If Flying Microtonal Banana’s randomized approach is ultimately less transfixing than Nonagon Infinity’s maniacal focus, it nonetheless shows that, after eight previous albums, this band’s creativity and curiosity knows no bounds, and their singular balance of anarchy and accessibility is still in check.

Instead of dividing the album into a house-tempo disc and a downtempo disc, Coles alternates between the two modes. But after five or six tracks, the strategy becomes as predictable as her by-the-book chord progressions; the fast/slow/fast/slow sequencing kills any kind of momentum the album might otherwise have achieved.

Love Jail goes beyond a mere glance in the rearview mirror. It sounds vintage, but it feels current. Dommengang find some potential for escape in this music, some freedom in that absence of a destination.

The Deconstruction produces no eccentricity, pop smarts, orchestral creativity, or emotional revelation.

Themes for Television’s highlights effectively double as a showcase for Jewel’s impressive sense of arrangement and mood-setting.

Lyrically, the album is about insecurities and the burden of carrying a loved one’s feelings (see “Ugly/Bored” or “Borrowed Body”), but the straightforward way Medford sings about those subjects spotlights an increasing self-assurance that bolsters her words.

Opener “Lily” falls into this liminal ground, as does “Blue Spring,” and while these tracks don’t seem pointed towards anything particularly urgent, their instrumentation (like the rest of Spring) remains rich and resonant, each component part augmenting the others.

ENERGY is a manic attempt to relight the fire, as well as a confetti-strewn soundtrack for a world tour that never was.

Uncool is not bad, and if anything, DISCO could stand more of it: to evoke actual disco in all its frisson and desperation, rather than the remembered-40-years-later version, full of kitsch and clip-art disco balls. The album, with a couple exceptions, has two modes: overly tasteful cruise-ship programming, and gauche rehashes.

If A Billion Little Lights doesn't always awe quite like it should, given its considerable zeal and craftsmanship, it's because of that familiarity. The album has a big heart and big ambitions to match. The only thing missing is the very thing these songs long for the most: the thrill of discovery.

The back half of the album drags a bit, with the organ lines of “Heatwaves” and the martial figurations in “Solid Light” never quite catching spark. .... Still, the band deserves credit for being confident enough to release all this material as a single gesture, rather than back-ending the leftovers into a “deluxe edition” a few months later. Ladytron arrived full-formed all those years ago, but they keep flowering into strange, vibrant forms.

Rkives is a full-sounding collection that reads like a long-lost Rilo Kiley album from the early-2000s.

It's business as usual: spastic pounding, warp-speed scalar runs, and various math-rock feats of strength.

Following those pleasantly modest, Paste-worthy beginnings, however, Adams draws the blinds entirely and Cardinology starts sliding into self-indulgent banality of a sort so pinched and uninviting it makes Conor Oberst seem like Will Rogers.

Though they could still stand to pull back on the vocal fanfares, brushing away some of the gunk that mottled up their earlier records and doubling down on melody each open up new avenues in their sound, and Still Living finds Ganglians delivering on their early promise while stepping confidently toward whatever's next.

King Night, accordingly, finds Salem pushing their sound far enough to create artistic distance from the rest of the pack.

They still gets bogged down in places, padding the album with go-nowhere interludes and a six-minute centerpiece that's mostly too chaotic to make any impact, but on the album's best tracks, it's great to hear them again, doing what they do best.

Ital's sense of abrasion and his notion of groove are both finely tuned, so it's all for the best when they work in parallel.

The clear ambition of X-Communicate is to leave Welchez’s old persona behind and emerge, fresh and new, as something completely different, and by and large, that objective is achieved.

Like a lot of indie-pop albums, Program 91 is relatively quick and dirty. But despite its brevity, the album's second side drags a bit, as the skanked rhythms begin to bleed into each other with a lack of individual distinction.

Even as pop culture continues to diverge sharply from Spencer’s definition of cool, he remains too spirited and unhinged as a performer to harden into cranky-old-man bitterness.

Colores’ concept is steeped in this earnest (if slightly indulgent) pursuit. Each of its 10 tracks corresponds to a different color, in a sort of sonic mood ring.

On the whole, Ounsworth’s candor gives New Fragility a necessary charge as he leans into balladry.

While Preoccupations’ message remains honest and earnest, it doesn’t create enough friction to cause a spark.

Those out-of-character moments are few and far between, but listeners willing to roll with the lack of punch Little Joy offers will find that shortcoming easy to live with.

Barnes seems playfully aware that his lyrics are Gordian knots, impossible for even the most devoted Of Montreal fan (including, possibly, himself) to untangle completely. And yet there are moments of clarity on Lousy with Sylvianbriar that prove Barnes is both his own harshest judge and most lenient jury.

While the vocal tracks are well-realized, this is the first album RJ's made in a long time that actually feels like it's satisfied to say most of what it has to say in instrumental form.

It's not quite hype enough to be pure party music and lacks the cohesive point of view that fosters a more personal connection with a record.