Numbers is a solid rap record, but MellowHype have shown themselves to be capable of more.

Daughter of Cloud accurately depicts an artist who has pushed his artistic license to its very limit. It also makes a convincing argument for the virtue of accepting some of those pushed-aside limitations.

Whether it's a unique opportunity to peek into a talented musician's creative process or a throwaway collection of sonic gags depends on your tastes.

Snaith's fascination shines, taking him places that po-faced peers are blind to.

Tender New Signs makes the listener work a little harder within Tamaryn's framework, but it rewards as much, if not more, than the walls of noise threatening to hem them in just a few years ago.

Even as he shifts from his typically elliptical songwriting to more structure-bound forms, he never sounds overly fussy. It makes Former Lives a brisk listen even when the songs themselves aren't particularly innovative.

There's never a dull moment across AWLWLB's 38 minutes. It's all peaks.

While Pink should not be conflated with a proper follow-up to There Is Love in You, even as a singles comp it suggests that the undergrad producer circa Rounds is now post-doctorate, and Four Tet is capable of going deeper and expanding higher than almost anyone else out there.

The looseness of Oblivion Hunter is a nice reminder that the core of their appeal isn't so much that they're pushing their sound into new places, but that they're two guys who can't hide how happy they are that they get to spend their lives making this kind of a racket.

Rather than stampeding recklessly forward on the heels of cataclysmic frontman Lee Spielman, Trash Talk have re-directed their energy into mountainous, pile-driving riffs that hit with a lowdown, deliberate force.

Sundark and Riverlight is like the thumbnail version: everything compressed, details lost.

The Killer works slightly better than either of its predecessors as an album, with the promise of what is to come relieving the earlier stretches of some of their grimness. The gaseous (and Gas-eous) ambient interludes, too, are perfectly sequenced, offering soothing counterpoints to the album's most pummelling efforts.

The discrepancy on Bootlegs between studious songcraft and rambunctious execution occasionally sounds distractingly self-conscious, but Lerche still sounds better here for sounding so unguarded and loose.

There's a surface graininess that amplifies the corrosive qualities of the band's sound and the strep-throat rawness of Edkins' voice, but also serves to accentuate some of the more surprising elements in the mix.

Newman's melodic gifts continue to serve the emotional core of his songs well, but he pulls his punches with opaque lyrics and too many wheelhouse-sticking power-pop cuts that keep Streets from achieving the impact it could have had.

Lonesome Dreams' instant knock of familiarity will prove comforting for some, but it gives these tracks something of a plug-and-play feel. Many songs are dramatically assembled, and all of them move, but when they move in pretty much the same ways as another, spryer band, it's that much harder to get caught up in their attendant drama.

Twins doesn't stick to the middle or even pick a lane. It swerves, visiting territory well-tread with a perspective that feels new.

An often unlistenable album from WHY?, a group whose music is often excellent.

The brilliant writing on First of a Living Breed ... would position the album as a candidate for one of the year's best rap records if it weren't for those drawback tracks ["For the Kids", "Cedar and Sedgwick"].

Without that commitment to either pop immediacy or boundary-pushing weirdness, let alone being able to pull of both at once, Tussle are always going to feel like they occupy some kind of tepid middle-ground, however sharply their cymbals are recorded.

Difficult, unapproachable, and gleefully abrasive, Verdonkermaan will be an addictive but acquired taste for those who seek out the horrendous, the inhumane, and the fucking brutal.

The four-track fidelity and crowded mix don't give her the space to fully command your attention as she does in concert.

The group's clearly more concerned with making great sounds and creating a distinctive vibe than they are with making lasting statements.

Add it all up, and you get one of Tejada's most varied records to date.

Cohen might have made the album for himself as a keepsake, an antidote to the rest of life's pressing noise. It works that way for us, as well.

His music is of the wholly sensual, painfully physical kind, and with Held he triumphantly translates his bruised intimacy to full-length format without losing any of its skin-prickling power.

With Formerly Extinct, Rangda not only prove themselves to be a going concern as a band, but that they might just be starting to really hit their stride.

Young Smoke's not trying to push things forward. Instead, he's trying to take the genre somewhere it hasn't really gone yet, by introducing new textures, giving his productions more space and room to breathe, and infusing the results with a dose of humor. Whether or not he gets there remains to be seen, but joining him on the ride provides its own level of fascination.