There are albums born of a burning need to create and express, and there are albums that exist simply because the artist had the spare time and inclination to make them. Magic Sign never pretends to be anything other than the latter.

On those early records, like Soviet Kitsch, there was a bracing sense of raw possibility. Songs could swing from kooky anti-folk to cabaret to punk outbursts on a whim. Home, before and after, by contrast, sounds like the work of a seasoned professional. Every note is meticulous; every orchestral swell magnificently labored over.

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.

If it doesn’t achieve the long-promised outcome of “filler-free” Foals, Life Is Yours unexpectedly thrives when it reintegrates the studio trickery that used to weigh down previous side Bs.

Cloaked in reverb and atmospheric keys, it doesn’t quite bite, but it does gnaw. Even in his new role as free-jazz bandleader, Taylor’s work is strongest when left unresolved.

The self-produced Teeth Marks is a sharp and thoughtful distillation of these modern American small-town complexities. Religious hypocrisy, financial ruin, systemic addiction, ruinous love, devotion so intense it begins to burn like hatred: Goodman finds space for it all in these 11 tracks, which glide between breathtaking a cappella eulogies and dive-bar R&B, between gnarled rock and plaintive ballads.

It’s as if the goal of Honestly, Nevermind is anonymity—inoffensively, sort of fun music that simmers in the background all summer and beyond.

The best moments on Up and Away reinforce what’s missing in the worst ones.

On Farm to Table, he’s saying many of the same things he said on Live Forever, but more with his chest, with his feet planted even further apart, his gaze more level with ours.

Cola haven’t reinvented the wheel, but these subtle experiments suggest they still have boundaries to push.

On In Amber, Butler may have found a handful more peaks and his share of valleys, but few can emerge from the shadow of what came before.

The collision between acoustic instrumentation and crackerjack production makes for a lush and widescreen experience.

While he’s rarely shied away from humor, on his new album DEATHFAME, he balances broad comedy with pointed satire, providing direct political address with a looseness that keeps it all from sounding like mere cant.

Halvorson is an inventive and generous arranger, organizing Amaryllis in such a way that it never feels like a mere vehicle for dazzling solos, though there are plenty of those. She has a painterly approach to sonority, attuned to all the rich colors at the ensemble’s disposal.

Belladonna removes the buttress of Amaryllis’s horns and rhythm section. At times, the guitar and string quartet move like a single amorphous organism, untethered from any particular pulse. At others, one voice will offer a steady ostinato as a home base for the others to wander away from and return to at will.

True to its title, Magic Pony Ride embraces Paradinas’ sugary side. Synths froth and squeak. Kitschy piano riffs ascend to euphoric heights. ... The lower end of these mixes feels less inspired.

Full of baloney The Versions isn’t. But its muted—and sometimes rather predictable—approach only occasionally gets close to capturing the erratic wonder of Neneh Cherry in full flight.

While tracks like “Credence (Ash in the Winds of Reason)” and “Syndicate II” fit snugly into the band’s previous guitar-driven repertoire (not to mention this current era of peak post-punk), Deliluh are the rare band that can summon the menacing propulsion and imagistic density of the Fall without resorting to Mark E. Smith pantomime-uh.

Two years after WOMB, the graves EP is firmly rooted in the same subtle reconfiguration that comes with each new Purity Ring release. Some songs even sound outright regressive, which isn’t always bad.

The run of “Milkweed,” “Detritivore,” and “Aqaba” is quintessential Shearwater in both their titles and the tendency to let the middle of their albums coast by like a warm, welcome breeze.

This is the Joyce Manor album for Joyce Manor fans—a loving, uncynical refinement of the band’s best.

You Can’t Kill Me is at its best when it offers surprising, welcome wrinkles to Shake’s sound.

These 11 songs may be meant to chronicle a pointedly personal inner voyage, yet he’s wound up with a warm, collaborative record that feels like a balm for fear and loneliness.

Twelve Carat Toothache, is accordingly slick, streamlined, and a little less vulgar and ostentatious than his earlier work—a sign that Malone is taking himself more seriously, for better or worse.

Rather than holding up a torch, Heart Under adjusts your eyes to the pitch black.

Like Scott-Heron’s last classic, This Is Brian Jackson is a salient reminder that great artists, no matter where they are on their journey, can rediscover themselves.

On Nothing to Declare, DJ Haram challenges Moor Mother with more biting beats, and the rapper responds with a looseness that’s new to her music. Her prophetic delivery retains all its spoken-word eloquence, and she peppers her lyrics with incisive history lessons that highlight America and Europe’s historical pillaging of Black culture. The music is anchored by a mix of frenetic goblet drums and machine percussion, swollen bass, and gristly streaks of noise.

Poliça now appear in search of a middle ground that combines their visceral songwriting with Madness’ inventive textures. At their best, these songs offer hints of that forward trajectory.