Even though such familiar record-collector reference points abound on Drop, the mischievous melodies and funhouse-mirrored guitar contortions render the results unmistakably Oh Sees.

What Pharoahe Monch is doing may not be as vitally important as it once was, but it still can feel surprisingly vital.

Despite Weird Drift's genre-busting ambitions, the album feels humble and unpretentious.

Z's biggest problem is that, despite choosing a sound that is soft and somnolent, SZA is too often overpowered by the music.

As referential as Free To Eat can be on its own, there are times when a band notes an influence that completely changes your perception of it.

Honest surges with the self-assurance of an artist finally coming into his own.

Fear of Men are likely never going to shred riotously, blow up their gear, or even raise their voices to anything resembling a scream--they simply aren’t that kind of band--but here’s hoping that all that well-considered vitriol in Weiss’ lyrics might eventually bleed over into their music.

For an MC whose lyrics don't typically allow much room for narrative scope, easygoing humor, or high-concept weirdness, that's a good way to make a sporadically inventive but otherwise passable-at-best album feel like a total slog.

Despite having a satisfying arc that gently bends through it, there are a few moments where Space Project doesn’t solidify as a whole.

If The Way and Color is not all the way there yet you can hear it as a promising document of a formative period.

The most compelling section of “Anomaly” is the first, one that Kotche realized electronically instead of with the quartet.

Taken as a whole, the album is exactly the sort of hastily tossed-off, forgettable project that legacy acts will sometimes tack onto can't-miss releases such as this. It's a shame they did.

Even if they don't quite hit the heights of the A-Trak-name-checked influence of Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique (how could they, let alone anyone?), they've created a hedonistic, piston-pumping album that bears as much relation to the urban hustle-and-bustle as it does to festival crowds' surging, ecstatic mindsets, a love letter to NYC that sounds good just about anywhere you're likely to hear it.

Home, Like NoPlace Is There is emotionally relentless, but a relentlessly catchy record as well.

Although most tracks on Try Me are taut and concise, they’re built around churning, sprawling riffs that feel far larger than the songs that contain them.

If anything, the elucidating peek behind the curtain that Bangs’ documentary provides makes the album feel like an even more singular, remarkable achievement.

Ratking's greatest success is confidently offering a sound that feels untethered from expectations and bristles with the exhilarating energy of trying something new.

Mayfield has insisted for years that love is treacherous and obliterating, and on Make My Head Sing... her guitar enacts that romantic violence. It provides an intriguing counterpart to her vocals, turning her inner monologues into something like an argument.

The trouble with World of Joy isn’t that it’s bad, but that it seems perfectly content to stop short at “pretty good.”

Chet Faker's first full-length album proves that the artist is eager to explore new frontiers.

Do to the Beast may not always sound like an Afghan Whigs album, but it operates like one, scavenging the darker corners of pop history to create something personal, vital, and urgent.

“Breakthrough”, “masterpiece”, “bold leap”--those aren’t words that really seem applicable to With Light and With Love, or Woods for that matter, but they’re allowing themselves to be extremely likable for a larger crowd.

At heart, this is an enthusiastic debut that can’t quite live up to its own billing, but at least it shows two veterans who have bravely embraced the neophyte’s challenge of figuring out their sound.

Part of Brewis’ duty in Field Music was to keep them from veering over the edge into too busy AOR prog, and he uses that same keen ear to keep Old Fears from becoming too cute or kitsch with the tweed-funk.

Golden Retriever has carved a niche that’s not strictly indebted to post-Berlin School ambient or to the more organic work of new age composers but rather snags details from both aesthetics.

Battle doesn’t have Jemina Pearl’s charisma, and Tweens aren't as adept or distinct as BYOP in terms of their P.O.V.

Convertibles ends up a low-stakes affair without being a low-quality one.

Despite the lyrical clunkers and ill-advised production choices, The Future’s Void has the feel of a real statement, of an artist trying for something new even if she doesn’t always get there.