My issue with Copia-- the thing that keeps this record from greatness-- is Cooper's approach to piano.

The Serpent & the Sphere reveals a familiar Agalloch that you’ve never quite heard--evermore patient, risky and, mostly, free of fault.

For every track where Barbieri pushes her sound in new directions, there are others where she simply refines it.

Where experimental music often favors gnarly harmonies and knotty melodies, Moran’s approach is more subtle. Moves in the Field shows us that technique doesn’t need to be showy or daring—without sacrificing rigor or heft, it can also be tender.

Somehow, The Worse Things Get is Case’s tightest record and also her strangest. With its off-kilter arrangements and eccentric turns of phrase, it’s a world unto itself.

Crucial parts of the album don't sound as intriguing today as they once did-- namely, all of the voices.... On the other hand, the rhythm tracks still kick ass 10 ways to Sunday.

In the past, Rossen has tended toward cryptic minimalism, but emotional honesty suits him. The warmth of his voice counterbalances the darker moments he recounts.

he Art of Loving reminds me of Leslie Feist’s exemplary pivot to coffeeshop pop and lounge jazz on her albums Let It Die and The Reminder, but Feist also had her wild youth as a Broken Social Scenester behind her by then. Dean’s meticulous replicas are nearly impeccable; it’s high time she starts throwing some paint around.

Burn Your Fire for No Witness conjures the past without ever imitating it, swirling its influences into something intimate, impressionistic and new.

The production on the album is sumptuous and varying. A record daring enough to produce the buzzing “Bartier Cardi,” the R&B-infused “Ring,” and the quiet prowler “Thru Your Phone,” Invasion of Privacy never shrinks away from a potential risk, delivering hugely satisfying payoffs.

The Line Is a Curve functions as a therapeutic exercise in resilience and repetition.

Love Is Not Enough is never not invigorating (save for “Beyond Repair”), but its more vicious songs are such refreshing evidence of Converge’s vitality that every departure from that energy feels like a pulled punch.

Singularity is ultimately grounded in the personal, not the cosmic, which is what makes this head music so rich.

Her early folk tendencies and pop structures served a similar purpose, a means to explore the off-kilter rhythms and ambient melodies that lulled her into a trance as a child, pulling us in along with her. Halo suggests a self-realization that is often breathtaking.

The second Bangs & Works is a marked improvement over its predecessor.

It’s substantive enough to warrant its extended genesis and boost Sleep’s legacy, not just reaffirm it.

Here he and Godrich have perfected a sound of their own, one that doesn’t take Radiohead’s achievements as its primary unit of measurement.

Where Malkmus’ solo work has sometimes walked the fine line between too detached or too self-satisfied, the record cartwheels over it with the assurance of an artist who’s correctly assumed that so long as he’s enjoying himself enough, others will too.

There is a unique magic to the sounds of the Sahara. Imidiwan captures that magic with skillful grace.

Winsomely balancing frivolity and gravity, the Decemberists assemble an oddball menagerie of the usual rogues and rascals, soldiers and criminals, lovers and baby butchers-- but they've got a lot more tricks up their sleeves than previous albums had hinted.

The officially released version of Extraordinary Machine remains a decent-to-good album, one that showcases Apple's considerable vocal and key-pounding talents.... The shame of it all is that Apple, after six years of silence, could've made a more definitive, progressive statement rather than something familiar and similar-- and we've got the bootlegs to prove it.

Black to the Future is highly accessible, politically engaged jazz that’s more focused on communication than individual experimentation.

More often than not, All Nerve is a satisfying listen because it lets the Breeders dig into their reasons for being drawn back into each other’s orbit--including the left-of-center hooks, the withering poetics, and the shared prickliness toward meeting outside expectations.

The lyrics are wrung out with the same shaved-down discipline as the music, where nothing ever topples over into over-wrought emoting. Despite this rigid adherence to restraint, much of this material proves to be emotionally affecting.

Paradise may forever be lost, but this elegant elegy is worth many returns.

If in places the album feels somewhat transitory—a sequel to Debris, rather than a new statement in its own right—it lands with a grace and power that’s hard to deny.

Throughout Sometimes, Forever, she and Lopatin expand on the ’90s palette that has characterized previous Soccer Mommy releases. Bolstering the lingering imprints of Liz Phair, Sheryl Crow, and Sleater-Kinney is a healthy dose of Loveless worship: glide guitars and tendrils of haze.

This vulnerability World Wide Whack puts on display is truly affecting, but for a convention-busting artist as Whack, her directness feels strikingly ordinary.