Rough Carpenters sounds vibrant and enveloping, an old-time feat for these mercurial times.

It's cacophonous and polyrhythmic, continuously falling apart and putting itself back together.

From start to finish, Dear Mark J. Mulcahy is a treat. In fact, it may be his best yet.

Intellectually sophisticated but prone to using primitive musical effects to convey such messages, Warwick’s results vary wildly after that.

Though not everything works on its own (the flat electropop of XO's "Animal" is one dud) Mockingjay adds up to a fun pastiche of modern sounds. In conclusion, three fingers out of five.

The failure of this album, in addition to being overlong and under-ambitious, is the idea that maturity should beget lazy, hammock songs.

Cosmic Troubles sounds a sadder, vaster album than before, but one whose meditations can soothe your bones like an inviting stream.

E•MO•TION is as solid and spotless a pop album as you're likely to hear this year, the result of several years working alongside a storied list of contributors.... but E•MO•TION fails to tell us who Jepsen is or wants to be.

Though it’s clear the band is refining their songwriting and getting more personal in the process, the record feels wilted instrumentally compared to their previous releases.

While it’s not quite the same deep-dive into confectionary pop, Innocence shares both that group’s [ABBA] fondness for immediate melodies and their egalitarian spirit.

Shopping’s idea of choice doesn't mean one agenda at the expense of another, but establishing a welcoming space for all comers. It works because their naturally scatty, riotous spark means they could never sound neutral.

Main Attrakionz, who are sharper and more consistent than ever here, even if the high points don’t quite match those of 808s II.

It was sometimes unclear when Stereolab's mid-century references were meant as kitsch, but here, Gane & co.'s retro-futurist flashback feels optimistic, as though convinced that the key to fulfilling the promise of a new era were just one perfect rhythm away.

Middle-aged rap has rarely sounded more grown, with all the mixed-blessing perspective that comes with it. Anonymous Nobody is kind of a downer, but sometimes that’s what you need, especially when the optimism’s just below that melancholy surface.

More limber and fiery than ever, the band has risen out the experimental cul-de-sac with a riveting work that should appeal to both its expected audience and to new fans who might have otherwise dismissed this style of music as too antiseptic for their liking.

If Little Dark Age is a new start, it’s a promising one.

If they’re not quite fully formed, the music resonates with potential all the same.

Moosebumps will make aging hip-hop fans very happy. But new listeners are unlikely to come running at the good doctor’s call.

Bon Voyage celebrates the catharsis of clearing away old wreckage, but it also revels in replacing that mess with new toys.

While the album’s open-endedness largely works to its benefit, Collagically Speaking occasionally meanders.

Mostly the record commits to what he does best: substantial rap with clear stakes and an uncommon sense of purpose. After a career marked too often by botched opportunities and wasted potential, Meek Mill has finally risen to the moment.

It’s remarkable how Crush on Me comes off as two albums in one. One album, containing “Heels” and “Haunted House,” is a less abrasive version of SOPHIE’s work with Mozart’s Sister, which ends up as a hyperventilating version of the alt-pop singles that litter playlists everywhere. They’re all executed well; they’re certainly done with the most gusto possible. But the familiarity gets a bit much. ... The other, better album in Crush on Me is an alt-rock throwback.

Certainly, there’s a few corny or dated moments—listening through Care Package, you’ll hear hashtag rap (“I got that Courtney Love for you/Crazy shit”), epically cloying vocal runs, and overly cutesy wordplay like, “Brunch with Qatar royals all my cups is oil.” However, the best songs here stand up with Drake’s best music.

Keeping Up Appearances, released under the moniker Basic Plumbing, collects the tracks Doyle and Skinner finished. Their beauty is immediate, accessible, and, at least for the moment, almost inextricable from all the loss surrounding them.

Ellis seems to have inadvertently wound up splitting the difference between nostalgia and innovation. What’s left is a scattered effort, and one can only wonder what Reality Tunnels might have sounded like if Ellis hadn’t followed so many of them down such sentimental pathways.

The 35-song soundtrack runs to nearly two hours, and the very elements that make it work as a score—the repeating melodic motifs and moments of lingering disquiet—make it a difficult listening experience. Much like the film’s demonic dress, it feels at times like In Fabric owns you, more than you own it. Still, scattered throughout are numerous examples of the melodic dexterity, genre agnosticism, and rhythmic poise that made records like Hormone Lemonade and Emperor Tomato Ketchup such shape-shifting delights.

BREACH, Lily’s first album for Dead Oceans, is a scruffier, more far-ranging record about developing a self in your twenties.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard reaffirm their status as the house band for post-Trump geopolitical tumult, but in lieu of conceptual suites about barfing robots and intergalactic colonization, K.G. feels much more grounded, even personal. The album’s vigorous peak-hour standouts, “Ontology” and “Oddlife,” each ponder the meaning of life from opposing macro and micro angles.