There is rarely nuance to Baio’s lyrics, and everything is offered up with little in the way of poetry or insight.

Neither reinventing pop nor changing the course of dance music, it’s a vacation of an album that doubles as the producer’s own stopgap until his next wave comes along.

As on Days Are Gone, its sheen is current and its spirit out of step. Beat by beat, Haim are the classic sound of heartbreak alleviated, if only for a moment.

Though the majority of B-Sides and Rarities can be easily found by those inclined to find it (the piano sketch “Rain in Numbers” is a hidden track at the end of Beach House’s self-titled debut, making it not much of a B-side or a rarity), the impulse to gather up loose ends into a cohesive package feels like a solid effort at future-proofing recordings peripheral to the band’s primary discography.

Wintres Woma is an album that makes itself easy to like.

TLC's letting-go is bittersweet and good, a sometimes somber, sometimes playful requiem for their time together (and with us).

Algiers have produced a record that is timely and necessary but also scatterbrained and messy, one that is so over the top it becomes a political melodrama, undercutting the issues it seeks to amplify.

Though far less accessible than his previous material, Ruinism isn’t the clinical listen it could have turned into. Its performers are never spotlit and yet its textures never lack a human soul. It is the kind of album that tends to frustrate a fanbase while cementing its maker as an artist for that very willingness to alienate the faithful.

He surveys ideas on wealth and success with a confidence that makes even his most clumsy boasts about not going ham on the ’Gram seem sophisticated. Rap’s biggest winner coolly sustains his biggest losses.

Reflections--Mojave Desert is arguably his most ambitious recording to date, if only because he availed himself of the Mojave Desert itself as his recording studio. Clocking in at under half an hour, the soundtrack shows Floating Points in a transitional phase.

Truly, it all feels right on Mister Mellow, which is why it doesn’t leave much of an impression. Even if Mister Mellow asked more of Greene than any prior Washed Out album, it lacks the artistic ambition and tension that made his work endure beyond a blurry moment in the sun.

Murder of the Universe may be built from the band’s now-familiar krautpunk battle plan, but their ability to execute outsized architectural complexity at manic, warp-speed velocity is no less astonishing.

Snoop sounds in great shape and like he’s having the time of his life.

The 11 tracks on his self-titled debut are strange and stirring enough to make him one of the genre’s most exciting young voices.

In a Mood is a referential album, but what ultimately ties it together is Okely’s lyrical simplicity and willingness to let his songs breath.

Dust is a dense and heady record, and from certain angles can seem intimidating, even impenetrable. But between the clever track sequencing and a handful of irresistible outcrops of groove and melody, Halo provides plenty of footholds to cling onto while you acclimatise to her lawless universe.

On Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960, Monk is a heavyweight engaging with a middleweight, and middlebrow, in Vadim, whose career was more defined by his romantic conquests than his artistic content. But that’s not on Monk. And his work here, in the middle of 1959, is as thought-provoking as anything he recorded in that prodigious year.

The gifts of Precious Art are more apparent when comedy shades the melody instead of overshadowing it.

This duality of lush, sensual guitar music and entropic noise resonates with the album’s implied textual theme.

With his wry charm absent, the album ultimately shows only a partial picture of Jeff Tweedy as a solo artist.

There are times throughout Iteration when Haley sounds trapped in the same old rut. Overall, though, the album balances between bombast and gestures that are a little harder to read. That contrast gives Iteration a texture that’s missing from previous Com Truise releases.

Ditto’s non-traditional view down a well-trodden path is welcome, but you do wish she’d kick up the dust a bit more.

There is a lot of music about anxiety in the air these days, but Ellen Kempner’s voice is specific and visceral.

Big Fish Theory is a compact rap gem for dancing to or simply sitting with, an album that is as innovative as it is accessible; if not a glimpse into the future, then it’s at least an incisive look at the present.

There’s little of Future’s jadedness. If in the past Thug has made everyday experiences seem chaotic and formless, his achievement here is distilling the murky waters of young love and lust into vital, undeniable pop.

Years removed from its source, its impact is multiplied tenfold. In 1996, it was a path towards adult-contemporary pop radio; today, it’s an exquisitely faded Polaroid.

This is the culmination of an eight-year second-wind. It’s also the most complete 2 Chainz album to date, and places him where he belongs: in the upper echelon of rappers from this era.

The album’s second half slows down a bit, but it maintains the focus on songcraft and mood.