Kin is not an assertive album, nor is it surprising, but it's as solid an aesthetic as you can expect of two artists mostly new to this genre.

Upright Behavior is Schatz's attempt go pack as much of this essence into one space as possible, and it comes on like a combination Chinese finger trap and bear hug.

In its winning attempt to paralyze you, Sway may have paralyzed itself.

Revisit older Factory Floor tracks like “A Wooden Box” or “(R E A L L O V E)” and there remains something tantalizing there--the way they morph back and forth between live band and broiling techno, a trompe l’oeil for the ear. On 25 25, they’ve shed this dimension, and the results can feel depthless and a little flat.

With his wry charm absent, the album ultimately shows only a partial picture of Jeff Tweedy as a solo artist.

Deliverance might work best as something else entirely, perhaps as a beat tape filled with reference vocals for the sort of stadium-status UK indie stars that know how to squeeze the maximum amount of drama out of the minimum amount of wordplay.

These moments of misplaced weight make Antidotes hard to recommend, but there are good ideas and moments all over the record.

Peanut Butter is a chaotic listen, powerful in parts and fragile in others, and often both at the same time. No matter where it goes, it's always running away from itself.

It's an album you can spend time with and understand as a whole work, and one that grows on you with each listen, revealing yet more detail and nuance.

Leo's still exceptionally adept at saying a lot in a small space but there are more than a few lines that feel a little too forceful no matter how many times you run into them, sitting slightly askew next to the richer images and more pointed jabs here.

The fragmented texture of the songs doesn't allow it to slip into bland slickness, but it's clean, theatrical, and kookily conservatorial in a pretty satisfying fashion, if occasionally a little too keen to change tacks within a single song.

While All Hell felt imbued with danger and intrigue, on Me Moan, the people pulled off to highway shoulder are never in any real distress upon closer inspection. They just stepped out to check a map.

Inner Fire's biggest problem is a sporadic lack of energy.

Blood // Sugar // Secs // Traffic smolders with emotion, and yet Kasan’s aloofness—even when he’s shouting—sounds like a protective mechanism against truly letting himself go. Framed by the derivative music, Kasan sounds as removed from his feelings as the rest of us do expressing them via memes from inside the stultifying safety of our digital cubicles.

46 minutes of music that plays like a mixtape, sliding from song to song, demo to demo, like scrolling through Frank’s hard drive of unreleased material. It’s an intriguing peek into his process, and it contains some of the rawest vocal takes he’s ever put out.

Even if Folila is less surprising than the two albums that came before it, it still makes me look forward to seeing where they'll take this fusion next.

Despite its scattered high points, though, it's hard not to think of Wasted Years as little more than the third most exciting OFF! record.

Listening to Complete Surrender, you get the sense that Taylor and Watson would be just as happy making music for, and with, each other in their spare time, revelling in their companionship.

It's impressive then, that even with this newfound attention to detail, the Rapture still maintain a flailing energy and enthusiasm that most of the other dancepunk bands could only fake.... However, what ultimately makes Pieces a step or three down from Echoes is a drop off in consistency, reflecting a higher percentage of songs that fail to ignite.

Because Vado has an energy and a confidence that so few of his elders display anymore, Slime Flu instantly stands out by recalling a very specific late-90s moment. Vado, a guy who probably shouldn't be asked to carry a full-length by himself at this point in his career, makes it work anyway by doing the little things right.

G-Eazy is at his best when he steps out of the shadows and raps assuredly, and there are signs of that on When It's Dark Out.

The most memorable revisions on Dawn of Chromatica create new links to other standout moments in the Gaga discography. ... A few other highlights tilt in the other direction, teleporting Gaga into established worlds of sound with satisfying results.

Despite showcasing some of Eminem’s stylistic growing pains, Curtain Call 2 isn’t completely lined with duds.

While Flying Wig does indeed ascend, it never quite lands on solid ground—which feels like the whole point.

Morrissey's singing appears to have taken a giant leap over the past seven years or so.

And yet all these reworks and revisions stay in the general vicinity of the original album's tone of massive yet starkly open spaces, adding a few new facets but always staying close to the fine line Waiting for You treaded between bleak and euphoric.

Another Day falters when it gets too ethereal and singy—as on the Haliechuk-led “Follow Fine Feeling,” which doesn’t have the melodic juice of his excellent song “Cicada” on One Day—or too straight-up and untextured, as on the plodding closer “House Lights.” But at its best, Another Day showcases Fucked Up as masters of transformation.

Ultimately, even when she veers into previously unexplored aesthetic territory, every track feels just like Peaches, which is rather remarkable given how rigid and predictable she had been in the recent past.