Although he's now logged as much time as a solo artist as he did with his former band, Isbell sounds he's still finding his voice.

No longer experimenting for experimentation's sake, every beat-breaking decision on Myth Takes serves to reinforce the monumental rhythms.

Despite the sparser arrangements and increased focus on direct lyricism, it's every bit as aurally hypnotic as his previous work. It seems like he realized there was someone he really did want to sing to.

Her voice also takes up more space on this record, going deeper and flitting over Stack’s melodies with such abandon it’s as if she might float away.

Etiquette gives up the homemade purity of Casiotone's first few records, but it hasn't entirely gotten where it's going, either.

Throughout, the songs on Obsidian are physical in a literal sense, mimicking the human motion of the characters described therein.

Illusion of Time is a confidently relaxed listen: Created in a pressure-free situation by two artists with no road map and nothing in particular to prove, it is expansive in scope, charmingly rough around the edges, and brimming with possibility.

By only gently nudging the musical formula on It's a Bit Complicated, Art Brut have succeeded in crafting a satisfying half-mature sequel, but may have only delayed, rather than thwarted, the sophomore jinx.

On each of his many releases to date, Collins is always trying to reinvent one wheel or another, and even though that's traditionally seen as a fruitless exercise, what he and Desree have ended up with on Silk Rhodes is an invention worth marveling at in its own right.

You can start to see trajectory to Container’s LPs after this fourth edition, though the changes are deceptively subtle considering how unruly any specific release is. What’s never changed (and likely the reason the series remains so consistent) is simply how much fun Schofield makes all this mayhem sound.

Mae’s Jack White-produced 2017 album Forever and Then Some had a hard-rocking veneer, but Other Girls (still under White’s label Third Man Records, this time produced by Dave Cobb) invites more natural light into the mix.

It’s more a personal reckoning with their own past: a rummage sale of dusty enthusiasms.

Songs like "Vesuvius"-- not to mention "Rambunctious Cloud" and "Gnats"-- have depth, a cagey charm, and an elusive mystery that demand not just repeated but aggressive listening. Chesnutt and his collaborators don't make that level of attention easy, but they do make it worthwhile.

Admittedly, if you own MGM's three 12"s, then there is nothing new for you here. And sure, there is something about Expressions that feels akin to listening to karoke--but with a voice like Meredith Metcalf's singing the sort of addicting, tangy melodies that her briny soprano was made for, even karaoke can be thrilling.

The only times Plaza comes across as less than convincing are the moments where Shane Butler and company tip their hand a tad too heavily, such as on closing number "Own Ways," which falls just short of featuring faux English accents and sounds like Quilt’s musical answer to a '60s mod costume party. Elsewhere, though, they steer clear of slavish recreation, cleverly revealing new wrinkles in the arrangements from one song to the next.

The album is full of nebulous renderings like this, where we’re left to interpret Dare’s personal mythology. It makes Milkteeth feel suspended in time, more dream than recollection.

It feels personal rather than global, and as gnarly as it is, it’s not quite extreme enough to work as a visualization of the horrors of war. It works much better as a record of a man of the wild wandering through the modern world, anxious and a little amused.

In keeping with the album's title, Never is uncompromising and direct.

Sometimes what seems like a forward move turns out to be a lateral one, and right now it's an open question whether Delt’s more professional environs were preferable to his messy charm.

M:FANS is less reclusive, just by virtue of its premise--Cale is collaborating with himself, the ultimate glum foil--but also because it fills every swatch of white space with his later-career electro-industrial leanings.

It's hard not to compare the two albums and find this one wanting; even the best songs, which are quite good, wouldn't bump anything off of Illinois.

It's only when Apache Dropout indulge their pulpier interests too faithfully that they run into trouble.

At times GUV I can feel like indie rock cosplay, especially coming from a shapeshifter like Cook. When an artist genre-hops with such agility and totality, with titles and performances as goofy as Young Guv’s can be, it’s harder to lose yourself in the familiar comforts of a fuzz pedal and a charmingly off-key vocal. Even so, there’s an ease to the mimicry.

Dood and Juanita works so well because Simpson sounds comfortable within this form and just beyond it.

Like the band’s classic LPs, Sanctions locates a strange beauty in plaintive sadness and offers no easy answers, just the feeling of being let into a secret world you don’t entirely understand.

But while Random Spirit Lover is dense and thorny-- even opaque, at times--it's never haphazard.

No doubt that the best halves of this and "Tournament of Hearts" would equal a breakthrough album for the group, but taken as a whole, Kensington Heights sounds like a decisive break in the band's stride.

And that's the odd thing about this collection: If it provides people with a bridge into appreciating Ono's work, it won't be by making it more accessible.