Though the band still sticks faithfully to their trademark sci-fi surf gimmick, they've omitted the annoying science film samples, and actually show, for the first time in years, traces of creativity.

Lavender Networks is a step up on the “approachable” scale—even if it still has enough ideas for a dozen albums by a less adventurous artist. It’s a (relatively) digestible, catchy release that seems destined to invite more people into Marcloid’s digital dayglo world.

A few of the songs on this collection are recognizably "singles" in tone and form--"Ugly Man," "Wait Let's Go," "Always Flying," "Devil Again" all have at least three chords, run four minutes or less, and have "ba-ba-ba" choruses. But most of them head directly into that kinked-up corner of the song that repeatedly pulls at Dwyer's imagination, the spot where the song's narrative action swings shut and the groove hinges open.

Backed by locals like Highlife's Doug Shaw and the band Skeletons, An Letah follows 2010's Bubu King EP with a whiplash 14 minutes of electrified bubu that presage what will no doubt be a watermark year for Nabay.

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.

Get Evens is as quiet and pretty as its predecessor, but the effortless ease is gone, replaced by a sort of busy anxiety.

At 33 minutes, Power Chords is about twice as long as the typical Mike Krol record, but it’s also his tightest and most frenzied work yet.

MR COBRA solidifies her as an avant-garde curator—not only of sound, but of broader pop culture and camp touchstones that shape the public imagination of what a woman can be.

With Small Town Heroes, Segarra proves herself one of the most compelling stylists in a folk revival full of suspicious acts either too beholden to tradition or too uncritical to make much of it.

Instead of shoehorning references to celebrity into some tracks, she's borrowing elements and templates and simply focusing on quality control. The weird result is that, despite her flitting between personalities and personas, her music feels more like her own here than it did on her debut LP.

Even with its imposing length, Spirit Counsel is arguably the most accessible entry point into Moore’s boundless experimental canon.

If there’s a drawback to this psychic dredging, it’s a slightly limited emotional range. Crutchfield frames scenes vividly, yet we rarely feel the weight of the mutual devastation, the perverse thrill of love discarded.

Birds & Beasts doesn’t necessarily surprise, but it crystallizes this band’s essence, particularly as they find their footing after the shocking loss of Leib.

Unlike the meticulously pleasant Songs for Christmas, which more or less sounds exactly like what a casual fan (or detractor) might expect a Sufjan Stevens Christmas box set to sound like, the music inside Silver & Gold can be as downright strange as its accompanying accessories.

At its best, Wolf manages to make the inroads toward accessibility that Goblin wouldn’t and pulls it off without sacrificing too much of Tyler’s refreshing capriciousness.

On Jimmy Lee, Saadiq shout-sings, whispers, and croons with new abandon. It feels like a refutation of his old reserve, and it also represents a welcome stretch from Saadiq before he takes his sound all the way back to his beginnings.

Even though 4 has a greater emphasis on instrumental compositions that don't suffer much from the absence of Ejstes' vocals, it's a bit of a disappointment that they only show up in half the songs.

While the beauty doesn't flag in the second half, the forms do start to repeat, with "Edge" recapturing the wistful blur of "Wonder, Inc"; "Constant Apples" the regressing mirrors of "Goudanov". Even so, Sweat manages to glimpse some striking new vistas from within her familiar straits.

There’s a purism to Moody’s music, but it’s made of muddy waters (literally, on “Sunday Hotel”), dusty vinyl grooves and—if the Popeye's inner sleeve is to believed—greasy fingers.

Though they'd likely be the first to tell you how much they still have to learn, Cervantine's ravishing exploration of sound is another step towards mastery.

Certainly, some--even those who have found pleasure in its makers’ earlier work--will find it too severe, too unrelenting. But Kevin Martin has long made it his mission to go deep and dark, and Solitude goes deeper and darker than he has ever gone before.

True to form, the record hides moments of grace within an impenetrably violent landscape, capturing a rupture at the boundary of what is bearable. The songs gain intensity as the album progresses, leading the listener deep into a hell of the Body’s careful making.

Even if it were the desperate or cynical move some people have claimed it is, there's no denying that purging Edwards' old lyric folder has helped the band create its best album in a decade.

As a set of tracks for DJs to pick from, Rojus offers plenty of potential. As a front-to-back listening experience, it's almost paradise--but not quite the album that it wants to be.

Even at her most damaged, Hauff’s take on noise is nothing short of opulent, and it’s that alternatingly grating and sparkling attention to detail that makes Qualm so exciting. What might at first sound retro turns out to be simply timeless.

On Spell 31, they rework their signature layered spirituals into fleet grooves that shimmer with color and joy yet still channel pain and loss.

Where the ambient interludes on Pearl Mystic felt like necessary pauses for the band to catch their breath, on The Hum they serve a more crucial, connective quality, melting down their road-running rave-ups and molding them into "Mother Sky"-high odysseys and opium-den comedown ballads.

On Power, Lotic re-harnesses their production proficiency toward a trickier goal than what they’ve attempted in the past. In the center of their elaborate electronic constructions, they’ve staged their deeply human terrors and triumphs, and traced the way the power structures of the world flow around them.