Hecker’s music is not easy, but it is worthwhile.

It’s a solid study of a genius after he’d peaked creatively, but it doesn’t transcend that mission. There are some gems, yes, but we already knew about those. Too few are the diamonds in the rough.

His candor can sometimes obscure this essential fact, but his forthrightness underscores the emotional clarity of Reunions.

An undeniably sad record, but one of understated beauty: a lonely, faithful votive flickering brightly against the odds.

For these 53 minutes, they also offer a barrage of the unexpected, relighting doom from the strangest corners.

Caprisongs is the sound of twigs in the driver’s seat as she traverses her own curiosities and instincts; there is no man looming over the music, no weighty public narrative dictating its terrain. It is intrepid and light, the image of a woman attuned to planetary alignments but casting her own fate.

Strange Burden is meticulous and crackling—a concise, gripping record that sparks and sizzles like a kinked spike of lightning.

Megafaun may be their most immediately ingratiating, rewarding LP yet, as well-suited for a night strapped into headphones as it is a lazy Sunday morning, dancing around the bedroom, munching casually on a pasta breakfast.

The directness with which it speaks to its audience makes it easy to imagine Celebration inspiring a lot of its younger listeners to start a band. For anyone else, it’s just an inspiring testament to indie rock’s continued vitality.

Chemical Warfare is a rap version of Speilberg's Minority Report; it draws upon a gritty underground past while embracing more modern craftsmanship, where new smooth edges are balanced by the felt-authenticity of its caliginous vision.

Sodium is liable to leave you just as drained as its creator, but it’s the sort of exhaustion that feels valorous and victorious. After all, losing your voice is a small price to pay for saving your sanity.

Kenny Dennis is definitely a type, but he's a type that feels real enough to want to hang out with, even during his downer moments.

For all their wiry energy and staccato sloganeering, Shopping have always embraced pop melody and absurdist humor, and All or Nothing’s more polished production pushes those qualities to the fore.

The cleverness, technical mastery and ping-pong stereo effects are all there in spades, but this time they're all much more mellow than you'd think. Listen right and you'll hardly notice them, because you'll be wrapped up by the thing I initially completely missed-- some of these tracks are just plain lovely as songs.

Woo is more or less an extension of--and improvement on--the ideas explored on Field-Pickering's debut, 2010's Cool Water.

If you listen to it too many times you might forget it’s on; it blends into the background easily. But the mood it conjures is surprisingly rich. The album plays out like a gorgeous day at the end of the summer and the bittersweet calm that follows as the weather gets cooler.

On We Are Always Alone, Portrayal of Guilt find a new level of confidence to express the pointlessness of existence. After all, what you consider to be “mood music” depends on whether you’re seeking counterprogramming or a chance to lean into the negative energy outside.

Ultimately, the album’s heady diversity originates in Hval’s malleable voice, which alters style, approach, timber, and tone from one measure to the next.

Cruise Your Illusion holds its ground, but there are sociological elements to Milk Music's story that make the experience of the record even more fun.

The Gossip sound best when flowing through lo-fi constraints: when they don’t have a hi-hat, and the down-tuned guitar is missing string.

You Will Never Be One of Us will live up to the expectations of anyone who’s experienced a Nails album before.

Musically, it feels like the first St. Vincent album since Marry Me presented without a unifying aesthetic: at various points, Clark incorporates Bond theme melodrama, Steely Dan-style prog, bouncy art pop and lechy industrial rock, making for what is arguably her loosest record, an exhale after years of fitting her songs into increasingly tight restraints. It’s a freedom that carries through to the album’s emotional content.

As both look back and a step forward, it serves as a possible gateway album, and more intriguingly, it hints at a new chapter in the band’s chameleonic career through which all their scattered points of reference might operate in beautiful, deadly unison.

My Days of 58 is a weird Bill Callahan album, and a good one.

Sinuous instead of rigid, bloody instead of embalmed, the album refuses to be frozen in time or place. Instead it moves, and moves others with it.

Distracted works so well because it resembles a pop blowout at first, only to pull the shag rug out from under our feet.

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.

Rad Times Xpress IV illuminates how well that music lends itself to more experimental renderings while the songs seemingly engineered to hold onto RTX's denim'n'leather constituency yield surprises.