What’s left is an album with an excess of initiative but not enough follow-through, a record that takes on so much it risks burning out. In the end, the little girl at the center of the album gets swallowed by her own vision.

While Preoccupations’ message remains honest and earnest, it doesn’t create enough friction to cause a spark.

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.

Spirituals is peppered with clunky, too-literal lyrics that disrupt the spell cast by the music’s emotion. But by the end, we get a glimpse of the next phase of Santigold’s artistry—a project not bound by genre, form, physicality, or language.

Even at their most emphatic, Au Suisse’s songs don’t so much explode as unfurl—gracefully, regally, like pennants announcing the anointed heirs to a long tradition of lush, emotive synth-pop: a little dandyish, at times even a little absurd, but still dazzling in their silken finery.

Someday is Today mostly succeeds in its paeans to frostbitten numbness, its flatness as wistful as the rolling plains and as familiar as the freezer aisle.

On a technical level, these songs offer the best performances of Sampa’s career, but in terms of style and emotion, they fall short. Despite the homecoming mood, Sampa often sounds distant, her rhymes functional and indistinct.

Dimensional Bleed introduces a bit more subtlety than Death Spells, with bookend tracks “Hexsewn” and “Blood Memory” in particular making use of minimalistic sound design that goes far beyond “rock band adds synths” stereotypes. These quieter moments are Holy Fawn’s most unpredictable.

Building in the steps of Black women and their sonic architecture, Natural Brown Prom Queen thrives on improvisation, daring lyricism, and technical ingenuity.

This time around, she takes on more sinister hues and foreboding melodies. It’s a gripping transformation, one that illustrates the full range of her gifts as a composer, and reveals a darker side of her era-blending music.

In its weaker moments, My Boy can feel like a collection of signifiers in search of meaning. ... Williams is at his best when he’s being gestural, as opposed to literal.

How Do You Burn? boasts a mixtape-like eclecticism, communal bonhomie, and psychedelic texture that feel untethered to the Whigs’ past playbooks.

On Yungblud, Harrison leans almost exclusively into saccharine pop-rock, making this his most monotonous and least distinctive record.

On Jennifer B, plot twists play out like a delicious art school scandal. Just when you think these orchestra enfant terribles will stick to their notation books, Jockstrap scurry to the bridge and chuck every page into the Thames.

Despite showcasing some of Eminem’s stylistic growing pains, Curtain Call 2 isn’t completely lined with duds.

He stays in the background for most of God Did’s 18 tracks—but once in a while, he finally tiptoes out of his usual templates. It’s not enough to salvage a bogged-down album, but coming from him, even a little experimentation is surprising.

Even though the 3xLP/2xCD set jumps backward and forward in Stereolab’s timeline, the result is a fairly comprehensive portrait of their development from their initial motorik nihilist assault to the pop molecules of their later work.

Keep On Smiling’s glossy veneer never disguises its particle-board center.

Living Torch is a fitting and crucial next step, as Malone fulfills and expands the promise of her self-made early works.

While Free Company and Wayfinder were rife with wry one-liners and observations to offset the otherwise emotionally knotty writing, Art Moore is a bruising and remorseful record that aches without reservation.

The album may not shock the singer’s die-hard fans, but Broken Gargoyles is a moving, painful listen and an ideal access point for the uninitiated.

All of these moments lurch through time without any thought of build or denouement—no tension, no release, no narrative. Muse parade their influences while giving us all comical winks.

Drillmatic is plagued by the tracklist bloat typical of the streaming era. Neither fun nor profound, the album is almost impressive in the sense of collecting so much talent to create something so mediocre.

The music on Garden Gaia is inspired by the idea of Earth as a self-regulating system, and it’s heartening in that context to hear Weber let his machines fall into disrepair. But Garden Gaia sounds best when they’re swallowed up entirely.

Swapping their detached sneers for a warm, heartfelt tone, he gives his strongest vocal performance to date. As Forsyth ventures into new territory, he’s found a way to bring his influences along for the ride.

A solid, spunky-yet-reflective country record told squarely from the teenage perspective.

Silversun Pickups tap into a well of quarantine-bound inspiration that results in some of their most varied and carefree songs in over a decade, even if the majority overstay their welcome.

With Let’s Turn It Into Sound, Smith turns her music upside down, shakes out her assumptions, and lets the pieces fall where they may, all in the interest of finding new connections between things that were never meant to go together. It’s a leap into the unknown, and her excitement is infectious.