We all know a little something about chasing that ideal version of ourselves, and Antony's persistence in the face of futility makes it a joy to run by his side.

Pale Communion only toys with the building blocks, revealing influences that were already apparent but refusing to invigorate them alongside each other.

The album’s second half slows down a bit, but it maintains the focus on songcraft and mood.

The relatively sparse and chilly tone of Departing ultimately feels less like a slump than a conscious decision to present itself as the wintertime counterpart to Hometowns' prairie summer.

Too often, it tries to get by on what it's opposed to instead of what it stands for, a gambit with little margin for error if you don't have a viably exciting alternative, or enough trust in the taste of the listener.

Given its years-spanning tracklist, No One's First obviously has a retrospective flavor, but it also seems to point the way ahead for Modest Mouse, if only to suggest that the band will continue moving in opposite directions--backwards and forwards--all at once.

For many listeners, his mannered delivery may prove as off-putting as Oberst's own vibrato, but for these songs, it sounds fittingly evocative, as if only he could sing them.

Real Hair keeps its runtimes tight and its choruses front-and-center, pulling in some of Major Arcana's looser ends without sacrificing its fall-apart charms.

It’s a warm, deeply rooted, familiar statement indicative of a real, earned connection.

What's refreshing about Kennedy's tracks--alluded to in Madak's quote above--is the amount of fun he wrangles out of such a sparse and austere template.

A gorgeous, unassuming little record, it is Silver's most sophisticated virtual environment yet; disappear into it for a while, and you may come back with a newfound appreciation for sounds you once thought irredeemable--yes, even slap bass.

Their willingness to expand the subtleties of their sound makes Million Dollars to Kill Me an enthralling listen, even at its lowest points.

After that early-onset dizziness subsides, Girl With Basket of Fruit loses its power and makes little impact, as if these songs were menacing storm clouds that simply drift into and out of town without leaving a trace. It is heavy but hollow, muscular but oddly meaningless, built with streams of images that, however vivid, are the lyrical equivalent of inert gas inside combustion chambers.

Nokia finds more success on Everything is Beautiful, which, in comparison [to Everything Sucks], is warm and expansive. Made over a span of two years, including some time in Puerto Rico, it has the optimism and groundedness of being in a place where you can occasionally look up and see a wide sky.

Mercury Rev have created so many otherworldly symphonies in the past, but there’s very little of their previous ingenuity or vision on Born Horses. Everything shimmers and sparkles in roughly the same way, with very little to distinguish one song from the next.

Loneliness aside, Come Home to Mama is not a somber affair. Credit's partly due to new producer Yuka Honda from Cibo Matto, who freshens up the sound considerably.

Many Moons works as a remarkably cohesive album, meandering its way across themes of past and present to a state of aching clarity that's modest, but no less genuine for

Believe You Me comes off as a collaboration between two dyed-in-the-wool daydreamers, finding both harmony and intriguing incongruity in their respective visions.

All of Black Cascade pounds away with a similar notion for four tracks and 50 minutes, offering four black metal tides that occasionally shift into some texturally bankrupt, wintry drone.

In their rush to be the UK's most important band, they seem to have ignored restraint, charisma, and charm--the qualities that made them Next Big Thing candidates in the first place.

Total Dust undeniably taps into the same raw-nerved emotion that defined Borcherdt's previous solo efforts, wrapping its cutting sentiments in a grotty guitar fuzz that sounds like it was scraped off the heads on Lou Barlow's old four-track.

The record's uncompromising hard luck street narratives are dispensed with a preternaturally sharp eye for detail that dabs Gates’ economic writing with a shock of much-needed color.

Leaning into anonymity over intimacy, Li captures the anxieties of feeling outpaced and misplaced while the rest of the room keeps dancing on.

[“Wall Fuck” is] short and snappy, gone too fast in an album that could’ve been streamlined to let moments like it shine. But maybe it’s the sound of floodgates opening.

There are places where Vertigo Days might benefit from a sterner edit. By and large, though, the guest spots and experimental excursions feel less contrived than the stylistic zig-zags of records past, and more the natural consequence of a band engaging with the world.

Little Los Angeles illuminates the same pursuit that Morby sought on more fleshed-out albums like 2017’s City Music and 2019’s Oh My God: These are postcards that magnify the ephemeral, loving transmissions from a particular place and time.

The bulk of Bad Cameo’s novelty arrives, instead, in songcraft. To Blake’s credit, he’s a master of seeing tracks as living things, subject to as much growth and meandering as the masterminds who make them. Familiar as they may feel, the most striking songs on this project keep some powder dry, sprawling into realms far beyond their starting places.

The songwriting is the group’s sharpest to date. They can still whip up the staccato panic-attack special (see: “Alibis”), but that’s no longer the main attraction, nor the most compelling material.