This isn’t his grand final statement (that was Blackstar), it’s a cool little postscript tagged onto an earnest, unthrilling tribute.

Produced in spurts of Dropbox exchanges and playdates over the span of two years, but working on a strict deadline, LP2 stresses proficiency and immediacy.

The new album trades in queasy atmospherics for a more robust rhythmic attack, with Tagaq feeding off the band’s energy as much as vice versa.

Joanne never reveals much of a narrative or stylistic through-line, and even her brief dips into indie-rock--her collaborations with Father John Misty on “Sinner’s Prayer” and “Come to Mama” (Misty is also credited as a writer on Beyonce’s Lemonade), and Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker on “Perfect Illusion” (Rihanna covered Parker’s “New Person, Same Old Mistakes” on Anti)--feel familiar.

Philosophy of the World is the realest version of the Shaggs, flaws and force in full-view. A teenage symphony this is not.

Taken as a whole, Masculin Féminin is a scrapbook made of records that already felt like scrapbooks, but collectively they form a portrait of a band more multi-dimensional than their Sonic Youth Jr. rep suggested.

Walking the fine line between so many gradations of emotion can be tricky, and there are more missed opportunities on Say Yes! than revealing interpretations.

The true charm of this record lies in the way it craftily retrofits the sound of ’70s excess for our age of austerity.

As engaging as that bluster is at first, over the course of ten songs Whatever Forever begins to grate not unlike a person who tries too hard to look nonchalant when they would hold your attention longer if they just opened up a bit more.

The Violent Sleep of Reason galvanizes most when Meshuggah rise to the challenge of writing music that matches the urgency and global scope of its subjects. All too often, though, even as they’re captured playing together in a room for the first time in ages, Meshuggah sound a tad more comfortable than agitated.

Cohen is not a songwriter who panders; he speaks above us, sometimes quite literally to higher forms, but also to universality instead of common denominator. Topicality, to him, remains somewhere around the Romantic era. But Cohen is also keen to experiment here.

It just took some time, but we’re finally hearing what Adkins has to say for himself.

Woptober slogs towards the end, but it moves too quickly to feel like a chore to sit through. It has all the markings of what we’ve come to expect from Gucci’s music only this time—rather than drowning in his addictions—he’s found a way to integrate drugs and violence into his new outlook.

Rather than feel cathartic or caustic, it’s oddly cold and rote.

It boasts the sort of large-scale electronic compositions that can often feel monolithically lonely, and she does it all by herself. And yet the album sounds and feels collaborative, as if it were the product of multiple viewpoints and inputs.

Sadly, they seem content for the kind of mediocrity that designates you as the headliner Firefly and Bonnaroo call when someone else isn’t available.

Every Now & Then is often vivid and enjoyable, but after a few listens, you may find yourself switching back to one of the band’s predecessors. The former is a fun ride, but Screamadelica could still blow your mind.

What’s astonishing here is the way they manage to forge a sound nearly as rich and original as that of America’s most blunted.

Throughout, Sport is crude, queasy, sometimes shockingly ugly, and often quite funny, in a madcap, slightly threatening way. It thrills and it mystifies in equal measure.

As much of a throwback as Mering can seem, at her best she captures her era in her words.

In Spektor’s catalogue, Remember Us to Life balances comfort food for Spektor fans with the maturity and wisdom you'd expect from a singer-songwriter passing the 15th year of her career.

If you’re in the mood for a good-enough orchestral rock album that lifts and falls in all the expected ways, you might as well queue up one you haven’t heard before. Mono are doing their part to keep you in a steady supply of them.

If you’re happy to ride some riffs into the sunset, High Bias is a worthwhile trip.

It’s a party vibe that doesn’t entirely know the party’s about to end in the worst way. But while it lasts—through the Afrobeat fusion of “Mad Dog in Yoruba” and the upfront yet faraway-sounding horn blasts in “Macumba 3000” and the baile/bossa simmer of “Todos Os Terreiros”--it’s enough to make you wish the background music was up front.

If this is his new beginning, it’s an unambitious one: Lidell has never sounded like more of a traditionalist than he does on this amiable but uncomplicated record.

COW has some of the Orb’s most gentle moments to date, but in eschewing their own classic album and instead oddly reflecting on one from their peers, they fail to get beyond the Ultraworld and the world of Chill Out, at times mimicking little more than some BBC sound effects.

Outer, fittingly enough, projects its energies relentlessly outward, broadcasting its emotional content in a way that too often feels heavy-handed.

The result is a vision of a prospective future both strange and alluring, a journey through virtual spaces and experimental technologies that, at heart, feels human after all.