The soundtrack album Les Revenants contains not a shred of the terror Mogwai is capable of wreaking, and it works terrifically--it rarely comes off overly dramatic or leading, and matches the unsettling feel of the show.

Homosapien's constant fluctuations between styles means it's a mercurial and somewhat uneven listen.

Privilege is an assured, musically accomplished work, but all the aesthetic homework Pennington’s done to refine his persona is still visible, pointing directly back to the influences and forebears he’s inspired by.

Some of its songs deserve to be cut into halves, while others should have been chopped wholesale. With those snips, Exai would be a really good Autechre album that summarizes the various successes of their career in an hour or so. As is, it's as much a frustrating obstacle course as it is a grueling marathon.

Despite a couple of intriguing, spaced-out interludes that have much in common with Boards of Canada's inky psychedelia, the album carries on predictably, checking off boxes: punishing banger ("Extrusion"), acid workout ("Spirals"), piano-led stomper ("0I0x").

The details of Kavinsky's intended narrative are blurry, and possibly nonsensical, but he succeeds in making an album that suggests that it's the soundtrack to something, and at least making it clear that it has to do with cars and the 1980s.

Songs build and build and build and then die, gazing longingly at exhilarating emotional peaks just outside their reach.

The rest of the band obviously knows that McEntire is the showpiece--songs like "Those Girls" show that they do, setting up her big moments with subtlety and understatement--reminding us that the real power is in restraint.

Much like its predecessor, Optica's pervasive mildness doesn't give you much to latch onto.

Long rows of evenly pulsing notes paired with streaming harmonies make for a low-stakes default mode. But when an album's mild downsides are all relative to its overwhelming strengths, it's hard to complain.

An album where Ashin fearlessly reveals himself as a person and an artist and dares you to open up in the same way.

For all the rhythmic chicanery at play, AMOK feels strangely static and contained, giving a perpetual sense of jogging in place.

Rough Carpenters sounds vibrant and enveloping, an old-time feat for these mercurial times.

Streten explores his sonic palette with varying degrees of success on Flume.

The Marriage of True Minds hits harder and feels more joyfully physical than anything Matmos has done in years.

The shame of it is that somewhere in here there's an album that could've done more to revive the mostly moribund idea of 80s pop tropes in contemporary music.

Overlong albums are one thing, but overlong and sonically derivative albums are usually near unlistenable. But it's the individual songs that make Cabinet worth the time.

It's deeply satisfying, constantly rewarding, and I'm not entirely sure what I was doing before it came into my life.

Often he feels like a genre director hired for his reliability rather than excelling in his field. Still, there are advances here, a sense that Hill's VHS collection may have expanded beyond the horror section, a step up from pan-and-scan into something approaching widescreen.

Woo is more or less an extension of--and improvement on--the ideas explored on Field-Pickering's debut, 2010's Cool Water.

If these 35 minutes feel like twice that, it's because Portal thought through every step, packed all of its ideas as tightly as possible, and left it for you to decode.

Feeding People's energy is abundant and undeniable, but all over the place on Island Universe.

Long Island probably isn't going to win any new fans for Endless Boogie, but their strengths are on display regardless.

Like Cunningham's entire oeuvre, each track unwinds into a tapestry of intense sonic detail if you just give it a little time to recline.

The Messenger won't be included in the body of work that made Marr great, but it's a solid approximation of his strengths.

What was once alienating and difficult in Eat Skull’s music now reads as interesting quirks attached to pleasing packages. With III, Eat Skull is willing to be loved--and be loveable, too.

Ultimately, What the Brothers Sang is a tribute to what the brothers sang, not necessarily how they sang it.

Considering the band's taste for zoning out to infinity, One Track Mind really needed a harsher edit. With some tightening and pruning, it could have burst into bloom.