodying grace and freakiness, tradition and experimentation, the past and the present.

The bracing, sometimes violent collision of rock ‘n’ roll and dance music that’s powered Primal Scream’s best work has been melted down here into mercurial droplets--shiny and radiant, to be sure, but ultimately non-descript.

By wearing their influences on their sleeve while never slipping into gimmickry, HÆLOS are able to pull off an impressive trick, a debut record that both cements them in a genre and leaves then room to grow.

A good 80% of You and I, the latest album of the lot, consists of covers, many already released in some format.... The new material includes a version of "Grace" that is basically a fully formed demo, while "Dream of You and I" is barely even that; the title is literal, Buckley thinking aloud about a dream he had about a band’s "space jam," which inspired him to write what’d eventually become "You and I."

3001: A Laced Odyssey does an adequate job of reminding us all of Flatbush Zombies’ smart, sharp lyrics. What they lack in hit-single potential, they make up for in talent, but without a calling-card song it's hard to know what their next move is.

The Body has always been obsessed with feelings of consuming futility, and in kicking free of conventional structures and following Wolpert's lead, they've come closer than ever to their truest selves on record.

Underworld’s never had trouble getting listeners to their feet. This gorgeously love-drunk finale makes Barbara a record that can bring them to their knees.

Petrol, a looser, messier album, does a better job of communicating new ideas, and its emotional depth feels less gestural and more genuine.

Though it’s mostly a pleasant record, there’s not much from it that sticks around long after listening--for all the talk of deluge, More Rain manages to wash itself away.

The unusual dependence on space in the arrangements can make the interiors of Låpsley’s songs seem uncannily empty, glassy structures with their insides removed so all that’s left is angled crystal.... But in other instances her voice dissolves into an overabundance of negative space, and listening to the less-inspired sections of Long Way Home can feel like trying to remember something boring that happened to you once.

None of these songs would have the same effect if rushed, which is what set Big Ups apart from many of their peers.

Overall Brute is a frustrating mish-mosh of middling and artful. When it’s working, there is a certain panache in the high-powered, informationally dense musical speedballs she creates.

If Post Pop Depression’s refined execution has you missing the more unhinged Iggy of old, rest assured, he’s not going down without a fight.

Arcology, like its predecessor, is a genre study first and foremost, rearranging familiar elements according to McRyhew's own idiosyncratic vision.

Where Walker sings more naturally, with easier tones, Cleaver's shy, young-old voice is a reassuring presence beneath the music’s astral blanket. That they both sound overwhelmed by Forever Sounds’ vast scale is in fact the record’s saving grace; as ever, Wussy’s proximity to ordinariness is precisely what makes them lovable.

More often than not, ColleGrove plays out like 2 Chainz pulling his friend and mentor up by his bootstraps while ceding a bit of the spotlight in the process. It’s a generous gesture, but a costly one.

She wears her obvious theoretical grounding lightly and never lets it obstruct her ecstatic quest for new ideas and deranged stimuli. And Varmints is a knockout, the kind that makes you see cartoon stars.

In My Feelings often feels as if its about to collapse under its own weight, which is doubly frustrating when you consider it clocks in at a slight 34 minutes.

As a record, Eraser Stargazer is sometimes weirdly hookless and ponderous. There’s plenty of stoner fog, but not always much to grip. It is a forward move for the band, though.

Despite the agitation and raw nerves, the album feels like a therapeutic offering.

Poliça is a group with too much collected talent for that; as in life these days, one only waits and hopes the clouds will clear.

As with TPAB, untitled unmastered. demands to be approached on its own terms, even when you don't know what those terms are. You can't say he didn't try for you, ride for you, or push the club to the side for you.

Neither stale tribute nor sloppy lovefest, Headspace aims for simple fun and hits it square, like a T-16 targeting womp rats back on Tatooine.

The resulting album, the most resolutely electronic work he's done yet, buzzes like an ice-cream headache.

A Man Alive's great virtue is that Nguyen can still sound like she's having the time of her life even as she's recounting the darkest moments from it.