She makes no apologies, feels no inadequacy. Over the course of the album, this near-hour spent in the presence of the people she loves, she is reminded that she is equal to any challenge which may befall her.

Nothing on Active Listening feels quite so urgent or alive as that one gem of a track [“The Eye”], but Empath set themselves a ludicrously high bar. The same destabilizing dopamine rush behind last year’s Liberating Guilt and Fear EP courses through this album.

Aside from the sheer invention, what’s most striking about Viewfinder is Eisenberg’s ability to crystallize their complex, nuanced thoughts about the limits of perception without creating new dogma in the process.

Here, Horsegirl learn how dazzling it is to instead pull back and feel the invisible touch of what was once there, a fizzy tingling on the palms and cushion of silence around the ears. That growth is the most memorable part of Horsegirl’s new album.

This is both the most diverse and most listenable of their three full-lengths, and yet it never seems like a compromise. It feels like the product of careful, thoughtful growth, bringing in new influences--bits of mid-1970s Fleetwood Mac, sparkling indie pop, even a few soul and gospel touches--while maintaining the group's core sound.

Hiatt’s candid emotions feel earned; her open-hearted melodies and punchy hooks play out like a series of unguarded moments.

A decent follow-up from a band who has already proven themselves capable of much, much more.

2004's Miss Machine and 2007's Ire Works offered an ever-broadening sound that kinda-sorta skirted crossover-friendliness, a sometimes awkward mash of traditional, melodic rock and hideous shrieking and bashing. Option Paralysis continues in that vein for better or worse.

The tracks feel like true collaborations rather than features. The energy exchange feels mutual. Sebenza feels like the future, now.

There are some obvious flaws. The uniformity of mood, melody, and texture means the album can drag, and while the spontaneity of the recordings is largely vindicated by the results, it also leaves some loose threads dangling. ... At her best, however, Power lives up to her name.

Nine Types of Light is unquestionably TV on the Radio's most patient, positive recording to date, taking its cues as much from Dear Science's serene ballads as its brassy workouts.

He’s strip-mined one thing he loves in order to drive another. In doing so, he’s found a wonderful, unexpected kind of combustion.

(a)spera is the sound of a musician accomplishing the challenges she has set herself, both musically and communicatively.

They’re effortlessly in sync, belying their limited experience collaborating with each other.

At times charming, oddly affecting, and certainly promising but understandably something less than life changing.

Pang is such a coherent musical statement that when something doesn’t fit, it stands out. Polachek restructured the album somewhat late, swapping out five songs; what’s left is a sweeping, delicately latticed album with a few odd pop songs. They’re not bad pop songs.

In a year of low-stakes disappointment for European pop, Overpowered is a triumph.

East of Eden, in that sense, isn't so far from Studio's West Coast: a masterful, hypnotic album that draws on a world of influences but is ultimately limited by none.

Kano doesn't just defy the sonic tradition of grime on Home Sweet Home, he defies the tidy boxes MCs are usually plopped in upon their arrival.

Panda Bear and Sonic Boom counter with the longevity of artists who have never compromised, and they give us the defiant Reset knowing that despair is a weapon in the hands of a present hell-bent on stamping out our souls.

In a humbler, warmer, more openhearted way, Reigning Sound have risen above themselves--as well as the garage-rock idiom that spawned them--while spiritually hewing true.

The four suites of music here sound incredible, capturing the grandeur, aggression, and power of their symphonic punk with perfect clarity. And it feels incredible, too, as it endures passages of oppressive darkness to step at least toward a new dawn.

There's a surface graininess that amplifies the corrosive qualities of the band's sound and the strep-throat rawness of Edkins' voice, but also serves to accentuate some of the more surprising elements in the mix.

Disturbing, complicated, and enthrallingly strange, The Mess We Made requires patience, and, ideally, an already established taste for Elliott's previous ambient output.

An epic album that speaks with grand gestures and a refined eloquence rare in young songwriters.

Volume II is like an unnecessary b-sides compilation.... Nonetheless, the album has its high points.

Just as Elliott Smith's "Needle in the Hay" was perfect for the suicide-attempt scene in The Royal Tenenbaums, any song on this album would complement a still-photo montage of a prolonged labor ending in a miscarriage.

It's a satisfying and often moving final chapter to Cash's life and career, one that rejects self-pity and remorse in favor of hopefulness and even celebration.