Jim O’Rourke’s soundtrack is perfectly calibrated to this unforgiving space squashed between parched fields and blown-out sky. His palette—detuned piano, watery vibraphone, and a muted, amorphous shimmer that might be harmonium or synthesizer—matches the film’s dusty tones of beige and pewter and mobile-home brown.

Cosentino sounds strongest when she gives herself permission to veer from her influences and find her own voice.

Georgia’s willingness to experiment is promising, but it’s unfortunate that Euphoric takes such a predominantly safe journey. As on Seeking Thrills, some songs also succumb to vague lyrics that resemble placeholders.

It’s tempting to speculate that there are more versions like that out there, just waiting to be discovered. Blackbox Life Recorder, the EP, might seem relatively modest, but the black box that is Aphex Twin’s extended universe remains delightfully unfathomable.

The Loveliest Time is a solid counterpart to its sister album, trading quiet, introspective power for brassy, headlong joy.

Coltrane reaches at once into the future and the place where music began. He touches the primeval and follows along with the changes.

For some reason—fear of boring his fans, obedience to the preferences of the streaming services, a career focused on club bangers—Malone won’t let these songs breathe. The result is an album that’s overstuffed and undercooked.

Constantly varied yet consistent to her core sound, Love Hallucination is Lanza’s most fleshed-out album to date. She simply sounds more comfortable luxuriating in it all.

Mitchell’s voice is gorgeous and rich throughout, a piece of high-pile cotton velvet warmed in the daylight. She renders “Both Sides Now” with the wisdom of survival, the “up and down” having still somehow delivered her here. But too often, her patient approach is swallowed by the tide of well-intentioned boosters, associates who make Mitchell feel like little more than an honorary guest at her own party.

All he has to back himself up is the production. Yet even that is so safe. He waters down the cutting-edge sounds of the past and, in the process, flattens his Southerness to the point that he feels like he’s from nowhere.

The pirate-radio conceit simultaneously buoys and constrains an album bursting with ideas. Its themes help rapid-fire changes in direction cohere, but fully fleshed-out tracks sit awkwardly within a headlong spin across the radio dial.

None of these songs sound like demos or leftovers, but Flying High doesn’t reach for the stars, either. This is an exhibition bout for the MCs—the pairings are solid but unsurprising—and, like most Alchemist solo projects, it concludes with instrumental versions of each song.

It [Mike Dean's "The Lure"], too, deserved a better show, and sets the tone for the songs to come, all sexual synth tracks that deploy dramatic minor chords to hint at a seamy undertone.

It’s the textbook definition of a low-stakes mid-career rap album, a place for one of the genre’s icons to show he’s still in decent fighting shape.

A fresh sense of discovery also suffuses I Am Not There Anymore’s more straightforward songs.

It’s a remarkably assured statement of purpose.

Steeped in the careening energy of surf-rock and mid-’60s Jazzmaster tones but open to any stylistic fancy that crosses Falcon Bitch and Gumball’s radar, When Horses Would Run is an unusually raucous and idea-stuffed debut.

The result is some of the sharpest, most clear-eyed songwriting to date. Despite the Day-Glo exterior, Pure Music largely operates in a lyrical mode born out of the group’s time as a more conventional guitar-driven project.

True to form, the other Kens on the soundtrack contribute nothing—doze through Dominic Fike’s noodly, acoustic “Hey Blondie,” which exists halfway between “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” and “Hey Soul Sister,” and the Kid Laroi’s howling emo-trap ballad “Forever & Again.” But the girls often can’t prove they’re worthy of main character status either.

Albarn plays the part of heartbroken confessor, but these meticulously polished songs conjure something more real than anguish: the dulling of losses, the warm aura of midlife decline, and the fading belief, with advancing years, that crisis serves to raise the curtain on your next act.

They say you have to see egg punk live to really get it. But the goofy, revved-up glory of Super Snõõper comes pretty close.

At its best, i care so much that i dont care at all captures the ecstatic, uncomfortable intensity of the joy and turmoil of being young. And if it ever feels awkward or fumbling, well, that’s an essential part of being a teenager too.

Classic rock is a genre that’s endured through its mythology. With Western Cum, Cory Hanson gives us some new myths to believe in.

Eye on the Bat shows up unglamorously, and it’s this candor and humanity that proves most charming, a dispatch from love’s treacherous backroads.

Leray boasted about introducing the younger generation to artists like Busta Rhymes through her use of samples. That’s a nice idea—introducing people to other music through her samples—but that’s basically the only idea she brings to COI.

He delivers these lines like a seasoned storyteller, reminding himself of the timeless feelings that drive us to keep the music playing, whether it’s old or new.

Long-time collaborator JAE5 is absent from the writing credits, eschewing his usual anchor role, but the album still boasts a remarkably consistent sound, thanks to keen interplay from the likes of TSB, iO, and Levi Lennox.

Combining post-punk’s propulsive rhythms with progressive rock’s winding melodies, Lifeguard channel the verve and manic energy of making art with like-minded peers and the rush of sharing your bespoke musical world.