Because the Internet is a nobly expansive attempt at plumbing the catacombs of social media for meaning and exploring the gap between the performative avatars we present as our online selves and the offline realities of our lives, but like the Twitter hounds and comment section warriors it speaks to and about, it could ultimately do well with a little less multitasking.

Who is William Onyeabor? doesn't provide any answers its own posited question, but the mystery and wonder of the man’s music remains intact.

There's an interesting sound here, a shell of an idea. But there is ultimately very little melody or personality for the arrangements to support and the record winds up sounding weirdly conservative.

Even if it holds the most value for the Neil obsessives interested in the small differences, Live at Cellar Door provides another glimpse at a darkly formative time in his long career.

The album may be hard to connect to on anything other than a cerebral level, but sometimes that's the best way to connect.

It's a strong mode to be in, but 7 Days of Funk doesn't change or challenge things--it's a brief LP, even accounting for bonus tracks, and with everybody firmly in a comfortable lane there's not much surprise.

What we get is a pretty good modern R&B album, but it’s also one that feels just a bit fossilized.

Gentlemen's about as interesting as middling Pollard records get, but it's middling all the same, a fittingly abnormal end to a most unusual year.

Syndrome Syndrome offers some rewards, but it may have been a fraction too soon for them to make their first move.

Unlike so much of Voigt's past work, it's not an idea worth exploring at this length. Zukunft's only impressive feat is making Voigt's elegant, pristine work under guises like Studio 1 and Gas seem like the work of a raving, impassioned romantic.

This isn't the Latyrx that won over backpackers and Cali-funk fans back in '97--far from it. It's not much of a reunion, that's for sure, and sixteen years is a long time to wait for a sophomore slump.

MellowHigh is not disorienting but rather frighteningly familiar.

If you somehow like everything about early Bright Eyes’ music except for the lyrics, it’ll be your favorite record of theirs. If, more likely, you’re a hardcore fan that was somehow unaware of its existence or didn’t shell out for the 180g white vinyl in 2009, it equally balances Yuletide memories with nostalgia for a time when Saddle Creek’s roster was still operating as a vibrant, and prolific artistic community.

It's a well-crafted record that's lyrically dwarfed by the old emoting masters.

As a whole, though, Surgical Steel succeeds brilliantly in its return-to-form mission.

A few of the songs on this collection are recognizably "singles" in tone and form--"Ugly Man," "Wait Let's Go," "Always Flying," "Devil Again" all have at least three chords, run four minutes or less, and have "ba-ba-ba" choruses. But most of them head directly into that kinked-up corner of the song that repeatedly pulls at Dwyer's imagination, the spot where the song's narrative action swings shut and the groove hinges open.

It's an intermittently thoughtful album, but one that doesn't stray far from offering process-laid-bare insight into the beautiful pile-up that is Gang Gang Dance.

There is a sense of limbs and lungs stretching, followed by the triumphant punch through to a higher plane.

[A] collection of seven gorgeous, baroque-folk songs.

This uneven album is mostly a vehicle for “Legos (for Terry)”, an accomplishment that’s not only worth hearing but good enough to leave you hoping for more like it, too.

Morby largely succeeds at taking us on his journey.

Too many songs here feel like aggregations of quirky, tossed-off riffs.

Running a mere five songs and 15 minutes, AHJ is a wholly fat-free effort that favors tight, snappy, emotionally direct songcraft over the genre experiments and instrumental excursions of ¿Cómo Te Llama?

Live From KCRW is distinguished not just by its loose, casual vibe--with Cave good-naturedly honoring audience requests, provided they’re “on this very short list”--but by its welcome variations from the standard Bad Seeds script with a healthy selection of deep cuts that don't get aired out that often.

The compositions are complex, and so fastidiously arranged that you might get sucked into trying to pick out some kind of flaw. Sometimes it’s a little harder to overlook.

Though it is easy to grasp the broad appeal of Aiko’s music, it’s harder to decipher whether the songs are more appealing than the mere atmosphere they create.

They remain a surprisingly divisive band, with detractors accusing them of imitating rather than innovating. Desert Skies does absolutely nothing to answer that criticism, but it does provide a useful point against which to measure their later efforts.

Fellow Travelers can be seen as Shearwater showing their scratch work, and while great cover albums can be a revelation or an embarrassment, most end up right around here: which is to say, admirable and flawed.