Oliver Appropriate, with its clap-along drumming patterns and stripped-back production, sounds like an elder statesman of emo gathering his fellow washed up frontmen around a campfire for a story or two. It’s a fitting ending for a band that always stood a step or two outside the scene, pointing and laughing.

ARIZONA BABY’s strongest moments are when Abstract turns inwards, with reflective passages often sung in a pitch-shifted register.

The album tends to get bleached from velvety black to matte beige, all its chrome spikes sanded down to meet public school safety regulations.

These songs not only sound great—mostly acoustic in their arrangements, crisp and warm in their production, and lively in their performances—but that sense of camaraderie draws out something essential in Vile’s singing and playing. at’s okay. It’s sweetly minor, much like the other songs on here. That might not be enough to sustain a full album, but it’s lovely for an EP.

It just took some time, but we’re finally hearing what Adkins has to say for himself.

Void Worship takes what was essential about Misery Wizard and compacts it while expanding Pilgrim’s overall scope--a fitting progression for a pair of genre loyalists.

Though the lyrical themes may lack potency, Thunder Follows the Light highlights Lee’s knack for composing beautiful melodies.

Hello Sadness is their fourth straight great album.

By turns jubilant, confused, afraid, angry, sad, relieved, all pretty poignant, yes.

These guys may not be back in their ambition-heavy fighting form on Are You Gonna Eat That?, but they're back to rapping just for the fuck of it, and that can be a beautiful thing to hear. And hearing the album, it's immediately apparent that Aesop is still a major talent, someone who can do whatever the hell he wants and get away with it.

Even if the results are uneven at times. Grande does not need to force any sort of spirit, she is full of it already. She just needs to find the Dangerous Woman within herself and let her break free.

It’s the duo establishing themselves, knowing they have some limitations, but capitalizing on what they do well.

The loops here are less memorable and consistent than his better records. ... It’s these slight inconsistencies that separate the more successful Westside Gunn projects from the forgettable ones. Who Made the Sunshine falls somewhere in the middle, and doesn’t feel like it was devised to be anything more than what it is: Another step toward the expansion of the Griselda Records brand.

He pulls back slightly from the narrative form of writing (sorry, to the “Wet Dreamz” heads but no virginity tales on this one) in favor of more punchlines and wordplay. This switch doesn’t suddenly turn him into a Flint rapper, but it does sound like he’s having fun for once.

Coming Home is full of delectable singles that prove Usher is still the king of pop-R&B—he’s simply reminding his fans what he can do, how many ways he can do it, and how nastily, too, if you’ll allow him.

Beat Pyramid proves to be an affirming and promising first step.

Granted, it's not mind-blowing, and it's not nearly as masterfully executed and affecting as their earliest work. But there are only a handful of bands out there that can put out an album as well-constructed as Rock Action and still expect people to bitch and moan about it.

While this is a step forward for Shipp, for APC, it's a side-step from their gleamingly tricked-out, beat-tweaked and freaky Arrhythmia.

Produced by John Agnello, Here With Me features a small roster of musicians, including her regular backing trio, who do a fine job of complementing O'Connor's melodies without intruding on her personal space.

On its best songs, he trades his breezy pop chops for earnest, soul-seeking Americana.

Native Speaker is by nature elliptical, never seeking out a final word even as it converses with itself, almost as if it's meant to be played as a loop, something that can begin as soon as it ends.

On Queen of Golden Dogs, he slashes the ropes and soars into the stratosphere, pulling off an extraordinary fusion of chamber music, choral quintets, poetry, surrealism, mysticism, and, not least, rubble-making electronic epics.

Nothing much happens in The Soul Is Quick--it's possible to wander in and out, picking up a thread you left dangling a few minutes before. That's where Willner excels, in creating these supple moments where you can get totally enveloped in what he's doing, or check out from the world for a while, or just leave him running in the background and marvel at how slowly he moves through time when your focus returns to him.

Who Is the Sender? effectively doubles his recorded output and moves him from the category of a curiosity who returned after a four-decade absence to make a third great album to someone perhaps capable of doing so in perpetuity.

In only two years, Wand has mirrored the maturation of the genre itself, moving from the youthful verve of “Tutti Frutti” toward rich, emotional terrain.

It's fantastic stuff-- at its best, the innate catchiness of Hersh's writing gets a shot in the arm from her cavalier vocals and musical caterwauling.

Faith in the Future is a character-driven record, even if it doesn’t restore Finn to the heights of his mid-2000s heyday.

The songs may arise from turmoil, but the production is enveloping and inviting, suggesting there’s a path out of the darkness.