If the results of Lifetime’s solo writing process are mixed, de Casier’s work behind the boards is wall-to-wall dazzling, from the extraterrestrial rave stabs that pan across the stereo field on “Seasons” to the mournful cyborg whose voice echoes her own on “December.”

In a first for PUP, the best tracks on their album are slow songs and mid-tempo romps, which bolster Who Will Look After the Dogs? after its rambunctious opening track.

Animaru has no duds but also no true stand-outs, shining most when Semones takes on the unexpected—suggesting a more idiosyncratic artist underneath all the virtuosity and polish.

GOLLIWOG masterfully uses that spooky proximity for self-reflection and thrills. Like the late MF DOOM, who he interpolates twice here, woods is perfectly intelligible despite his layered lyrics and elusive public profile.

What Tall Tales lacks in razzle-dazzle it makes up for with risky maneuvers, particularly Yorke’s in the vocal booth.

Car Seat Headrest is a band almost predestined for the kind of high-stakes storytelling a rock opera requires—if only Toledo could let his own ideas breathe.

This is road trip music for the new normal. Yet you might also hope the widespread devastation on the West Coast would inspire something more substantial than a strong offering by an artist coming up on 30 years of dauntless consistency. It’s hard to shake the feeling this porous music can soak up any context in which it’s presented.

The songs may arise from turmoil, but the production is enveloping and inviting, suggesting there’s a path out of the darkness.

Rather than raucous and eruptive, the music is now icy, clipped, and clean, a step away from Einstürzende Neubauten and toward Crystal Castles and Circus-era Britney. It still has teeth, but they are oh-so-white.

Samia’s voice alternates between plainspoken and liltingly melodic, occasionally suggesting doubt and ambivalence. But an edge often enlivens her bittersweet, uneasy lyrics.

Even the album’s most notable song still doesn’t feel distinct from its peers. This is how Tennis sail into the sunset: as likeable and as intoxicatingly smooth as ever.

Impermanence is a symptom of transformation; on Iris Silver Mist, Hval extols this reality, inviting us to seek out the beauty in each stage.

Thackray’s talents as a singer and arranger are key to the album’s success. Her voice is airy like crepe-paper streamers, with a bit of Georgia Anne Muldrow’s pinch and some of Erykah Badu’s snap.

You can trace a path from the band’s beginning to this point, but that fact doesn’t make this latest step any less impressive; even longtime fans might be tempted to do a double take in admiration, as if to ask, “Wait, this is the same band from back then?”

Tyler uses major-key guitar melodies judiciously, instead of sprinkling them throughout, which makes their shapes more memorable: After the blown-out tape distortion of opener “Cabin Six,” his six-string enters at the start of “Concern” like morning sun through a window.

A Complicated Woman’s wide-reaching, mollifying remit feels like Taylor trying to be too much to too many people, to live up to the validation that her last album occasioned. Its best moments are the most personal.

Bitchin Bajas remain flame-keepers of the sphere where Teutonic poise meets new-age fuzzies, but here they act as patient collaborators instead of scene-stealing spacemen. Still, this seven-headed hydra of head music remains a great ambassador of vibes.

Feels like an evolutionary leap akin to that of Cocteau Twins between Blue Bell Knoll and Heaven or Las Vegas; the first was pretty, the second is sublime.

The album radiates a deep appreciation for the communities and history behind the global rise of dance music—and, as WITH A VENGEANCE’s title implies, a successful campaign to enshrine SHERELLE in its ranks.

A nostalgic return to happier times this ain’t; more like an indictment of the current malaise via a defense of the dancefloor at both its holiest and most profane.

Noble and Godlike in Ruin is cluttered and dense, sometimes overwhelmingly so. Everything feels stitched together, almost surgical—like, well, a Frankenstein monster. When the approach works, it’s exciting.

At times, the blend of their individual rock styles with country creates something fresh, but some efforts feel more pastiche than inventive.

A Study of Losses has some of Condon’s most effortless songwriting in years, melodies flowing with the easy appeal of the best of Lon Gisland and Gulag Orkestar.

As a whole, More Chaos is a lateral move, not a step up.

Up to the minute, well sequenced, and straightforward in its melodic chewiness and rhythmic intentions, Thee Black Boltz complements Dear Science and Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, Bush II-era canaries that have never stopped singing from their wretched coal mines.

Welcome to My Blue Sky isn’t concerned with filling in the whole backstory; Momma prefer to capture a snapshot with all the youthful romanticism of a faded Polaroid.

There are a lot of choir fills, growling electric guitars, and stomping drums, but the bombast is hollow. “Bulletproof” sounds like a “Wild Wild West” outtake, its country-and-western elements way overdone.

In a field of brilliant ambient techno producers, he’s delivered his most dazzling and definitive statement to date.