It's billed as something of a minor release (in the same way What a Time to Be Alive was minor but they still wanted your money for it), but it's still an "official" one, meaning Future swings for a few radio hits here. They feel more obligatory than outright bad.

Like most of Lissie’s albums, My Wild West is most compelling at its most messy and raucous.

Cardinal feels like one big determined push outward, an album-length fight against solipsism without losing your sense of self in the process.

There is much more to Heaven Adores You than endearing scraps, however, and none of them are more important than the version of "True Love" that appears here.

Unfortunately, the duo's apparent ambitions to be something more hold it back from reaching serotonin-peaking heights (like Carly Rae Jepsen's E•MO•TION).

All I Need had the potential to be so much more than mediocre and forgettable.

The Gamble sounds like the peek into a group of friends' private rituals that it is--as charmingly patched together and messy as it is well-paced and dynamic.

SVIIB is not only the group’s most technically accomplished work, their perfected swan song--it feels true.

I’m Up doesn’t muster up the highs of the Slime Season series—the infectiousness of “Best Friend,” the sublime structuring of “Draw Down,” or the woozy euphoria of “Raw”--but Thug manages to compile many of his best attributes into a tightly-wound 38 minutes.

As a whole, We Are KING is seamless: It properly showcases the group's breezy aesthetic and has the feel-good creativity of black music's great luminaries.

Pool is an introspective record, tailormade for lonesome nights.

Overall, Smoke still gets over on his ability to craft rich, moody soundscapes, although almost all the tracks on the album would have worked better as standalone instrumentals.

Throughout Wabi-Sabi, Cross Record thread their way between graceful and sinister, unfiltered beauty with heavier and uglier sounds, and tap into a dark well of energy that has potential to grow more powerful the further they explore it.

Even in its quietest moments, Thought Rock Fish Scale is an album brimming with passion and protest. It finds confidence in humility, power in relaxation.

There’s something invigorating about hearing two alt-country veterans take apart their tried-and-true sound and reassemble it slightly askew, and Scheherazade is not only their most modern-sounding record; it might be their best since Old Paint.

On Islah, his hook-writing is sterling.

It's impressive and frankly unusual to see a band five albums into their career experiment with new sounds and actually make it work, but Junior Boys have pulled it off. Career longevity looks good on them.

Black Tusk's combination of sludge, rock, hardcore, and death metal remains fluid, fertile, and most importantly, full of life, in spite of the tragedy that threatens to define it. Far from funereal, Pillars of Ash has plenty of love for good ol' heavy-metal melodies.

It doesn’t help that Nine Track Mind is all ballads except for three tracks, two of which are duets (Trainor, a sleepy Selena Gomez) that somehow still feel like ballads. Puth cannot fill this frame of sentimentality with any genuine sentiment.

Throughout all 23 tracks, the score straddles the line between weariness and wonder, like someone constantly recalling the danger this stunning planet is capable of unleashing.

This production is ultimately what makes Paradise such a standout; there are plenty of young industrial and noise-rock bands running hard on all cylinders, as Pop. 1280 did on their prior efforts. The extra gears and moving parts in their sound feel like necessary moves to avoid quick and certain burnout.

The album balances the Brewis brothers' predilection for unusual song structures and unconventional instrumentation with a decidedly grown up narrative.

There are times where DIIV threaten to become too in love with their own sound, particularly toward the middle. But beyond lending Is the Is Are a necessary heft to back Smith’s claims, these songs are convincing portrayals of checked-out living.

Listening to the 34 songs of Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone and The Ghosts of Highway 20 in sequence feels less like a chore than a long trip led by an expert navigator with good stories to share.

MartyrLoserKing doesn’t necessarily rise or fall on Williams’ ability to clarify his thoughts into a clear, memorable hook.

ANTI is a rich and conflicted pop record, at its most interesting when it’s at its most idiosyncratic.

The band’s diverse influences sound best when Kivlen's voice serves as a darker echo of Cumming’s angelic optimism, especially in a call and response. But the band's hodgepodge approach doesn't always work.

Occasionally, the dull roar manifests in some solid rock songs.