Few verses on the album are particularly memorable outside of spots from Maxo Kream, Vince Staples, a string of appearances from the consistently good J.I.D, and the standalone moments of introspection from J. Cole himself. But the comp works because it never feels forced or closed off to ideas.

Slow Pulp excel in this pared-back country-folk mode, with a sigh of pedal steel or a hug of harmonica, and vocals that feel like a secure embrace rather than a distant cry. When the pressure of life threatens to pop you like a tire, their clear-eyed sincerity keeps on rolling.

They sound exhausted, right where we left them.

Angels is a Marah album, which sort of sucks, but that 'Blue But Cool' and 'Santos De Madera' and the title track might still make you a little misty eyed and/or end up on a mixtape.

While I wouldn't say that Postcards From a Young Man is quite the late-career masterstroke Journal For Plague Lovers was, it is still a product of a re-energized band. Whether or not it actually garners them the hits and mass audience they're aiming for (and at least in Britain, it seems inconceivable that it won't), they've managed to make an inviting, populist album that deserves the attention.

Chasny has distilled all of his impulses and obsessions-- slow drones and brisk picking, solemn mumbles and cheery riffs, ponderous lyrics, and ruminative instrumentals-- into 43 muted, marvelous minutes.

Their music has never gone down easier, but their commentary has never hit so uncomfortably hard.

Sure, maybe Eremita is sometimes awkward, chintzy, or melodramatic, but for 52 minutes, Ihsahn mostly allows the listener to have a blast, if occasionally and arguably at his own expense.

Dialing down his avant tendencies has given Moiré a fresh perspective and helped tame his music, for better or worse.

Weirdon doesn’t attempt to alter the course or conviction of Polizze’s faith in six strings, a volume knob, and the truth, but it does make it more compelling than ever.

Recorded in the London studio that Al Doyle set up during the pandemic, it’s the first Hot Chip album to be written from scratch by the full band all in the same room, and its sound reflects that pooling of energies, full of exuberant dance rhythms and arrangements that burst at the seams.

Like an solid frame to a complex painting, Levi’s score concretizes and helps control the artistic experience of the film. In effect, the score may not supersede its filmic anchor, but is sure does make the entire endeavor more beautiful.

The record gets interesting when it lets ugliness in. .... Butterfly comes up short because it mistakes scale for character. Its drops and hooks have been engineered for maximum lift instead of maximum surprise.

Payola is fast and furious, but carefully engineered for maximum, straight-ahead velocity.

Where The Eraser sags is in the middle, with tracks 3-5 falling particularly flat. Like too many of Radiohead's new songs, they contain a single weak idea dragged on interminably.

There's potential in The Visitor's mix of electro, new wave, and pop, but it's obscuring or distorting Aguayo's personality, which is the engine that has driven his songs for so long.

Mogwai’s cautionary approach all but drowns out the faint echoes of the once brave band struggling to get out from within.

His confidence is why he flies when he swings for the fences on his new album, Free TC.

Those hoping for a trove of overlooked gems will be disappointed, as too much of With the Lights Out sounds like nothing so much as a dull-edged instrument lifting flakes of material from the bottom of a barrel. Simply put, there's enough good stuff here for a solid single disc.

Cleaner and more elegant [than previous album, Does You Inspire You], buffing their crisp electronic pop to an immaculate sheen.... Truly great.

For all Jackson's personal struggle and exploration, Paradise feels like a safe record, calibrated for the comfort of an imagined audience, working at its best when it becomes almost invisible--the accessory to the experience and not the experience itself.

Adams evokes the goodwill of his masterpiece as a singer, anyway, even if the songwriting doesn't come close.

Who knows whether or not the Felice Brothers--brothers Ian, Simone, and James, plus a friend called Christmas--are actually, consciously trying to come as close as possible to replicating Dylan an/or the Band on their self-titled latest. Regardless, the point is, whether they intended to or not, they've come eerily, awkwardly, creepily close to capturing that familiar mix of mood, mystery, atmosphere, and aesthetic.

Don’t Be a Stranger is a charming collection by a confident and competent group of musicians, but its drawback is its same-ness.

Like much of Rhett Miller, and unlike much oft-unctuous power pop, it's music seemingly made to softly impress rather than outright inspire.

Yehezkely, with her limited range and slightly detached delivery, effectively bridges that gap between the music's indulgent/escapist tendencies and our desire to connect with it despite that distance.

This album's strengths-- its intimacy, its containment, its subtlety-- are not the qualities that made Sleater-Kinney great, but it would be ungenerous to dismiss this because it's not as thrilling, confrontational, or exuberant.

The record pits some emotive and occasionally downcast singing against arrangements that throb nicely, and there's a good sense of balance and variety throughout.