It turns any living room into an art installation where interesting things may or may not happen, and its lack of direction and specificity is in its own way brave.

Maus has a full set of songs whose architecture is just as sophisticated and riveting in actuality as it is in theory.

It plays like the natural next phase in Jackson's discography, which individually might be markers of their time but are ultimately ageless.

It's a torn and somewhat confused record, but a more decisive one wouldn't have suited them or their subject matter.

On 200 Million Thousand, Black Lips sidestep expectations and make a record less approachable than its predecessor.

The disc succeeds as a public testing ground, but as an album it's ultimately unfocused. One problem is that Parish simply isn't the songwriter that Harvey is.

[With Memory] they've developed the approach of making high-energy tracks with subdued and subtle components-- beats that move with grace instead of brute force.

There is dark humor and interesting angles--even joy--to be found in basic realities and mundane commitments.

The dynamic between the wobbly production and the sturdy songwriting defines Moon Tides, though I wouldn’t say it causes any tension. Conflict is clearly something avoided within the tenets of Pure Bathing Culture. But it does result in a listening experience that causes more ambivalence than it probably should.

2 Chainz been rapping for over a decade, but now his music sounds like he’s just entertaining himself during late night recording sessions and (correctly) assuming his audience is along for the ride.

Occasionally, the dull roar manifests in some solid rock songs.

Sodium is liable to leave you just as drained as its creator, but it’s the sort of exhaustion that feels valorous and victorious. After all, losing your voice is a small price to pay for saving your sanity.

There’s no telling where these well-worn songs will go next. In this sense, the album--as much a kind of private sketchbook as anything--is curiously in keeping with his photographs. Even in music, he rebels against the obvious.

Full of tactile details and poetic turns of phrase, the songs on Safe to Run have the feel of road-trip musings, as though she were recording stray thoughts from an all-day drive.

It's a great trick of rearranging that pulls back the curtain dramatically, but nearly every other song on Midnight Boom seems to be waiting for this kind of moment, losing it to a pile on the cutting-room floor.

Even if Preteen Weaponry is one more left turn out of many in the band's catalog, it nonetheless reaffirms what makes Oneida stand out.

Even Arm’s most acidic lyrics are tempered by some of the band’s tidiest performances to date.

All in all this is a kinder, gentler Dinosaur-- you won't have another "Severed Lips", sorry--making a very solid album, one that finds the band gelling with half the fuzz.

Even at its most ominous, though, the album never loses its verve or vitality. It's just one quick hit after another, a succession of aural whippets that last long after the record's over.

By remembering the pop elements of the source material he uses to construct his tracks, and incorporating that FM-dial ear for melody into even his most adventurous collage projects, Forrest takes the mashup form beyond gimmickry into an entirely new, refreshingly listenable, excitingly shameless realm.

In the end, what makes The Foley Room Tobin's best album in seven years is the way his bent for organized chaos manifests as a deft control of every sound that surrounds him: Anything's a beat, everything's a break, and the difference between sound and music is entirely contextual.

Know Better Learn Faster is a more mature record, slightly disillusioned with the world, but no less playful and with no less personality.

Murmurations represents a breakthrough. It’s thrilling to imagine where Simian Mobile Disco might go next; here’s hoping they get the chance.

Red Hot + Fela largely presents itself as a blur of lesser, briefer imitations of Fela's Afrobeat grooves, liberally sprinkled with pro forma rapping and vocalists singing lyrics that have lost the political fire they once had.

Nearly every track on Lost on the River has a couple of memorable moments: a marvelous turn of phrase, a brief Jim James guitar meltdown, an instant of the band members discovering how their voices can harmonize. But what it lacks is the casual joy of Dylan's Basement Tapes.

As The Light in You’s dichotomous halves prove, Mercury Rev are much better at being trippy than being groovy.

Hutson’s musical style finds a perfect complement in Bridgers’ subtle production.

The album boasts the most opaque lyrics in Subtle's catalog. But put the record and the website together, and the big themes become clear.