There's definitely something new going on, and most of it comes from the seductive voice and lyrics of Ambrogio.

At best Songs Cycled deals in quick-pivot moments.

It is rewarding to have Herren's voice at the table again, to remind the world where a sizeable chunk of this sound derived.

Despite Invitation’s cinematic and often successful composition, Broderick succumbs to the passivity she’s supposedly working to renounce. The songs are ambient rather than immediate, more decorative than they are distinct.

Dispensing with the irony and bombast that always seemed essential to Hot Chip’s work, this solemn collection places the onus on Taylor’s singing.

On Guy, she takes time to steady herself to her inner metronome, finding her voice with her dad’s help.

This may not be a perfect album, but it is affecting and haunting.

As a first salvo, though, it's pretty hard to fault; if vintage disco, classic house, and gurning Euro house are up your street, this is as happy-making as it gets.

Belong is a bigger, bolder, and brighter follow-up that adds new dimensions to the Pains' sound while nearly equaling the songwriting of their debut.

While there isn’t quite anyone who possesses Sagar’s style in the wide world of indie rock, he’ll have to add a few more tricks, lest he fall into rote routine.

It’s certainly the best, tightest music she’s ever made, but it lacks the curatorial precision and creative vulnerability of the kind of classic album that’s well within her reach. Essentially, she could have said much more in less time.

The Highest in the Land, a just and honest headstone, captures the substance and self-definition of a singular songwriter where words and labels fail.

2011's A Thousand Heys, was a solid take on 90s American indie, but a bit too beholden to its influences. Ores & Minerals fixes that and adds a lot more.

Talent Night at the Ashram is grounded in a very palatable reality, one that harkens back to the band’s first two albums. But that isn’t to say this record isn’t without its surrealist moments.

Compared to the darkly mesmerizing dread of records past, here Lopatin practically kicks off his shoes and settles in for a comfy night on the couch, flipping channels through one distorted display after another. Without a clear framework tying it all together, Lopatin’s logic itself becomes the album’s defining quality.

Out of Breach is less suited for a fucked-up dance party than just for being fucked up.

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.

Nausea is easier to listen to than Sunbathing Animal in part because it seems less ambitious.

The musical arrangements are just right, consisting of his usual assortment of electronic instruments and percussion that sound like broken toys. Hearing these tools applied in the service of well-written pop songs would be divine, but the melodies, as performed by the speech synthesizer, just aren't moving.

An unfortunate combination of familiar methods, beats and timbres won't overshadow the ultimately uninspiring music.

Getaway sounds remarkably youthful, split between brief, upbeat rockers, and longer, more meditative swaths of noisy psych.

All this variety is to be commended, but a lot of the tracks here sound like unfinished sketches.

Electronic music that genuinely rocks.

Despite sagging a bit in the middle, Unrest skillfully skirts the myriad ways this kind of variety project could go wrong.

This is a charity album, released to aid the Isle of Wight Youth Trust, and as such it's a commendable venture. Still, its placing in the New Order discography is hardly likely to be significant, especially as the Live at the London Troxy album from 2011 already documented this incarnation of the group in a live setting.

The result is a vibrant, bold record that is, at its heart, a love letter to her home country.

Pyroclasts feels about as close to that completeness as a metal album by a druid-robed group named after their amplifiers can get.

On PREY//IV, Glass finds a voice that was silenced and distorted by abuse and manipulation; if anything, her first solo full-length can feel overwhelming, boiling over with so many vocal and musical experiments that don’t always cohere.