Too many songs proceed from point A to B with little variation or depth. Those tracks seem to equivocate between the collagist Fog and the pop Fog, reconciling their tensions instead of exploiting them.

Long and lush isn't a bad look for the Soft Pack, so long as they're keeping the beat.

While Jack Ü doesn't exactly roll the ball forward, or do much else to make listeners rethink the principal actors here, it's dumb, loud fun from two architects of the dumbest, loudest fun of the 2000s.

If you’re happy to ride some riffs into the sunset, High Bias is a worthwhile trip.

Behind his accented murmurs, Woolhouse fills out Songs with bolder strokes than the pale production of Life After Defo.

Take issue with Styles’ taste at your leisure, but there’s no denying his comprehensiveness. His vocal performances are invariably the best parts of these songs.

Overall, Texas Rose, the Thaw, and the Beasts is a good mood record, a midnight opus that sounds great while it's playing but doesn't much travel with the listener beyond its runtime.

What Schaff's everyloner routine lacks in subtlety, it makes up in a certain fraught, occasionally uncomfortable relatability.

Some of their more conventional tracks may pale a little in comparison to their newer aesthetics, if only because their evolution has been so slow and protracted.

Tasteful and restrained as Fennelly’s playing is, here it doesn’t have quite enough energy or movement to sustain such a runtime. That said, the expanded palette and membership bodes well for future explorations.

There is a good album here. The band’s more characteristically brief songs are flawless, but there’s a lesson in this album for punk bands who may want to explore pop: It ain’t as easy as a great hook.

On the whole, Stage Whisper is enjoyable, but the live portion is dispensible, and the new studio tracks, which will likely please anyone taken with IRM, are the real draw.

Decide is a fun, off-kilter synth-pop album that proves Keery’s talent, but by its conclusion, a clearer picture of its maker fails to emerge.

[V feels] both transitional and incubatory.

Adult Baby works best with the volume turned up, a soft mattress beneath you, all distractions on hold. And even though the music often resists forming into anything as solid as a hook, Makino’s vaporous melodies have a way of creeping up on you long after the record has stopped spinning; they have a sneaky tenacity, like a dream you can’t shake, even if you can’t quite remember its particulars.

Recalling X's boisterous male/female mantras and careering boogie by way of Sonic Youth's frosty downtown cool, The Invisible Deck is a confident and polished record built of cavernous drums, simply slithering riffs, filthy bass grooves, and high-energy dynamics.

Re-Animator still holds its own against their other music; at their most traditional, they remain smart songwriters, and even their weaker lyrical moments are more thought-provoking than their peers.

On Bell House, it’s sometimes hard to tell when the band is being too precious and when it’s consciously using self-deprecating humor to subvert that self-seriousness.

Vermont have figured out how to make these comparatively short, sketch-like pieces work for them. They stretch out just long enough to draw you in and wrap you up in their atmospheres, but they never wear out their welcome.

Though Brandy’s voice remains a beautiful, resonant instrument, her songwriting here is so often functional and humdrum, and her performances rarely sparkle with personality or feeling. It’s obvious she has many stories to tell; what’s less clear is what compels her to tell them, what makes her want to sing.

Billionaire may showcase the curling intricacy of her voice, but her songwriting seems less invested in striving for a similar complexity.

If Abandon was the sound of a young man in flux, then Pleasure is the sound of settling.

People who've appreciated the band's last three albums will find time for this once it has a chance to sink in, but it's not essential for people who got a charge out of Ta Det Lungt and passed on the rest.

The layers of sound Taylor presents are sumptuous, full of tossed-off licks of piano and guitar that gather into motifs more deluxe than his recent solo work but far scruffier than Hot Chip. Tucked into them, Taylor’s lyrics make strange but welcome bedfellows.

The album is at its strongest when it leans into its own mysticality, sounding old-fashioned and contemporary simultaneously.

Though they don’t bridge new worlds or sounds here, they confirm the implicit connections between their formative muses, threading the outré time signatures of J Dilla and Madlib, the spiritualism of Dungeon Family, and the flair of Dipset into a cozy tapestry. It’s not groundbreaking, but it is home.

On their first full-length collaboration, Late Night Endless, the two draw on their formidable pedigree, yet at times the album feels cluttered with sound.

In its best moments, Collisions has an edge that's grittier and more emphatic than its predecessor.