If A Weird Exits was Thee Oh Sees’ Thanksgiving feast, An Odd Entrances is Friday’s turkey and stuffing sandwich--hardly a destination meal, but plenty satisfying in its own way.

Because Remiddi also sustains an ear-pleasing flow between those songs, it may take a few listens to recognize and appreciate what an artistic success Microclimate actually is.

Her third album, Cloud 9, solidifies her as a mainstream country star who hasn’t entirely submitted to the machine.

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.

Colonia is mostly careful to use its expanded palette of sounds for subtle shading rather than gratuitous effect.

Numbers is a solid rap record, but MellowHype have shown themselves to be capable of more.

It’s a leisurely paced album with a lot of repetition. Each piece is full of slowly sighing synth passages and languorous piano melodies that mimic the strange way time dilates when you remove yourself from the rhythms of the city, the way an afternoon alone at the beach can feel like a beautiful eternity.

Despite its reduced scope, Life Sux is actually pretty versatile depending on where you stand with Wavves--take it as further confirmation of his permanent immaturity, or a sign that rattling off rudimentary but undeniably hooky punk-pop comes fairly easy to him.

While the songs on Peace Trail are unquestionably timely and occasionally poignant, Young’s songwriting-as-immediate-response sometimes fails him.

<COPINGMECHANISM> asks us to accept a grungier and more mature Willow, but this maturity feels formulaic and the intimacy feels manufactured, relying on universal tropes of angst instead of her own. Even if the album is generic at times, Willow’s limber vocals surely enchant as she trapezes across pop, punk, metal, and screamo never fully landing on a signature sound.

On Ores & Minerals, there was a measure of spaciness that’s been lost here, perhaps surprisingly considering the circumstances of its birthing. If that album was a leap, this one is a step, and a gingerly one at that.

The 87-minute runtime is both ridiculous and somehow necessary; if the redundancies were cut, some of the self-importance would be lost. The extended monotony allows you to get lost in Cudi’s ego and your own head, clearing room amid the nothingness to discover and create meaning.

There are some good songs on here, I guess, but they're not as good as anything from If You're Feeling Sinister, or even The Boy with the Arab Strap. It's weird, because the songs definitely sound better, but the album is still kind of disappointing.

The New Testament feels mostly like one just-OK thing, easy to enjoy on a pass but much harder to love.

Fordlândia trilogy is simultaneously skillful, gorgeous, and a bit too polished--they're a pristine composition on a record full of them, but it doesn't gel with the messy, self-destructive historical footnotes that inspired them.

Music, Trial & Trauma is several albums at once: drill bangers, party tunes, and a series of reflections on Black tragedy. It doesn’t always cohere, but the effect is still rather startling. Loski illuminates the darkened corners of his mind in order to reveal the society that gives power to the demons inside.

I prefer the more minimal style of Them, which was sharply critical--and deeply personal--without being hectoring or bombastic. But listeners who enjoy picking apart seam-bursting sonic worlds will find plenty to explore here.

It's deadly entertaining in bursts-- especially if you pick out the right bursts.

Glaring errors keep Love, Damini from reaching the heights of Burna Boy’s prior work, but his intentions are admirable, even when the execution goes awry. Modern Afropop is the poster kid for good times, but with this ambitious yet flawed album, he reminds us that it can be a space to work out much messier emotions.

Even those who decided years ago that this album was going to be great will be hard-pressed to find a great rap record here, only a sporadically enjoyable one.

At times GUV I can feel like indie rock cosplay, especially coming from a shapeshifter like Cook. When an artist genre-hops with such agility and totality, with titles and performances as goofy as Young Guv’s can be, it’s harder to lose yourself in the familiar comforts of a fuzz pedal and a charmingly off-key vocal. Even so, there’s an ease to the mimicry.

Most of these tracks have hooks aimed straight for your jugular, but "Can't Lose" shows the band could go even farther with a little restraint.

As good as it often is, Mowed Sound reinforces what, in retrospect, has been Nance’s conundrum all along: He remains the clerk across the record store counter, gushing about all the things he loves without being able to tell you the one he likes best, the one he would forever commit to calling his own.

With Niggas on the Moon, though, it's hard to shake the feeling that Death Grips might benefit from a change in aesthetic and conceptual focus.

Dancehall is a singles-driven genre, but Popcaan often shines in the album format, so it’s regrettable that many of these 17 songs feel so lackluster. For a genre rooted in joy and conviviality, the letdown is hard to ignore.

He’s lither; he sings with a spring in his step, trusting the deepened range of his indignant burr. After several Pearl Jam albums of material pounded into meat sauce, the airier delights of Earthling’s end run let Vedder stretch—cautiously.

These two Ghosts volumes feel much more concrete and ambitious than the original quartet. Each has its own clear-cut identity, too: Volume six (Locusts) is where the dread creeps in. ... Yet without Together’s relatively rousing melodic template and pacing to propel it, Locusts often feels like its titular swarm, devouring itself for 80-plus minutes until there’s not much left by the end.

Rapture is ultimately an honest effort devoid of staying power.