Kozelek's more recent output has obviously been vulnerable, but he feels especially open here--he’s not just making fun of himself, but also deeply dissecting why he makes fun of himself, and the sadness that’s hidden within a punchline.

The Heretic’s Bargain [is] their most cohesive record to date, and suggests that it will likely be bested on that count by the next one.

On Need Your Light, they finally hit the sweet spot.

Tonally and instrumentally, the album is a change in style, but there is no moment of surprise; it still feels very predictable.

Marketing aside, Phase doesn't sound unpleasant, just generic.

High Note complements rather than contradicts those bleaker depictions of 21st century America and casually argues for Staples’ legacy as an agitgospel singer.

Ultimate Care II is a daydream of domesticity, a chore ignored. Call it the revolutions of everyday life.

So far they don’t have those hits, of course, but they’ve come up with enough passable facsimiles to fill a pretty likeable album.

Part of the success of Daze is how fully Brood Ma commits to his sonic palette without committing to a singular musical style.

Speak isn’t exactly a step forward or a step back, but more to the side, onto a new path with plenty of potential, as well as room for future improvements.

In the absence of a less effable genius, there's always elbow grease. Painting With feels, more than anything, like a kind of construction project: Each sound meticulously built and only faintly familiar, each second crammed with doodads, as though the band was worried either they or their audience might get bored.

So Pitted sound like they move as a unit. This is where their true energy derives--from their internal communication. You don't hear the gears grinding or see the wires--you only see the bull in all its terrifying, joyful glory and the destruction it causes.

Most of the textural differences from song to song on Né So are slight, so they tend to bleed into one another.

With Basar, they have assembled a vast glossary of fresh sounds, considerably enriching the language of contemporary dance music in the process.

A madcap sense of humor animates all his best work, and The Life of Pablo has a freewheeling energy that is infectious and unique to his discography. Somehow, it comes off as both his most labored-over and unfinished album, full of asterisks and corrections and footnotes.

Overall Still in a Dream is a job well done: an accurate portrait of an era that, while it can’t really be described as a lost golden age for rock, nonetheless provided sorely needed radiance and refuge during a particularly grim period.

It delves as far as it can without hitting government-name territory, and for that the true fans will embrace it. But how many times can you retell the same story?

Opus oscillates between two poles. On the one side are entrancing progressive house numbers like the bookending "Liam" and "Opus."... At the other end of the spectrum are songs informed by Prydz’s pop instincts, and these can be more of a mixed bag.

Man Made Object is tailor-made for laid-back enjoyment, to be consumed at a moderate volume without much fuss. It marks a nice step forward for a group that lives comfortably beyond artistic restraints.

It's billed as something of a minor release (in the same way What a Time to Be Alive was minor but they still wanted your money for it), but it's still an "official" one, meaning Future swings for a few radio hits here. They feel more obligatory than outright bad.

Like most of Lissie’s albums, My Wild West is most compelling at its most messy and raucous.

Cardinal feels like one big determined push outward, an album-length fight against solipsism without losing your sense of self in the process.

There is much more to Heaven Adores You than endearing scraps, however, and none of them are more important than the version of "True Love" that appears here.

Unfortunately, the duo's apparent ambitions to be something more hold it back from reaching serotonin-peaking heights (like Carly Rae Jepsen's E•MO•TION).

All I Need had the potential to be so much more than mediocre and forgettable.

The Gamble sounds like the peek into a group of friends' private rituals that it is--as charmingly patched together and messy as it is well-paced and dynamic.

SVIIB is not only the group’s most technically accomplished work, their perfected swan song--it feels true.

I’m Up doesn’t muster up the highs of the Slime Season series—the infectiousness of “Best Friend,” the sublime structuring of “Draw Down,” or the woozy euphoria of “Raw”--but Thug manages to compile many of his best attributes into a tightly-wound 38 minutes.