The band’s tight, canny songwriting is so winsome on most of the album that weaker tracks, or trite phrases like “I’ll always be addicted to your energy” on the otherwise charming “Roundabout,” momentarily break the spell.

The songs that follow range in scope from atmospheric brooding on “Blue Vapor” to hyper-specific autobiography on “Said Goodbye to That Car.”

The album as a whole is moderately enjoyable while it's on, but that's about it.

It is a mostly great show, though not all dynamite.

Helpfully, the 17-song record includes eight interstitials to ease the intensity, though admittedly they’re more useful in the first half, which is frantic and sparkly, than the sleepier second.

Stranger Fruit is an uneven record. But by mixing genres and squaring them against ancient issues that remain tragically current, these songs grapple with past, present, and the possibility of the future by asking two necessary questions: How can art let us understand the problems we’ve overlooked or misunderstood? And how can we begin to fix them?

There's more to diskJokke than bulletproof connections; his spacey electro-disco is technically impressive and effortlessly appealing.

On disc, Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl is a bland, bluesy celebration you can afford to miss.

The Beets' newfound focus on recording quality could have easily highlighted shortcomings, but instead, the band found a way to broaden its sound by recruiting a member who exponentially adds to its worth.

Forsaking the earthier vibe of later Trux records like Veterans of Disorder and Pound for Pound, White Stuff feels like an extension of Herrema’s work with Black Bananas, thriving on the tension between old-school authenticity and modernist manipulations.

This is very comfortable music, but Meek threads strange disturbances into its weave. Residing alongside the blankets and stars and blue jays of his lyric sheet are darker things—faces forming on the ceiling, broken tongues, swimming pools full of turpentine.

This is a huge, sturdy record, built for arenas and it's richly and carefully enough constructed to endure the extensive exposure Welch's heartache is going to get over the course of this summer.

Still curious, still appraising, Bird offers an intellect remarkably porous to change.

The record mixes feelings of protection and safety with the tug of adventure and wraps it in compulsively listenable music that explodes at just the right moments.

While the songs on New don’t have the historical import or epic ambition of his best-known work, they also don’t have the same kind of flaws.

The communal, freewheeling looseness is one of the album's greatest assets, as you feel as if you were a party to the making of the record in Eagle Bay, too.

Like Power's best work, Dumb Flesh moves you when it literally moves you.

With 12 songs of nearly equal tone, volume, and length, the nearly hour-long As You Please becomes its own endurance test. When As You Please is taken in smaller chunks, the minor variations between the songs where Citizen churn and the ones where they steamroll ever forward become more discernible.

On the one hand, it is an empowering statement of wholeness and self-sufficiency; and yet, in Fohr’s resonant voice, it is weighted with sadness.

Continuing the trend of 2018’s King of Cowards and 2020’s Viscerals, Land of Sleeper feels a shade crisper than what came before. Whereas they once prioritised the churn and burn, now their songs are leaner and tighter.

Not every song on Don't Stop or its bonus All Night EP is a classic, but Annie's good taste has yielded another fine crop of pop tunes.

This is, to date, his quintessential live release, capturing a set that toggles carefully between the band’s luxurious sounds and his urgent songs. The Johnsons are in their most measured and exquisite phase, giving new life to cuts familiar from Hegarty’s catalog.... The accompanying film, however, tries to do too much, in turn missing the simple, genius focus of the conceit.

It points to an artistic flexibility that will pay dividends down the road. The room to grow is there, should he decide to pursue the colors Wave[s] has opened up for him.

By lacing arms with Dan Deacon, the duo throw themselves into an auspicious zone, creating an album that remains introspective even at its wildest moments.

Comparing the two releases, it’s clear that Calexico and Iron & Wine have found a way over the years to leave a little more mystery in the words and let the music provide more of the clues.

Chastity Belt is largely confessional; her words are the focus here, and these simple, serene landscapes are a fitting backdrop to hear her loud and clear.

Moreland’s songs have long dwelled in the contested middle ground between doing the right thing and not being able to figure out what the right thing is. On LP5, he articulates what it feels like to get it, however briefly, and let go. And he doesn’t always need words to do so.

Unclouded may not push her in a new direction, but it’s marked by a newfound grit and a palpable confidence.