The group has never sounded richer, fuller, or more confident in their own narcotic powers. Misery suits them.

It’s pitched almost entirely at “Bob’s” die-hards and listening to this album without being a fan of “Bob’s Burgers” is a fool’s errand. Even for fanatics, the two hours still feels like an ill-advised trek. ... The ease with which the soundtrack switches between novelty ditties and riot grrrl homage--a genre the show is most cozy with--is part of its draw.

It’s essentially Bully’s re-introduction as a solo project, and these 12 songs capture the invigorating energy of the band’s 2015 debut.

One gets the feeling that with a little more ruthlessness about what makes the final cut, Goodnight Oslo could offer more hits than misses. As it is, it falls just a little short.

Set to music that looks toward new horizons, Olympic Girls is a gentle study into freedom’s precariousness. The quest can be exhausting and frustrating, but, here, Tiny Ruins relish its brief embrace.

Isn’t It Now? also retains the band’s knack for defamiliarizing their influences, in the same way that Sung Tongs could make you feel like you were hearing a guy strumming an acoustic guitar for the first time in your life.

Not to malign their previous catalog, which certainly trumps most of today's post-punk regurgitates, but Family Myth proves fewer studio tricks lead to tighter songwriting.

Half-Light traces where he’s been so far, a typical theme for any solo debut. This is as understandable as it is slightly frustrating. Because all along, Rostam has never settled for anything close to typical.

In A Dream is Maclean and Whang's most fruitful, balanced partnership, and if it fails to truly make a star out of either of them, it cements them as the kind of ever-evolving collaboration DFA was built on.

When I take into account that 1) there are actual songs here, not just parodies, and 2) most of the tunes were fun to listen to, I remember that playing rock-- psychedelic, trashy or otherwise-- doesn't have to be an exercise in originality.

It's impeccably recorded-- pretty at some points and vaguely somber at others-- but it never distinguishes itself.

Dents and Shells is Buckner in top form, using a broad brush to manifest his enigmatic poetics, hallucinatory atmospheres, and melodies that appear and evaporate like breath exhaled onto cold glass.

Blueprint can be so effective when he's down to earth, it's a shame he feels the need to step up on a soapbox.

Rather than lending International depth, it shrinks the album into an admittedly accurate recapture of top-heavy, single-centered records of Norrvide’s preferred influences.

Sure, stylistic and mechanical hesitations pepper these seven songs, but even those instances feel mostly like the charming reservations of a brilliant beginner.

Olden Yolk have big ideas and big dreams about what type of art they want to make, and for the most part, they execute in such a way that feels both strangely soothing and impossibly lovely.

Emerald Sea is audibly crafted with tremendous skill and love, but its uniformity keeps it from soaring, no matter how many deities fly through the upper reaches.

Dijon is in her element here, eager to expand house music’s limits. For every pulse-racing dance breakdown, there’s a surprise.

The result is some of the most direct, spontaneous music in James’ catalog. Tracks feel less like songs or compositions than tone poems, mood pieces that flow naturally from one to the next, like clouds changing shape high overhead.

Though they haven't changed much in the span of three terrific albums, Camera Obscura no longer recall Belle & Sebastian; they only sound like themselves.

Making a Door Less Open would inevitably benefit from a willingness to risk spectacular failure—this isn’t the hard left-turn “Can’t Cool Me Down” hinted at.

Ghost's new album may not uncover many of the verteran MC's still-hidden darts but, even 11 years after his solo debut, there's no denying that one of hip-hop's most vibrant voices in its comfort zone.

We’re used to breakup albums that assume you just want to crawl into a hole and die, but I Never Learn is for the times when heartbreak is so life-affirming that you want to share the feeling with the world.

Even when the vocals are being run through processors and the guitars are distorted, it still feels managed, and a lack of high-range makes it inviting and easy to listen to even at its noisiest.

It's not that they're not real, it's that the shivering vocal timbres dominate the mix to the point where large shifts in tempo and style are obscured. It's during these moments when I think that Room(s) and its elevation of the vocal sample was perhaps a better idea than an album.

As a proper third album, Marci Beaucoup doesn't stack up to its precursors, but as an advertisement for Marciano's services as a beatsmith, it's much more successful.

It's to Kelis' boundless credit that she can make the twee screw of “Floyd” or the passive attack trip-hop of “Runnin” feel warmly human just by doing her best to overpower it--even as the music tries, and nearly succeeds, in overpowering her.

It’s evident that Deaf Wish can adopt just about any sound or style that they want to, and that’s what they seemingly tried to do on Pain. For many other bands, that approach could muddy the waters or create a convoluted listening experience, but this doesn’t happen here. They choose to be themselves--each one of them--and it works.