Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color is more of a refinement than a deviation for Brother Ali, even though there's one prominent change that could set off questions.

It's not even a requirement that you dive more than surface deep into a style before you borrow it. But Sold Out shows what a difference it can make when you hold yourself to a higher standard.

Thou are a blast even when Funck is digging into esoteric philosophy over the slowest riff you’ve ever heard, but it’s refreshing to hear them get real with themselves, jogging their music out of the enthralling but insular world they’ve created over the past 15-plus years.

Each track is fully realized, thoughtfully written, and prudently performed, rolled out with a steadiness that can become a little maddening after a handful of listens.

Organic and jubilant, it successfully weaves psych, world, rock, and folk traditions into something new and endlessly compelling.

Ultra is also Zomby’s most experimental record in ages.

At last, Young Widows sound less like a string of hyphenates and histories and more like their own demented, delightful selves.

The guests skillfully mold the originals into creations of their own, while still preserving some of the songs’ initial ideas.

It's tempting to call it one of the most messily brilliant things we'll see all year, but it can't, in good faith, be recommended to everyone: if the duo's buzzy neurosis was enough to drive some people nuts before, the raw jumping and nagging of Anxiety Always will sound to many like the shoddiest, most amusical sham to be held up as a masterpiece in many of our lives.

Like those first-wave rave producers, Arbez wants to have it all: to make listeners smile, shake their shit, and still walk away a little shaken by the music's intensity. Flashmob pulls off this near-impossible combo with more skill than even Vitalic's fans may have expected.

Stay Awake's neither a coda nor a collection of cast-offs or curios. In just over 10 minutes, the EP not only lays out five fresh TNV cuts worthy of any of their LPs, but throws a whole lot more of that "nuance" business all over the place.

Across the 40-minute album, Hunter emerges as a dexterous player and loose but imaginative composer. Rather than succumbing to the often corny tropes of new age music—mawkish melodies, pan flutes, chimes—she cleverly incorporates elements of contemporary R&B, pop, and jazz.

Estudando o Pagode is an impressive album, musically, conceptually, and lyrically, and the cast of musicians and singers Zé assembled delivers on his singular vision.

II is a perfectly balanced record, and its arrangements are so exact and delicate that it almost feels like one buzz of a doorbell or ring of a telephone could send the whole thing toppling over, splattering into useless bits.

The band's debut was kind of a crumpled, nicotine-smudged affair, but Atlanta feels brighter, less muddled, not polished but certainly tidier around the edges. Smith's voice remains a friendly, mid-range yawp-- emotionally precise if not always entirely on-key.

Blood Bank certainly dispels concerns that Vernon's accomplishment was somehow environmental--that "For Emma's" poetic circumstances, and not its contents, were responsible for its success.

The record’s best songs, like birth, feel hard-won and revelatory—journeys that might take place on a single physical plane, but expand psychically outward, broadening the spectrum of beauty, personhood, and existence.

Wild Loneliness is the natural endpoint of this long interrogation—the product of a band whose confidence in their own reason for being feels like a beacon.

With huge, ballooning vocals and a shit-kicking rhythm section, the record consistently threatens to pop its own feeble seams; by carefully shuffling away from their past outings, The Von Bondies have produced a booming sonic statement that's far more glam than garage, and a lot less "Detroit" than we've been trained to expect.

The Clearing feels lovingly erected, fashioned bit by bit.

The tape plays like a final installment, going out with a bang and saving some of the series' best for last.

Twenty-three-year-old Samia Finnerty’s debut album The Baby deals with “too much” in elegant ways, navigating the trappings of young adulthood with subtle, reflective songwriting and poetic lyrical beauty.

Implosion brings out the best in each artist by highlighting their differences: Martin’s music comes off heavier than ever, while Fiedler’s fidgety rhythms are all the more dynamic.

Most of these pieces have a lot going on, designed for listeners who take pleasure in guiding their ear through each successive layer.

On More Issues Than Vogue, Michelle's third album, the performer and musician delivers her most affecting, skillful, and innovative record yet.

He typically sounds like David Allan Grier with amyl nitrate in the air. Our man raps in an "ohmygawd this is sooo ridiculous" tone that can make you either think he is a jackass or a jester. My instincts say it's the latter.

There's an impressive coherence on Derdang Derdang, showing how well ABO has developed an original and guiding aesthetic.