Even at its most sophisticated, Seek Shelter retains Iceage’s restless spirit.

NOW bleeds with the awareness that tomorrow is never guaranteed.

In his synthesis of varied styles, Hayashi’s compositions feel less genre-defying and more genre-unifying.

While if i could make it go quiet is an occasionally uneven listen, it’s a strong declaration of conviction. Although Ulven is still fine-tuning her approach, her eagerness to explore hints at promising potential.

It’s impossible to fully grasp the album’s narrative arc without the aid of a written guide—detailed promotional materials, for instance, or any of the highly personal interviews Shabason has given. Without such thematic grounding, The Fellowship still delivers rich and emotionally engaging ambient-jazz, but some of the more abrasive passages (“13–15,” “Escape from North York”) wind up feeling more like fragmented narrative transitions than satisfying compositions.

Like all GBV albums, it’s slipshod and freewheeling. ... Also like GBV albums, there are bright spots, and they make dismissing the band harder than it should be.

By paring down and zooming in, it’s the most wide awake their living music has felt in years.

This might be her least distinguished set of songs to date, relying too heavily on cliché (“I’m flying without even trying”) and vague, pat sentiment (“Sometimes it doesn’t come together ’til it breaks”).

The original Superwolf was the product of two loners delighting in how easily those solitudes intertwined. Superwolves’ success, then, is unimaginable without the 16-year hiatus between albums. Both artists needed to wander, to lose themselves, to become strangers again—even if only in their artistic partnership—so they could come back together and find that the rearranged pieces somehow still fit.

The beats are decadent, but so too are the liberties she takes as an independent artist beholden to nothing but her own satisfaction.

At its core, the LP is a straight-up flex, the work of an artist who has learned to distill his many influences and experiments into a coherent, singular vision, and Vynehall himself is the protagonist of this particular tale.

The ceaseless lull of her voice accounts for the record’s ambient feel, but it also makes She Walks in Beauty seem like an actual poetry reading that drags on for a quarter hour too long.

Like all of Teenage Fanclub’s albums, Endless Arcade reveals itself slowly, and much of the action takes place below the surface.

Robinson sings with a newfound clarity on Nurture, writing directly about his struggles and the ecstatic realizations that have come from hard times.

For anyone searching for an entry point, it’s a fun introduction to the fast-paced instrumentals, unpredictable flows, and demented punchlines synyonmous with Detroit and Flint.

Bills & Aches & Blues is a frequently impressive assemblage of extraordinary artists running amok through a trove of extraordinary songs, with occasionally uneven results.

The math-rock drums and hard-edged guitars that balance the band’s pop instincts have been mostly smoothed out; the blaring brass of some of their most anthemic songs is no more. At their best, Field Music take risks. Flat White Moon is a record that too often plays it safe.

The best and most essential part is the fifth disc: Townshend’s solo demos, scratchy and awkward, like a novelty private press album by someone with far too many ideas to capture on tape, on his own. The good news is that it all holds up. Minus the eternal “I Can See for Miles,” none of these songs found a permanent home on classic rock radio and so they belong entirely to this album, unburdened by decades of overplay.

It’s the breeziest and most melodically generous of the trio’s reunion efforts, even flirting with power-pop on the compulsively hummable “And Me.”

“Well Rested,” like the rest of Civilisation II, meditates not on human decline as much as the fables and myths we create in order to adjust to it. KKB are as inquiring and self-aware as ever—only now, their eyes are trained on the future.

Nothing is off limits, yet everything works within the context of the album, as rousay unearths modes of expression that make it hard to remember a time when ambient music sounded any differently. Through it all, rousay somehow makes this progression feel completely natural.

Pale Horse Rider was recorded out in the Mojave, and sounds like it—this is patient, languidly paced music, full of casual saloon-piano rolls and shooting-star pedal-steel sweeps (courtesy of Tyler Nuffer). But it’s a desert record where the glow of big-city lights can still be felt in the distance at night and the ominous hum of power lines infuses the air.

What once was exciting is now a bit boring, and it’s hard to say exactly why. Stott is still a wonderful sound technician of unerring good taste, but something seems to go slack at the center of Never the Right Time.

Most obviously changed is her voice, which has strengthened and deepened over the years. Her choruses are a bit less breathy, and she glides into belting without sounding strained. There are micro-changes in inflection.

Like Ball, Davisson seems like a humble man attuned to something far beyond his station, and they share with Bowles and MacKay a belief that a homespun melody or a gently plucked theme or even just two instruments ringing out together might give anyone in earshot a glimpse of God. That’s an awful lot for any album to hold, and at times the music bows under such weight, but Keys never sacrifices its life-size scale nor its humility.

There was already a disarming openness to epic, and the best covers find new horizons in these songs still.

If the remixers embrace McCartney III’s lawless ethos, the cover renditions here are faithful to Macca’s fundamental tunefulness. Almost too faithful: You’d hope Josh Homme would add some QOTSA-sized muscle to a bluesy chugger like “Lavatory Lil,” but his take is actually more restrained than the original. Still, there’s a great deal of fun to be had in hearing Phoebe Bridgers make “Seize the Day” her own.

So while Violence Unimagined ranks as a top tier late-era Cannibal Corpse record, its triumphs are somewhat understated. It features plenty of impressive turns from drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz and some particularly inspired songs from guitarist Rob Barrett (“Murderous Rampage,” “Inhumane Harvest”). It is also at least their third studio album that feels like a conscious restart.