The whole album has a casual, freewheeling vibe, but it’s a testament to King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s unity that it holds together so well.

While the vocal credits might have promised a more straightforward pop route this time around, It’s Alright Between Us… ends up being one of Lindstrøm’s most disjointed and ambiguous projects.

Shot through with seemingly innate bravado and the experience of a childhood spent near the pulpit, Shane had a pitch-perfect sense of when to stir up the dance floor, when to bring things down, and when to bring them up again.

Too much of Going Grey seems oddly unwilling to risk offense--the concepts of “Far Drive,” “Everyone But You,” and “Grand Finale,” songs about various lovelorn states, could be the work of any pop-punker with a passing AP English grade, feeling as perfunctory and indistinct as the hyper-compressed, airless music surrounding them. Stella’s still got his tics, but by this point, they can feel like shtick.

Like Smashing Pumpkins did at their peak, Bully tease dimensionality out of their music by emphasizing the similarity, and then the space, between Bognanno’s voice and the guitars that squall around her.

Though it is certainly a darker listen, III is largely about the same concepts as its predecessor: unquenchable desire that eclipses reality, the ruthless blow of rejection, and the struggle to remain afloat even when “humanity equals misery.”

Anthology is a bold, often dazzling throwback, a grand suite rendered in crystalline keyboards and lavish synths.

The Saga Continues is full of competent if forgettable rapping straight out of the Wu-Tang manuscripts, and each Wu rapper does a serviceable job mustering up shades of their primes, in function. The verses don’t do what they used to, but at a distance they move in the same ways.

Morrissey’s words and delivery were never more deftly idiosyncratic or grandly moving; Johnny Marr’s guitar overflows with sparkling melody while his arrangements sustain a balance between spareness and intricacy. Rhythm section Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce supply foundation and frolic, proving once again how indispensable they were to the group’s magic. ... The demos contain differences that will interest the diehards.

Each song on Glasshouse has its own distinct aesthetic; unlike her previous albums, 2012’s Devotion and 2014’s Tough Love, there are no songs here that could be confused for each other, none that seem an afterthought carved from the greater mood of the album.

It’s an album bursting with ambition, alternating between moments of intimate beauty and stretches of dense, disorienting fog.

Like one of Lynch’s filmic worlds, ken is elegant and perverse, a reflection on where we came from, and the unbelievable place we seem to have ended up.

With 12 songs of nearly equal tone, volume, and length, the nearly hour-long As You Please becomes its own endurance test. When As You Please is taken in smaller chunks, the minor variations between the songs where Citizen churn and the ones where they steamroll ever forward become more discernible.

Between this spring’s cold, uncompromising Droptopwop and the personable crossover stab of Mr. Davis, Gucci Mane is making his most engaging music since his Trap Back/Trap God resurgence.

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever stand out for the precision of their melodies, the streamlined sophistication of their arrangements, and the undercurrent of melancholy that motivates every note.

As she reimagines the through line of modern-day romance and heartache in jazz, Salvant is at her most versatile and expressive on Dreams and Daggers, choosing songs that wholly capture and embrace the full spectrum that is love—from the initial yearning to the relentless ache and betrayal.

Airy and danceable, There Is No Love in Fluorescent Light revives our faith in Stars.

Beck has been working on Colors since 2013, and by the sounds of a recent interview, spent a lot of time trying to get the balance of “not retro and not modern” just so. He more or less nailed that bit, but what’s lacking from his Big Happy Pop Record is some kind of strong emotion that could elevate these songs above the “well crafted but innocuous” camp--something more than an idea.

The songs on Offering are fuller and brighter than they’ve ever been, leaving behind sinister samples and moribund imagery and making good on the promise of uptempo revelry that “Go Outside” offered.

Masseduction often feels fragmentary, like two or three albums in the campaign of one.

The OOZ drops at our feet like a piece of poisoned fruit, a masterpiece of jaundiced vision from one of the most compelling artists alive.

Weaves’ ambitious song structures used to be too large to wrangle. With Wide Open, they realize the straightforward tentpoles of pop may suit them after all.

On Nothing Valley--the first release from Wax Nine, a Carpark Records subsidiary launched by Speedy Ortiz bandleader Sadie Dupuis--Melkbelly reach their hands into pink slime and somehow pull out real nourishment, along the way finding square footing for a mutual next step.

Filled with personal memories, affirmations of self, and gazes of society’s racial strife, HEAVN is a singular mix of clear-eyed optimism and Black girl magic.

Pinewood Smile has got more jokes than ever, and it’s the first time the Darkness don’t evoke 1974 or 1984 so much as 2003--and they’ve never sounded more dated.

Lyrically, Tenderness can be pretty shallow. If these are songs about disconnection and misunderstanding, the lyrics don’t do a great job of fleshing out the concept. ... Still the warm, well-wrought pop of Tenderness is by far the group’s most enjoyable collection of songs.

This is a lazy-Sunday-hang of a record: cozy, congenial, and only periodically exerting the energy to get off the couch.

More than a continuation of that trajectory, Three Futures feels like a quantum leap. There are more voices, more perspectives.