Even with this shared billing, Van Etten remains the album’s undeniable highlight, though she explores a range of vocal approaches outside her trademark wail.

Her boozy, morning-after croon is still gorgeous, but now there’s elements of Puerto Rican bomba and salsa, son cubano, doo-wop, and even the spoken-word poetry of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe she haunted as a teen. Her band has gone through a variety of lineups, but this one feels like a clean slate.

Hopelessness has always been a throughline in Staples work but Prima Donna puts a finer point on that feeling, both in its songs and interstitial spoken word bits.

Despite Haliechuk and Falco’s bombastic concept, Dose Your Dreams functions similar to the recent hip-hop blockbusters that share its 82-minute length, best enjoyed in chunks or humming in the background between the singles.

It's the humblest and most powerful wish I've heard on a record all year.

It’s clear that the pleasure isn’t in the novelty of these two forces aligning. The pleasure is in the groove, in the quiet confidence of Liv.e and Riggins making such a curious record, in the way it sneaks up on you and commands your attention.

Thoughtful, quiet moments like that ["What Can We Do," "Me & You & Jackie Mittoo," and "Your Theme"] work but, this being Superchunk, the uptempo tracks still hit hardest.

Lifeforce is an album in the truest sense, with each song blending into the next for continuous listening. Mostly low- to mid-tempo, the band skillfully integrates bleak and radiant tones, leading to an impressive nine-track suite of ambient, spoken-word and grime-infused compositions.

Both might be more about its listener than its creator. If by the end we still don’t know exactly who Bill Nace is, we certainly have a better idea of how much he can do.

Hospice answers silliness with solemnity, jitters with nerve. Their band name simply describes their music: a delicately branching instrument of force.

From start to finish, she leads these songs of resilience and long-term redemption with a minister’s conviction. The dozen-plus musicians around her—including her sister Yvonne and Helm’s daughter, Amy—became her de facto choir. Carry Me Home is a jubilant lesson in living history.

Mostly, Like the River Loves the Sea succeeds in elevating Shelley’s ruminations on “the ground I am bound to” and “the tender things around me” to matters of universal resonance.

A streamlined product that die-hards can justly revel in.

Loud, mean, and complicated, this six-piece is an articulate goliath, capable of drowning out Gira in waves before disappearing into pools of silence without warning. Each piece of this unit deserves mention.

At its best, 3.15.20 Trojan horses some of that terror into happy surroundings. ... Glover is not always successful at adding dimension to these songs.

A Color of the Sky wears its derivative textures as a superhero might don a form-fitting costume, transforming tales of creative defeat into high-definition triumphs.

If the results of Lifetime’s solo writing process are mixed, de Casier’s work behind the boards is wall-to-wall dazzling, from the extraterrestrial rave stabs that pan across the stereo field on “Seasons” to the mournful cyborg whose voice echoes her own on “December.”

Konnichiwa is as nakedly vulnerable Skepta has ever been, and it represents a tantalizingly wide-open door for grime. It’ll be our job as listeners to step through and discover what we’ve been missing.

The intended arc from invitation toward aggression occssionally scans more as zigs and zags between a few distinct suites. Still, the separate moments are astounding, evidence of a musician who has managed to remain inquisitive even as he’s established his signature.

A solid, riff-driven rock record that may disappoint those still awaiting Bee Thousand II, though it offers plenty of treats to those who are willing to approach it with open ears.

Tthese four songs (plus a live rendition of "Tell Me", from the Tramp era) are messier things that fit the unclean nature of long-term severance.

This is instrumental music that embraces its undying capacity for uplift, that shakes off distinctions between bathos and pathos, between mawkish and grave, as it blasts upward.

Even in this scattershot form, what’s remarkable about this edition of Switched On is how Stereolab was able to maintain such consistency even as they kept cranking out albums and EPs, enduring the death of singer Mary Hansen in 2002 and the dissolution of Gane and Sadier’s romantic partnership.

The band’s daring pays off when vocalist Julian Cashwan Pratt breaks his voice wide open on tracks that dig into sounds that are firsts for the band, and consummate what were previously flirtations with dance music.

The album’s improbable feat is that, even with its inherent tragedy, Cotton Crown is somehow an even breezier, more agreeable listen. It’s not often that sorrow goes down so easily.

on Tempest, his latest album, Bob Dylan mostly sounds insane. That volatility can yield tremendous rewards-- on the ferocious "Pay in Blood", it clarifies his nihilism, his cruelty-- but it can also be distractingly unruly, inching toward self-mockery, all wild undulation and hairball-retch. Which would be okay-- embraced, even!-- if the rest of Tempest didn't feel so rote.

As usual, the feeling of her vocals is more compelling than its literal meaning. These opening songs are strong enough. .... However, by the time we get to these songs towards the end of the album, the fatigue of listening to familiar riffs and howls starts to set in. Playing Favorites is at its best right in the middle.

What Press Color does is distill our collective excitement and unceasing wonder at a scene that’s almost four decades old.