On I Guess U Had to Be There, Elucid and Bash dial back the experimentation in favor of a more controlled approach. But even in this restrained mode, they still get busy.

The sprawling, bittersweet atmosphere—shaped by those repetitive guitars and a perpetual search for meaning—at times recalls Barnett’s collaboration with Kurt Vile.

If there’s anything bad to say about Sexistential, it’s that it’s too damn short.

BIG MAMA is as passable as it is forgettable, a workout that somehow seems to burn no calories.

Undying Love is Neurosis’ best album in two decades and maybe even a quarter-century.

The lust, greed, excess, and anxiety that they grappled with on PAPOTA are still there, but this time, the atmosphere doesn’t feel as friendly or accessible. Splayed out across Bulgarian folk music, trance beats, bruxaria atmospheres, samba, and even bits of nueva ola, Free Spirits feels dialed all the way up.

While BTS’s rapping usually incorporates a dated style of aggression and braggadocio, the fire in the delivery was often enough. Songs like “2.0” and “they don’t know ’bout us” instead sound sleepy, as if the members are just clocking in at the Biggest Band in the World factory. What remains in a lot of these tracks, then, are dazzling little ornaments.

Half the fun is in discovering where Grey takes them from there. “Innuendo” and “Lovefield” both get blasted into trance hyperspace. .... Beneath its high-gloss surface, every detail on U rewards close scrutiny—even its one-letter title.

These songs are bright and bold, and although they essentially iterate on the misty dream pop of her previous album, 2023’s & the Charm, the difference feels stark when you return to that album; it sounds positively miniscule in comparison.

Although their distorted punk pairs well with Midwestern bands they’ve opened for, like the Armed or Angry Blackmen, Prostitute are no imitators.

Every song here could be a single, but taken together, they add up to a sum greater than its parts.

Spilling out over the course of 73 minutes, the album drags, even if it has no specific slow spots. .... Any random song on The Way I Am is sharply crafted and unpretentious in a way that carries on the best Nashville traditions. If it’s not quite a comeback, it is, at least, a satisfying demonstration of Combs’ strengths.

By some miracle, the 24-track behemoth works on its own. It’s frequently beautiful and shockingly consistent, given the range of artists involved, and almost every artist brings their best efforts.

This album feels like the rarest kind of unintentional parody, so ridiculous and transparent in its intent that I really get a kick out of it. But the truth is that none of Monica’s parodic elements would matter that much if the music felt like a genuine experiment rather than a self-serving, big-budget attempt to deepen his image.

Whether experienced alongside the film or on its own, Halo’s Midnight Zone is an object of bleak, almost terrifying beauty: a snapshot of a forbidden world, and perhaps a warning that some treasures are best left buried.

n its refusal to adhere to a particular theme or sound, Paris in the Spring comes across as a little diffuse, but when everything locks in, the results are transcendent.

No single instrument dominates, nor do they act as strict counterpoints to one another. Sounds from opposite ends of the spectrum—felted resonances and sharp twangs—move in the same direction, drifting in parallel. While she rides these contrasts, Cogan sings with a smoky steadiness.

Her third album, Cloud 9, solidifies her as a mainstream country star who hasn’t entirely submitted to the machine.

On every level, PLAY ME is the most populist and literalist music Gordon has ever made. There are fewer jagged ruptures than on her previous solo records, more clearly demarcated beats, hooks that resemble hooks. The loops recur and aren’t so violently flayed open.

Most of these pieces have a lot going on, designed for listeners who take pleasure in guiding their ear through each successive layer.

These detours feel slightly random up against some of the most unadventurous tracks in his catalog, like the smoky ballad “Didn’t Come to Argue.” Like most of his albums, Trying Times could use a little editing, but that’s part-and-parcel of the James Blake package these days.

With a short history of decay, Nothing have begun to build something fresh and exciting; it’s a shame they didn’t finish clearing the rot first.

Musically and lyrically, Mutiny plays like he’s expanded 2016’s “Call to Arms” to album length. .... The best songs here are lean and sinewy showcases for his backing band, the Dark Clouds.

If the band’s homespun and deliriously catchy 2014 compilation record Sunchokes captured the kinetic energy of a sweaty college party, The Refrigerator is the sound of a 10-year reunion, subdued and sentimental, reflective and a little restless.

Make-Up is a Lie shows signs of progress and signs of regression; artful touches and clunking gaffs; soaring tunes and leaden lyrics.

Their identity isn’t as sharply defined here, but the hooks and surprises on S.W.A.G. are strong enough to fuel their soul-searching.

Somewhere between fight, flight, and acceptance, these songs squint at great cosmic mysteries through a tiny pair of sunglasses.

There are enough nods on Kiss All the Time to Styles’ stated influences—-a sharp, craggy synth running through “Season 2 Weight Loss”; chattering drum machine on the bittersweet Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix-ish highlight “Taste Back”—that you can at least identify his intention. (This isn’t Dua Lipa talking up a Britpop album before delivering nothing of the sort with Radical Optimism.) But Styles undermines himself every time with moves straight out of the stadium-pop playbook.