Loyal is a hypnotic record, siphoning in and out of repeated, textured loops that soothingly chafe against each other like fingers performing a head massage.

It's to his credit that he never seems too in awe of his most obvious antecedents, instead simply choosing to flex his own capabilities within the tight constraints that musicians like Rother, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, and Dieter Moebius have operated within for decades. Still, it's a shame Manley didn't choose to filter more of his own ideas into the myriad eulogies on offer here.

It can be difficult to hear Cash’s charms through the bright, digital clang that plagues his ’80s recordings. The refurbished warmth of Songwriter makes it easier to concentrate on the clever turns of phrase and solid construction of these excavated tunes.

Much of it seems strangely blank, neither great nor at all sub-par.

The music has retained its urgent physicality. Still, it’s probably for the best that the Faint continue working at their recent leisurely pace of about an album every half decade, because this band burns through their ideas fast.

One standout is “Ruins of a Lost Memory.” .... It’s a concrete, compelling closer to an album that otherwise slips from memory as swiftly as a dream.

There are a number of somewhat bland mid-tempo tracks and a few sketchy incidental things, like the ultra-brief vocal exercise 'Thank You Very Much,' but this is a worthy addition for Apples fans who haven't already tracked down every flexi-disc, Japanese import, and vinyl edition in the band's large catalog.

The content is memorable, but the melodies aren’t. Still, stronger and more diverse than their debut.

Let God Sort Em Out coasts on the history they share with each other and with us, settling for good enough.

If The Discovery of a World Inside the Moone fails to find the Apples branching into James Brown territory, it's still the band's most diverse outing, and debatably their finest. Wisely jettisoning the noodly experiments that made Her Wallpaper Reverie seem much longer than it actually was, the Apples turn their focus squarely back on the catchy song, with a more pronounced feel for instrumental variety.

Too many of the other songs feel starved of that love, though.

As is typical in periods of self-discovery, Hideous Bastard is rife with growing pains. But surrounded by a trusted community, and in a few sparing moments of clarity, it hints at real beauty.

So if the sprawling, all-bases-loaded Bardo Pond isn't the band's best LP, it might be their most representative: both the tiresome excess and the lung-blackening reward.

Kelly seems to have breezed through the writing and recording process here, and there's a fine line between breezy and half-assed.

Haines’ dynamic vocals often bail out the more inelegant lyrics. But it doesn’t help when her bandmates seem to be on autopilot, working with a distracting series of references to the band’s influences.

Twenty-five minutes of these three on autopilot still hits more often than not, ultimately making this disc a mixtape-y More Fish-style companion to Cuban Linx II-- hardly necessary, but not inconsequential.

Coliseum stacks everything in the right place, and it’s all executed with the usual precision, so why doesn’t the album dazzle quite like the last few? Like the four albums before it, the Besnards self-recorded and self-produced this one at Breakglass, and more than its predecessors, it begs for an outside collaborator, somebody to shake up the band’s routine and perhaps lend some new tricks to their shrinking playbook.

Explore suggests that while Park can produce listenable songs that do right by their influences, he's still an inexperienced talent in the process of finding his own voice.

Cheatahs might not be a very ambitious record, but it is kinda ballsy.

As pretty as it can be, New Album is another minor Boris album in a string of minor Boris albums.

Unfortunately, Fire in the Hole fails to invoke any effective nostalgia as it phlegmatically wanders through 12 solid but unexciting tracks.

Encore is a fourth fascinating record from Eminem, but it's also easily his weakest and, in many ways, tamest album to date.

Your tolerance for freeform and frequently harsh-sounding guitar music determines whether A Shaw Deal will make it into your regular rotation or slot into the lesser-played ranks of the band’s catalog. But its funky, egoless spirit is infectious.

On an album of 13 tracks, it would have been nice to have a few that don't follow the same template. Still, there's no doubting Kölsch's mastery of his chosen style.

The arrangements stick to an effective coast-and-surge model of development: The tracks skim low and then tilt upward with the addition of a drum or synth part. It's a stock trick that works well, and Lali Puna use it with unusual tact.

The album’s more pleasing songs, like “Charm You” and “Honey,” are campfire ditties with rich, inviting harmonies. These brief moments of levity suggest that, in the face of existential dread, maybe it is more rewarding to sing with the people you love than about them.

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.

Over the course of its thirteen tracks, Labyrinth loosely chronicles growing anxiety and its dissolution, peaking at “Mino” before settling into a level of serenity at “Bunny.” Kanda is most successful when he interrupts the album’s emotional arc.