Here, blocky synth structures feel mismatched to the themes, and heavy-handed arrangements sometimes threaten to overwhelm the lyrics.

Pick any song, and you’ll be rewarded with something painfully precise.

As an experimental electronic album, Reachy Prints comes off as milquetoast. As a pop album, though, it sparkles.

Most sad sack numbers here wallow in a shallow sense of self-pity.

North is definitely Hyperdub's most pop-friendly release, but it's also one of its most conservative-- not a bad thing, just an interesting one given the importance label integrity plays in the electronic dance music world.

The Future Bible Heroes' first outing since 2002's uneven Eternal Youth does offer up slightly more catchy melodies and deadpan quotables than Love at the Bottom of the Sea.

While the vocal credits might have promised a more straightforward pop route this time around, It’s Alright Between Us… ends up being one of Lindstrøm’s most disjointed and ambiguous projects.

The only real rub lies in the lyrics, which-- unusually for the sharp-minded Coomes-- veer between cringing and faintly ridiculous.

This album provides Dredd fans with a chance to fix this music to their own favorite stories, giving the unrelenting decay and despair of Mega-City One the ferociously solemn musical backdrop it's always deserved.

Two Thousand and Ten Injuries buzzes with joy.

So yeah, this record is a downer. But there's rare beauty in such darkness, too-- just look at forebears like Leonard Cohen, Elliott Smith, and Nick Drake. Or even Edgar Allan Poe. Because, along with its mopiness, WIT'S END is creepy as hell.

In the end, enjoying the Weeknd requires a certain suspension of disbelief, and that remains true on Beauty Behind the Madness. You really have to buy into his bad-guy persona.... For newcomers, there's a whole world to explore, and on Beauty Behind the Madness it's richer and smarter than ever.

What makes Rahim unique isn't their overall style; it's the tiny yet indispensable songwriting flourishes that lodge obdurately in the memory.

Sun Gangs is less a break-up record, and more a "relationship" record, in that it has the ups and downs of a love affair, with moments of joy, boredom, and viciousness sandwiched in closely next to each other. And while that makes for a challenging and complex listen--Andrews has certainly proved to be adept at wringing bitterness or misanthropy from bruised melodies--one can't help but hope that his next relationship is a happy one.

Listening to Grace & Lies can be taxing; it feels at moments like succumbing slowly to emotional frostbite. But Krans and Ollsin stir in a few furtive warm pockets to keep their record from freezing over.

They don't sound like a mélange of other bands anymore; they sound like Early Graves, and that's a damn good band to sound like in 2012.

Williams has figured out his sounds, but he’s still working towards his voice.

The lack of structure makes these songs feel experimental, but not sufficiently to commit to being out there in a remarkable way.

This work feels more in tune with decay and exploitation in sexual portrayal, the numbness accrued from a constant barrage of imagery, than anything that’s notionally "sexy."

Lady Wood is short, but Lo finds ample darkness to plumb.

Sixteen Oceans is 16 tracks long, yet five of them are basically interludes—minute-or-two-long sketches made of watery synth pads, tape hiss, or rudimentary beats. Strangely, most of them fall toward the end of the album. ... The view’s lovely, but for the moment, it feels like Hebden is sailing in circles.

Transmutation is the enduring lesson of Kenney’s small catalogue so far: Turn life’s impasses into empathetic rock songs, little anthems for overcoming self-renewing heartache and exhaustion and anxiety. On Sucker’s Lunch, Kenney gets closer to the core of that idea than ever before thanks to sharper writing, stronger hooks, a versatile voice, and a continued partnership with friends who allow her to try new approaches.

On The Great Satan, Zombie sounds torn between wanting to revisit the boo-metal sound that made him famous and wanting to continue coasting on the gibberish trucker-rock of his later years. What this record suffers most from is a lack of direction.

It’s two lifelong friends tossing ideas back and forth, spiking gorgeous guitar patterns with unexpected effects and samples.

It's a record just as baffling as it is beguiling.

As is the case on most of the album, Hill's distorted vocals can sometimes seem like an afterthought, but perhaps they are intended to be just one of the many ingredients squashed into the album's vibrant mixture, to be heard as one final act of creation-through-destruction.

For the most part, Fortuna projects a confidence and self-belief that wasn’t all that perceptible on the rough-hewn Antipodes.

Now he's breaking out with a full-length record that's more restrained, more skeletal, and often more mournful than anything he's done before, a metamorphosis from somebody who's had fans growing to expect them on the regular.