HTRK are at their most vulnerable here, sounding in desperate need of sating desires before they are paralyzed by listlessness and disappointment.

Threads makes an admirable case for the continued survival of “L.A” as synecdoche and pension plan. The remakes comprise the album’s least compelling section.

It settles for the safe and familiar. Throw it back.

This band knows how to break new ground, yet they sound as though they’re trying to summon songs that will miraculously slot in with their old material. It’s a balancing act that’s holding them back.

On her elegant and complex fifth album, Lana Del Rey sings exquisitely of freedom and transformation and the wreckage of being alive. It establishes her as one of America’s greatest living songwriters.

Spontaneity is a live band’s great asset, and that’s hard to convey in a recording studio, but the record is endearing and absorbing even when it stumbles.

The lyrics’ pastiche of observations and fleeting memories isn’t always clear enough to be emotionally resonant, to cause you to ponder their meaning after the song stops playing. Instead, the appeal is in the temporary pleasure of listening. There is an unhurried joy in these arrangements.

9th Wonder evolves with Rapsody here, perhaps out of necessity, as her raps continue to expand in force and scope. Alongside Eric G, Nottz, and Khrysis, the other in-house producers at his label, Wonder assists her in reaching new places.

The album has a telepathic quality to it, like Sandy Denny working with Richard Thompson and John Wood on The North Star Grassman and the Raven, or Elliott Smith mind-melding with Rob Schnapf and Tom Rothrock for Either/Or. Lay’s lyrics find depth and meaning in everyday moments.

How To Live uncovers an internal landscape just as wide open, much easier to get to, and even harder to escape from.

A Distant Call is an album with depth of production, more deliberate songwriting, and a commitment to style.

Though uneven, Lover is a bright, fun album with great emotional honesty.

Even the prettiest BROCKHAMPTON songs can feel cramped, but many of these songs, though each endowed with their little moments, are disorganized or inefficient.

The 2004 session at Maida Vale favors songs from 2007’s Excellent Italian Greyhound; there are hints at that record’s more extemporaneous approach here. ... The second session, recorded with a live studio audience shortly after Peel’s untimely death, feels like a funeral procession cut with an air of irony. ... As far as Shellac songs go, “The End of Radio” is a postmodern masterwork, balancing Albini’s nihilism with an evergreen critique of the centrality of mass media.

Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire gleefully hits Efil4zaggin levels of expletives—his lyrics have always offered savvy political commentary and catharsis for those prepared to hear it.

If previous Blanck Mass albums were each a step out from the shadow of Fuck Buttons, Animated Violence Mild shows that he’s outgrown the comparison altogether.

The most enjoyable moments feel like controlled chaos. Redd’s songs used to be looser and more free-flowing. He does at least sound more composed. That’s to his credit as a person but it’s not to his advantage as an artist.

The Durk-Meek Mill team-up “Bougie” lacks chemistry. Sleazy sex jam “Extravagant” comes close, but it’s held back by Nicki Minaj’s ill-suited bombastic verse and a few laughable Durk one-liners. Culling these missteps would have helped the tape’s batting average, but they can’t mask Durk’s undeniable strengths.

The uneven second half of Love’s Last Chance fails to match the charms of the first. But by trimming the guest list and writing lyrics inspired by personal experience, McFerrin has found a clearer sense of purpose.

Despite all the collaborations on So Much Fun, the album is about Young Thug. He might not mystify as he did in the early stages of his career, when he was stumbling into new flows and deliveries at an inhuman pace, but now he’s able to wield the madness with ease, satisfying in many modes.

In many ways, Thrashing Thru The Passion is so alive and elated that, if not for Hold Steady’s well-documented track record, it could be mistaken for the work of a band just hitting its peak.

Even if tracks like “Can I Go On” or “RUINS” don’t manifest themselves as solidly as some of the others, they’re still interesting, well-constructed, complete thoughts. The Center Won’t Hold is a Sleater-Kinney record not only because their name is on the cover, but because all of the elements you first fell in love with are still here.

It can sometimes seem as though Friendly Fires are playing catch up for a post-EDM scene that largely sprung up in their absence. The cooing vocals and build-up/drop patterns grow a little tiring across the album despite their careful production, because they’re working in well-trodden territory in a post-Flume landscape. But there is a winning warmth to their music.

Because of its indistinct nature, Equivalents feels infinitely deep, with details left undiscovered even after repeat listens. It is easy to get lost in its doldrums, and can sometimes feel inconspicuous to a fault.

As the Gizzard’s two releases this year respectively prove, they’re not afraid to push their sound to its most playful and punishing extremes. But it’s always been more thrilling to hear them excavate the uncharted territory in between.

Lilitri’s dedication to concision and coherence doesn’t come at the expense of subtle, sharp songwriting.

NF also shares Eminem’s shrillness and distorted sense of volume, rapping like he’s putting on the world’s loudest Punch and Judy show. He spends much of The Search darting in and out of an overbearing rappity-rap snarl-yell that can cut right through you if you don’t relate to his roiling anger.

Mae’s Jack White-produced 2017 album Forever and Then Some had a hard-rocking veneer, but Other Girls (still under White’s label Third Man Records, this time produced by Dave Cobb) invites more natural light into the mix.