There’s much to admire about When Saints Go Machine’s effort to move their synth-powered pop music away from the dancefloor into more cerebral realms. But like the band name itself, their attempts at cleverness can come off sounding clunky.

The Redeemer ends up somewhere between sarcasm and sensitivity, but can't dig deep enough in either direction to provide something that's worth returning to.

Throughout One Kiss, it's obvious how much Thomas missed writing these stirring, expansive, romantic pop songs for Saturday Looks Good to Me. Even as they sputter through certain emotions, that longing comes through loud and clear.

It may not be as instantly gratifying as Pleasure, but it's more sophisticated and self-aware.

It’s the clearest, most detailed record in their vast catalogue.

While it's admirable that Kisses turned their puppy dog-eyes outward, their attempt at social commentary ultimately feels half-hearted.

These records, steeped in reference and atmosphere, draw on memory but, being so textured and tactile, they bring the focus back to the present moment.

It's all done well enough to make for for Club 8's best album since 2007's The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Dreaming, and a sure bet to become someone's favorite.

Dreams in the Rat House combines elements of their debut, I Wanna Go Home (particularly the off-the-cuff hijinks and threadbare fidelity), with the songwriting focus of their great second effort, Sleep Talk.

There are brooding, rhythmically strong pop songs that fall halfway between the poutiness of Lana Del Rey and the hyperactive fizz of HAIM. The parts where it deviates from that template, however, are baffling.

Impersonator gently twists your arm like this, song-by-song and note-by-note, and it is as discomfiting as it is transcendent.

As a culmination and refinement of everything the National have done over the past decade, Trouble Will Find Me couldn’t be granted a more fitting mission statement.

Mvula's music hearkens back to an earlier era than that of her many British contemporaries: She hovers on the edge of pop, but the majority of her songs are too reserved to fully break through.

Even as harrowing and discomfiting an experience as Emma is, it's the most listenable record Niblett has made since her debut; caustic in a totally different way than usual.

The record will remain, something that channels the past but sounds like little else right now, an album about rediscovery that's situated in the constantly-shifting present.

Most of the cars in The Great Gatsby crash and so does Luhrman's soundtrack.

These eight tracks serve as a swift, sinister reminder of why Cathedral mattered at the start and why they intrigued for so many years in the middle.

Although the sensitive side it reveals is less developed than their established one, it's just as intriguing.

Black Pudding might not be High Plains Drifter, but it’s a suitably entertaining bad-ass diversion a la The Gauntlet.

Getting forcibly pinned down in her personal cycle of attack and retreat is a dark, visceral, utterly compelling thrill.

Raw Solutions is more ambitious than the average dance album, both in terms of the span of sonic territory that it covers and its attempts to synthesize all of it into one cohesive work.

[A] light, infectious, effortlessly cool debut.

It's this sense that nothing is (seemingly) too private for him to share in a song that makes Pale Green Ghosts so potent and, ultimately, accessible

It’s messy and menacing in equal measure, a bar fight that ends in broken glass and slippery floors, but not before landing a few killer strikes.

Perils from the Sea may not be a seamless collaboration, but neither artist has sounded so purposeful in his reverie in years.

The live album (recorded in Stockholm in 1994) and disc of rarities and demos put the finished product in context, while the array of EPs show off the wide stylistic range of everything the Breeders could do well.

The problem is that while Ambivalence Avenue was a pleasant surprise in all forms, an astounding leap from an unexpected source that constantly offered new sounds, Silver Wilkinson provides the same thing without the surprises. And all that’s left is the pleasant part.

Empty Estate tries to guide Wild Nothing towards a more physically charged sound, and it’s not always an easy transition.