Together, they have managed to build a livelier, more bustling version of Hauschka's winsome snowglobe universe.

Fewer generalities and a more interesting narrative would have gone a long way: For all the sharp, intriguing musical experimentation, the lyrics are too easy to forget.

Is the band's self-titled album under the new moniker a brave change-up? Sure. Is it any good? Not even a little.

An album that gleans from prog, noise, baroque, hip-hop and more at will.

BEAK>> retains the same eerie, claustrophobic atmosphere as its predecessor.

Gojira's best work to date.

Class Clown's odd-angled pop and jittery arena rock keeps the weirdness on par with its predecessor.

TEED's approach to dance-pop, much like Goddard's main act, sounds especially everyguy. The project's live show provides plenty of evidence that the stuff pleases crowds, but you get the feeling that he's doing this for himself more than anyone else.

A compelling debut.

The time-slowing, pulse-quelling Spirits is a good place to get some thinking done.

[The album has] overproduced but underwritten pieces that seek to create atmosphere but mostly leave empty spaces that the Hundred in the Hands aren't sure how to fill.

It starts to distinguish itself from its long-established template when the band gets less edgy.

It's one thing to be heavy, and it's another thing to be hooky, but Slaughterhouse is the rare garage-rock album to do both so well simultaneously.

While A Place to Bury Strangers take the brave step of allowing the distortion to dissipate, the unfettered view isn't always flattering: Ackermann's lyrics can sound like they were torn out of a bored, trench-coated high-school kid's notebook, with the cyber-punk fantasia of "Mind Control" and I-want-to-die miserablism.

Loud, mean, and complicated, this six-piece is an articulate goliath, capable of drowning out Gira in waves before disappearing into pools of silence without warning. Each piece of this unit deserves mention.

The lack of any clear direction is the most fascinating aspect of Occlusions.

The nine tracks that made up The Arizona Record are more satisfying on their own.

Many of the familiar sounds of ambient music are here, and Evans boldly breathes new life into them.

Maximo Park so often sound on The National Health like they're trying too hard, struggling to find a sound that once came naturally.

Doused in interminable glimmering drones and wimpers, spending 45 minutes in its company feels like being smothered inside a snowglobe.

Drawbar Organ / Quiet Hour takes that fascination [with dub] and grinds it in the back molars, spitting out something lumpy, infirm, and wonderfully transformed.

Digital Native is harmless analog tapestry, but it wilts under too much attention, unable to conjure the vivid scenes to which it was undoubtedly conceived.

Like that high-pitched whistle that SonicScreens play outside corner shops, there'll come a time when what DZ Deathrays are doing no longer resonates with you. But for now, it's more than worth going deaf to.

Where the experimentation often succeeds, the editing fails.

Falling Off the Sky misses the opportunity to explore that fear of obsolescence too deeply.

As a solo artist, Tomas Barfod's a few steps away from achieving sweet and total bliss, but Salton Sea is plenty evidence that every step taken in the future will be worth documenting.

More than just a forgettable pit stop in two wildly careening careers, The Cherry Thing captures some kind of fleeting magic.

All Hell is a subtly clever record that pits one type of music that strongly evokes one era--here, country music--against another, namely this decade's sample-heavy culture.