With Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom, Ubovich offers a resounding reaffirmation that psych-rock is forever, even if the escape it provides from our cruel world is ultimately temporary.

Evolution’s fatal flaw is conflating being ubiquitous and being generic.

Considering the pedigree of its personnel, Radical Optimism is oddly incoherent. The absence of Future Nostalgia’s many topline writers is notable both in the lack of ironclad melodies and unfamiliarity with how to handle Lipa’s vocal weaponry.

Derivative as it is, it’s all performed with care and craft, a frictionless blend of styles that feels a bit uncanny, like music you could imagine in a faux Urban Outfitters at Starcourt Mall. But there’s a sense The Crux aspires to something greater.

At 50 minutes, it's maybe a bit too long: when you're working with coiled energy, you can't afford to lose momentum. That said, when they're in the zone, there's not much like it.

It may not be an extreme reworking of song forms or a sudden return to action, perhaps simply another chapter in the various indulgences he enjoys, but in numerous ways, The Jazz Age is Ferry's most radical work yet.

While addressing the same themes he's been tweaking for more than a decade now, James adds a new trick to his ever-expanding repertoire: transforming the boundless possibilities of solo creativity into a cohesive one-man show.

There are enough explosive moments to suggest that DIANA have another gear to explore.

Running a mere five songs and 15 minutes, AHJ is a wholly fat-free effort that favors tight, snappy, emotionally direct songcraft over the genre experiments and instrumental excursions of ¿Cómo Te Llama?

It can be hard to square the bleakness of the lyrics with the verdant excess of the sound, though its lo-fi sonics certainly match the rawness of the emotions contained within.

Although it's unfocused by design, Everything is still unfocused. Which is not to say it's inconsistent: a major improvement in this regard over Trainwreck-- which meandered off into ambient oblivion on its final four tracks-- Everything is markedly well assembled.

Altogether, Lost Channels marks a step forward for the Swimmers, one that--along with their relentless touring (and there's no questioning the indie-ness of that)--should be sufficient to keep their star on the rise.

It’s the sound of a rapper more than happy to maintain his narrow lane after being burned by the industry, one who's lost the ambition to leave his comfort zone, at least for the time being.

This is exactly what Cornershop has always been so good at, and which occasionally comes through on Lemon-- expecting us to be on the same page, and feeling no need to explain anything to those who aren't.

Overall Brute is a frustrating mish-mosh of middling and artful. When it’s working, there is a certain panache in the high-powered, informationally dense musical speedballs she creates.

Ultimately comes out a very solid if not revelatory record.

Tears in the Club is a disappointingly genteel work, from an artist known for anything but.

Most of the songs on A Million and One burrow between ecstasy and threat, Nova’s voice playing at the edges of those feelings.

The range of Paracosm helps Greene present himself as more of a singer/songwriter than a producer, though the former part of that dynamic still lags.

Hidden World is the work of a band that sounds much older and more assured than it should.

The beats are all quality, but without voices there's not much they can do in three-and-a-half minutes that they don't have the strength and presence to do in two.

At times he nodded toward mainstream trends. “Way Down” soars like a jetliner; “Moody Blue” co-opts every soft, hazy sound of AM pop in the mid-’70s. But the striking thing about Way Down in the Jungle Room is how it stays true to all the music Presley claimed as his own in ’68.

The way she’s able to inject these quietly pretty, happy styles of music with an underlying weariness and a clever touch is what makes No Fool Like an Old Fool stand out among the many musicians currently borrowing similar sets of sounds.

There’s Always More at the Store showcases a few new wrinkles to his sound while also reminding us that he can also easily bang out a cool beat, too.

Though Eno and Beatie’s music often feels simplistic, by the end of Lateral, they’ve inched closer to the center of the heart.

The time between albums (seven years, in this case) gives Here for It All a certain weight that its songs don’t quite bear. In the scheme of her smash-packed discography, this is a minor work. But if only all minor works were so consistently enjoyable. The air of meh palpable during many of Carey’s recent public appearances is mostly replaced with gusto and wit (though the way lead single “Type Dangerous” flatlines in the hook is just meh again).

Perhaps TMBG are just happier making kid's music - even when they try to grapple with adult situations on "Upside Down Frown" or "Climbing Up the Walls" it still comes out G-rated.

Bar the rare moments of clunky electronics, almost every sound, touch, and shade on Fall to Pieces feels like it had to be there, in blessed contrast to the rambling dead ends, failed experiments, and misjudged covers of Tricky’s recent records. Fall to Pieces is an audacious cri de coeur that ultimately finds strength in adversity where others might fall apart.