After 30 years, Esoteric Warfare is a Mayhem album worth talking about more for its sounds than its associated baggage.

Black Hours shares some of its strengths with Leithauser’s work with the Walkmen, and same goes with its weaknesses—namely, an occasional lapse in focus.

It’s pointedly brief--11 songs, 39 minutes and with a scope every bit as limited.

Amid a musical landscape now splintered into infinite subgenres, Superunknown remains the very definition of no-qualifiers-required rock--a tombstone for a once-dominant aesthetic, perhaps, but also a solid, immovable mass that endures no matter how dramatically its surroundings have changed.

This is an album built for slow weekend mornings spent in bed with a loved one more than brisk, early-morning runs.

Dereconstructed can be fiercely intelligent, but more often it is frustratingly blinkered; his lyrics can be defiantly blunt, but they’re often elbowed out by music that is dumbly bombastic.

This Machine Kills Artists may not amount to more than an odd itch Osborne felt like scratching, but at least he scratches it with glee.

Dalliance is the sound of a good band tightening to the point where they become something greater.

Sunbathing Animal's considered, whip-smart rock revivalism is a work of substantial growth from a band that already did "simple" quite well, placing Parquet Courts in their own distinct weight class.

Even though you know just what you should be getting from an album like this, Lee Fields & the Expressions play like the stakes have never been higher: they lay it all out there, put it on the line, and make damn well sure you feel it.

Like a child playing dress-up with their parents’ wardrobe, Only Run’s impulsive change-ups can result in some ill-fitting looks.... Fortunately, Only Run finally hits its stride in its more focussed second half, with Ounsworth and Greenhalgh strategically building upon simple ideas rather than trying to cram them together and see what happens.

Ultimately, they're at their most engaging when maintaining an ironic distance between subject matter and tone.

Nothing on Beauty & Ruin truly resembles experimentation, as Mould, unburdened of so much baggage of late, seems joyously unconcerned with proving anything to anyone other than the fact that he can still craft hook after hook.

Now, you can only hear faint echoes of their past greatness underneath the lard-laden production; it’s something that will please the fanbase.

It’s beautiful and devastating in that way that all the best albums are, and that in and of itself is worth some attention.

Like Hercules’s first two records, Feast transcends mere homage not only through sonic innovations but by the quality of the emotional connection it makes with its audience.

The bleakness feels more panoramic than before, and when it zooms inward, it tap into reservoirs of power that Trash Talk are only beginning to explore.

A U R O R A can be heard as Frost’s attempt to create something physical, and it stands above the rest of his discography.

Unlike the blunt, confrontational NO LOVE DEEP WEB, Government Plates lets you think for yourself and even if it doesn’t have an agenda, that doesn’t mean it’s nihilistic.

For the most part, Fortuna projects a confidence and self-belief that wasn’t all that perceptible on the rough-hewn Antipodes.

Hundred Waters are always set to simmer. That mostly works in their favor on The Moon Rang Like a Bell, as the album’s strength comes from its gradually accruing moments.

It's honest music from the noise-­pop couple, both of whom come into this project having broadened their sound within their own respective bands.

Sylvan Esso is feel-good music on all fronts, and when it comes time to throw on something at a summer gathering that’ll make people feel slightly hipper than they were when they arrived, Sylvan Esso will be a go-to. But it’ll still feel like I’m living in a beer commercial, someone else's idea of an inclusive, hip summer day.

If Do It Again is the physical artifact of Robyn and Röyksopp's union, it's extravagant and left of center, but it's above all generous.

Good to Be Home's recollections are only meant to be alluded to, a summer-jam album riddled with familiar nods to shared experiences but still walled off from observers who think they really know Blu.

Together, this trio excels not just at the expected but also delights in the quest to find a common vernacular amid multiple musical languages. That’s the challenge and the charm of Shade Themes from Kairos, a record that minds borders only long enough to maneuver around them.

They’ve been slowing down for a while now, but here they feel nearly worn out.

In Conflict might not be an autobiography the way you or I would write it, but make no mistake: the deeper you look into it, the deeper Pallett himself stares back at you.