With Coolaid, arguably Snoop’s first real hip-hop album in half a decade, we find his reinvention back into “Rapper Snoop” to be a bit wobbly.

Like its older sibling, the songs on Cistern exist independently of each other. The nine tracks feel connected only by the fact that they share the same space on record, more like a collection of long takes rather than a movie.

The group has never sounded richer, fuller, or more confident in their own narcotic powers. Misery suits them.

Artistically speaking, Demon City represents a leap forward in terms of Crampton’s musical growth. American Drift was like a sumptuous glass overflowing, but Demon City is a wonder of concision, with songs that mostly fall under four minutes.

The moody guitar solo at the end is deflating endpoint to a well-trodden path, but Shepherd’s band nonetheless exhibits a rare combination of restraint and brawn.

Centres initially seems like a near-formless sea of sound and voice. But over time, it reveals patterns inside the swirl, and the more time you spend in it, the further you will to get lost in its wondrous confines.

Overall, it’s hard to see where his strengths are, and on some deeper level, I can’t imagine a situation where listening to this album is appropriate for anything else but falling asleep at your desk.

BBNG can still be frustrating, but IV is a sign of a band hitting its stride. It’s their most jazz-forward album, and it’s filled with some markers of magnificent growth.

The ten tracks here are all honest executions of a sound that was essentially perfected ten years ago; nostalgia alone can’t justify how little legitimately new material MSTRKRFT bring to the table.

Any Hanna-related project is prone to vanishing beneath her mighty specter, but the deeper collaborative process that went into Hit Reset shines through.

Versatility, it turns out, may not be Clams’ strong suit, though that’s hardly a problem; as the first half of 32 Levels demonstrates, there’s still plenty of room left for Clams Casino to grow into his own sound.

Nothing’s Real offers a fresh vision for pop’s new reality.

Jackmaster lets his choices breathe and doesn’t hurry from cut to cut for the sake of covering more ground, even as tracks pool together and reform anew.

The result is a captivating, dizzying record by a band aware that they can do anything--so they’re doing it all.

Blank Face turns away from the ambitious fusion of To Pimp a Butterfly, instead doubling down on a smoked-out atmosphere that points the listener’s focus toward rapping. That puts the onus on Q to hold attention for the duration of the record’s hour-plus running time, and he does so.

At times it may feel cheesy, or like “naive romantic shite” as they say at one point, but in the end, it’s honestly comforting.

The album may be musing or abstracted, but that’s his hallmark, and blackSUMMERS’night is polished to a blinding sheen.

Even though the surface is smoother and and the vocals less garbled than usual, it’d be a mistake to read Bubblegum as a true unmasking. Filters swaddle Copeland’s voice throughout, distorting and distending it but stopping short of intelligibility; lyrically, he’s striking a tricky balance between deadpan nihilism and pop troubadour nostalgia.

Into the Light is the kind of record that requires rapt attention, best enjoyed in still solitude. But even as Anderson’s instrument simmers, it still reaches for the great beyond, and she makes you ache to reach along with it.

What we’re left with on Dream World is a solid project that flies in multiple directions.

What elevates Take Her Up to Monto--and all of Murphy’s records, frankly--is a fearless, restless spirit.

In anyone else’s hands, Summer 08 might seem strange and cold. But from Mount, as ornery as it is, it feels like a gesture of trust.

In the age of glossy mixing and instrumental auto-pilot, their ungovernable racket’s refreshing and woefully needed.

It works in part because of the surprise factor (who knew Lewis had this kind of record in her?) but mostly because Lewis does what she always does: She sells the material.

Magma’s not nearly as esoteric as the albums that preceded it--and considering how Gojira’s progressive tendencies have distinguished them from the get-go, the catchiest tracks on the record arguably take the biggest risks.

The Avalanches are all about feel. And Wildflower, though it misses some of its predecessor’s thematic unity and from-nowhere sense of surprise, has that feel in spades.

Crucially, with his beats less busy, it has left James more room to focus on spine-tinglingly rich tunings and timbres. And that’s where Cheetah really stands out: To sink into it, preferably on good headphones or better speakers, is to be immersed in woozy, viscous frequencies far more vivid than you’ll find almost anywhere else.

Rarely does a band bid you farewell and admit it overstayed its welcome in the same breath.