There's a propulsive quality to much of the beat-oriented Pain, but there remains a relative sense of privacy.

Rado might be derivative, but at least there’s an admirable consistency to his prodigious output.

This is the sound of musicians confident in their legacy and what they can do with it.

Somehow, The Worse Things Get is Case’s tightest record and also her strangest. With its off-kilter arrangements and eccentric turns of phrase, it’s a world unto itself.

All songs on Repave begin quietly and almost none stay that way for long, so when those crescendos hit, you’re supposed to envision waves crashing on cold, barren outcroppings, white mist spraying as seabirds take majestic flight.

Surrounded is polished and persuasive enough that everyone should give it a try.

Its fusion of Brian Jones-era Rolling Stones paisley pop and Spectorian pomp pushes Khan and the Shrines beyond their usual JBs jones, but the album’s title speaks to a burgeoning social consciousness.

On Forever, Holograms take lofty themes and personal trials and make them a communal experience.

John Wizards is, to paraphrase the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss' opinion on animals, "good to think with." But that won't make people want to listen to it. What will is its hip diversity, sunny disposition, and the fact that Withers never asks more of his audience than he's willing to give: A man of contract, he puts his clients first.

Perhaps when performed live these songs will accrue the desperation and dynamism their studio versions lack, but for now The Silver Gymnasium too often makes the act of remembering sound like a consequence-free undertaking, as though certain horrors are too far in the past to do us much harm in the present.

For every circuit-overloading workout like “Copy of A” and “Disappointed”, there are a number of tracks where Reznor reverts to the teeth-gnashing angst of old without the pig-marching blitzkriegs to back it up, applying undue pressure on the the songs’ brittle structures.

At 45 minutes it's shorter than Penance Soiree, but lacks its concision and punch, at times wading a little too deeply into the indulgent waters of burdened, discordant blooze.

Instead of reclaiming the past, they've pooled their resources to create a new present.

Truth is, it usually works the other way; next to this rich, peculiar music, Nicolaus' reticence to reveal too much leaves Golden Suits' story feeling a little unfinished.

It sounds quite good, another weird and sloppy record from a guy who released a lot of them. And hearing it again with all the fantastic music that surrounded it, music that further cements Dylan’s Bootleg Series as one of the most important archival projects in modern pop history, it remains a beguiling artifact.

His vision of how to build bridges between his own music and the music others is already his own, and Mon Pays puts it on brilliant display.

As a box set, Higher really does reinforce how creatively rich a band Sly & the Family Stone were, while making it seem almost unbelievable that their peak only lasted seven years and seven albums.

Over the course of 6 Feet's 52 minutes, the sound loses some of its essential mystery. Marshall still has a blood-freezing voice, someone to pay attention to, but 6 Feet Beneath the Moon doesn't feel like his Big Statement, not yet.

Though Shigeto has absorbed a host of positive qualities from his fellow beatmakers, he seems caught, between a more purposeful, narrative form of music (like that of Four Tet, and the calmer compositions of Flying Lotus) and the abstruse, diffuse form that’s endorsed by the Leaving Records camp.

Rather than shroud themselves in mystery, Belle and Sebastian would rather blow their own cover and, for all its inherent inconsistencies, The Third Eye Centre provides a clear view of how a band that once made music fit for a library is now more liable to get kicked out of one.

On Warm Blanket, May revisits many of the same themes that he did just over a year ago, only with fuller orchestrations, and a partial explanation for his love of the mundane.

Era showcases all the work Disappears have done cutting and splicing and regathering their sound together to regain their identity. It’s still lurking in the shadows, but finally, it's there.

Barnes’ work is less concerned with trends or scenes than experiences and memories that everyone has had, regardless of what music they’ve listened to before. On that count, Engravings is a broad success.

It’s the kind of record for the times when you’re lost in thought about someone you might’ve known for a little while, wondering where they are and if they ever think about you.

While Right Words achieves a baseline level of quality or at least competency with the exception of “Goodbye Friends and Lovers” and "Love Illumination", they lack the conviction to take most of their lesser ideas to the realm of being unpleasant rather than kinda boring.

Aerotropolis' 180 pop move--as comfortable and assured in its own niche as it is--is so abrupt that it almost feels like an innovative rulebreaker hitting the reset button and starting a completely new, much more familiar persona from scratch.

Ultimately, Necrocracy is one more in a long line of killer albums, and thanks to its dynamic range, clever riffs, and newfound melodic focus, is likely to ensnare the youth of today the same way its spiritual predecessor lured in the young heshers of old.

There are enough explosive moments to suggest that DIANA have another gear to explore.