Overall, Smoke still gets over on his ability to craft rich, moody soundscapes, although almost all the tracks on the album would have worked better as standalone instrumentals.

Throughout Wabi-Sabi, Cross Record thread their way between graceful and sinister, unfiltered beauty with heavier and uglier sounds, and tap into a dark well of energy that has potential to grow more powerful the further they explore it.

Even in its quietest moments, Thought Rock Fish Scale is an album brimming with passion and protest. It finds confidence in humility, power in relaxation.

There’s something invigorating about hearing two alt-country veterans take apart their tried-and-true sound and reassemble it slightly askew, and Scheherazade is not only their most modern-sounding record; it might be their best since Old Paint.

On Islah, his hook-writing is sterling.

It's impressive and frankly unusual to see a band five albums into their career experiment with new sounds and actually make it work, but Junior Boys have pulled it off. Career longevity looks good on them.

Black Tusk's combination of sludge, rock, hardcore, and death metal remains fluid, fertile, and most importantly, full of life, in spite of the tragedy that threatens to define it. Far from funereal, Pillars of Ash has plenty of love for good ol' heavy-metal melodies.

It doesn’t help that Nine Track Mind is all ballads except for three tracks, two of which are duets (Trainor, a sleepy Selena Gomez) that somehow still feel like ballads. Puth cannot fill this frame of sentimentality with any genuine sentiment.

Throughout all 23 tracks, the score straddles the line between weariness and wonder, like someone constantly recalling the danger this stunning planet is capable of unleashing.

This production is ultimately what makes Paradise such a standout; there are plenty of young industrial and noise-rock bands running hard on all cylinders, as Pop. 1280 did on their prior efforts. The extra gears and moving parts in their sound feel like necessary moves to avoid quick and certain burnout.

The album balances the Brewis brothers' predilection for unusual song structures and unconventional instrumentation with a decidedly grown up narrative.

There are times where DIIV threaten to become too in love with their own sound, particularly toward the middle. But beyond lending Is the Is Are a necessary heft to back Smith’s claims, these songs are convincing portrayals of checked-out living.

Listening to the 34 songs of Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone and The Ghosts of Highway 20 in sequence feels less like a chore than a long trip led by an expert navigator with good stories to share.

MartyrLoserKing doesn’t necessarily rise or fall on Williams’ ability to clarify his thoughts into a clear, memorable hook.

ANTI is a rich and conflicted pop record, at its most interesting when it’s at its most idiosyncratic.

The band’s diverse influences sound best when Kivlen's voice serves as a darker echo of Cumming’s angelic optimism, especially in a call and response. But the band's hodgepodge approach doesn't always work.

Occasionally, the dull roar manifests in some solid rock songs.

The old cliché about double albums is that most could be greatly improved if edited down to one disc, but that doesn’t hold true here. Animals is an anomaly: a two-disc set without enough solid material for even a single LP.

The late-album arrangement of these two outliers feels unnecessary and out-of-place. Two steps forward, one step back: such is the dance of courting other genres, even if the risks have helped keep Ulver vital.

Occasionally Palana will burst open, revealing churning undercurrents beneath Hilton’s surface calm.

Nugent makes up for those irritating suburban-blues licks with his exquisite chordings and inspired solos.

On Something About April II, Younge emerges as someone more interested in creating new classics than new samples.

The ephemerality of Original Machines assures that Keely never gets bogged down in any bad ideas, but often times, those are his most interesting ideas.

It's a complete piece of work, and one that serves as a commentary on the intersectionality of art and fame by someone who has recently acquired a new level of notoriety. But the sacrifice here is the personal flair that gave her previous album a spark of creativity and set it apart from the songs she had already been writing for other pop stars.

Much like records by the Smiths, Suicide Songs is both consoling and encouraging, revealing itself fully only after repeated listens and paying dividends each time. Manchester should be proud.

To make music this abstract work, pacing is key, and Porter's proves masterful throughout--that's as true of individual tracks, which heave like massive bellows, as of the shape of the album as a whole.

The album's best songs ("Tough Towns," "Fame II the Wreckoning," "Treat Em Right") temper the stream-of-consciousness and ramp up the atmosphere instead. When they resist the urge to troll (tell me a sardonic chorus that goes "Just like a tactical maniac/ I WANNA SHOOT YOUU" isn't trolling), Nevermen possess a deadly grace befitting Doseone's beloved hydra metaphor; for now, those necks are tangled.

The good news is that "The Love Within," Bloc Party’s comeback track, an indie disco-pop hybrid that is somehow both garish and bland, is comfortably the worst song on Hymns. A little better is "So Real," which trails a Silent Alarm throwback riff over low-key soul and hangover-soothing deep house; on "The Good News," a similarly midtempo Blur pastiche, a down-and-out narrator trudges from "the Gospels of St. John" to the "bottom of a shot glass."