The result is a dance record that wears its political themes like a Halloween costume—great for cheap, campy thrills but falling short of striking any deeper, never mind radical, notes of terror.

Each track of Under the Same Sky will undoubtedly find a home in a record bag or set list somewhere, and rightly so, as there's really nothing fundamentally wrong with any of them. As an album, though, Under the Same Sky leaves you wanting more of a moody, immersive experience, and less of its clean surfaces and precise negative spaces.

The late-album arrangement of these two outliers feels unnecessary and out-of-place. Two steps forward, one step back: such is the dance of courting other genres, even if the risks have helped keep Ulver vital.

For all Jackson's personal struggle and exploration, Paradise feels like a safe record, calibrated for the comfort of an imagined audience, working at its best when it becomes almost invisible--the accessory to the experience and not the experience itself.

While the vocal credits might have promised a more straightforward pop route this time around, It’s Alright Between Us… ends up being one of Lindstrøm’s most disjointed and ambiguous projects.

The most innovative and intriguing aspect of Pulaski is not its music, but ultimately its not-quite-definable form.

A narrative concept album that runs a mere 29 minutes and is both more musically ornate yet somehow also slighter than anything Girls attempted, a deeply personal work whose arch presentation serves to keep you at an emotional distance.

The album starts strong, but is uneven, dragging toward the end.

Fur & Gold sounds a little bit too comfortable for its own good. Khan is a great singer, and her band is undoubtedly competent and capable, but the record sounds like it wants to be more than it is.

For the most part, the beats and the synths are the stars of the show here. They're not as compelling as in the past--maybe only four albums into their career, the duo is preferring to color inside the lines.

It’s cinematic music, driven by sprawling harmonies and fluid motion. Rather than dreaming of the future, these nostalgic pieces feel as if they’re looking back at the past, taking in a bird’s eye view of the change that occurs throughout life.

It doesn’t always reach the level of spiritual purity it could, but there’s a touch of steel and a sense of pacing that was missing from Föllakzoid’s prior work, positioning III as a gateway for a much a deeper dive into altered states.

In a way, it's comforting to know what you're getting: Four or five songs you'll treasure, four or five you'll tolerate, and a pretty good band sticking to their guns.

Tonally and instrumentally, the album is a change in style, but there is no moment of surprise; it still feels very predictable.

The Violent Sleep of Reason galvanizes most when Meshuggah rise to the challenge of writing music that matches the urgency and global scope of its subjects. All too often, though, even as they’re captured playing together in a room for the first time in ages, Meshuggah sound a tad more comfortable than agitated.

Tomorrow remains compelling through 'Static Object,' the record's closest thing to a Joy Division moment, but then limps out over its last third, mired in a tone/tempo bog that reveals the group's soft spots and least-appealing features.

It’s not an essential release in the Men’s rapidly growing discography, but as a rare snapshot of a band constantly in motion, Campfire Songs is sensible at least.

That sort of state-of-society demonstration, which has always distinguished Dave from his peers in UK rap, is hardly present on his newest album. And it doesn’t help that The Boy Who Plays the Harp is considerably less dynamic when it comes to production.

Future Brown feels overwhelmingly like a bunch of intriguing ideas left to drift off inconclusively.

There may be no surprises on Doggerel but, crucially, there’s no pandering, either. The band sounds at ease, even agreeable, as middle-aged rockers.

The music on Blue is always lovingly crafted, and the album’s lack of musical pretense makes for an enjoyable, if predictable listen.

With The Mountain, Heartless Bastards have shown that they have the tools and the talent to take at least tentative steps forward into a more ambitious and diverse sound. But it's surprising that they sound so introspective here when they could, and occasionally do, sound world-beating.

The misstep here is the addition of something altogether basic: Vocals.

They still have the riffs, but without the snap of a snare drum to keep things in line, the chiming guitars become repetitive and amorphous.

It's honest music from the noise-­pop couple, both of whom come into this project having broadened their sound within their own respective bands.

Mascis has written so many songs about the same needs and frustrations—his failures to communicate, to be understood, and ultimately accepted—that they can’t help but bleed together. Still, the album’s light touch and content disposition make it a very easy listen, especially when Mascis leans into tenderness.

Almost all of the songs on The English Riviera sound great, yet few of them really emotionally or physically involve the listener, and there's little to take away besides an appreciation of that effortlessly attractive sheen.

If Diarrhea Planet’s goal is just to be a memorable, messily great live band, they’re well on their way. But if they want their records to live on, they need to decide what they're trying to achieve, and figure out how to deliver it more effectively offstage.