Sometimes the songwriting relies too heavily on swelling harmonies and crescendos, and occasional lyrical clichés grate.

Nearly every proper song on Currents is a revelatory statement of Parker’s range and increasing expertise as a producer, arranger, songwriter, and vocalist while maintaining the essence of Tame Impala.

Transferred and restored from S&M Recordings’ original LPs and tapes by Emmons himself, How Far Will You Go?'s 16 tracks are threaded together by deft production details and a forthright sense of humor that posits the duo as unsung heroes of those glam, pre-punk years, which, in essence, they were.

Sometimes Williamson sings, after a fashion, which is where Key Markets gets weird, in much the same way that early Fall records got weird when Mark E. Smith tried to carry a tune.

Atheist's Cornea maintains an urgency that’s palpable even for those who don’t speak Fukagawa’s native language.

As a whole Lucky 7 sounds a lot like everything else Statik Selektah has done up to this point; the album is neither offputting nor particularly exciting, and it's hard to feel strongly about at all.

Homesick is not quite a concept album, but there's a ghost of a narrative visible in the record's bookending tracks.

Whereas that band [Title Fight] used shoegaze and sludge as references and jumping-off points, Creepoid treat it like the whole point, and the album grows wearying long before it's over.

For all of their upgraded production, instrumental technique, and influences, All Is Illusory sounds like a record that primes the Velvet Teen to succeed around the time Cum Laude! was released—but making the best "2006 indie rock" record of 2015 makes them stand out in a way that they hadn’t managed yet.

The Internet’s songs have always felt like scenes of salaciousness happening just out of earshot. Ego Death finally pulls us into the maelstrom.

The effort and energy are there but the soul is missing.

The beats are all quality, but without voices there's not much they can do in three-and-a-half minutes that they don't have the strength and presence to do in two.

Pattern of Excel is similarly idiosyncratic--it feels, in many ways, like a fistful of sketches torn from the notebook and tossed to the wind. Making sense of the ways they fall is part of the pleasure of this quiet, cryptic record.

For enthusiasts of the goth/post-punk nexus, it absolutely has its moments.

The record walks well-treaded territory lyrically and musically.

It has a bigger-budget feel—stronger guests, better pacing, and a more careful consideration for its audience.

Fingers, Bank Pads & Shoe Prints is a nice reminder that footwork's version of classic rock still overflows with bizarre juxtapositions and high-wire pileups.

While he's deeply indebted to traditional sounds and familiar structures, he comes alive most when he's sewing fissures into the forms he knows so well.

We have 12 microwave-nuked approximations of Drake songs circa 2013 and Kanye songs spanning from The College Dropout to Yeezus, with none of the wit, soul, or edge.

Mercy is studiously lovely, like a brochure for paradise, and over its course it begins to feels like a sunset in Grand Theft Auto V: beautiful, but a replica.

Maybe it only all coheres in flashes, but if Meek Mill works best in bursts, then so be it.

The scope and ambition of Morning/ Evening is profound, and will hopefully inspire producers to take bigger chances and not be satisfied with pop- or club-friendly lengths. Even where Morning/Evening doesn't quite work, it's daring and expansive.

Their debut introduces a band that sounds confident and fully formed.

The Heart Is a Monster contains no less than six ambient interludes. A whole separate album in that style would've been nice, but even in truncated form the interludes cast Philip Glass-ian shades onto the other songs and suggest that Failure's creativity is far from exhausted.

Focusing on Wildheart's overt eroticism is one way of listening, but it's impossible to overlook just how seriously he's taking craft.

Younge’s soundtrack evokes Sly Stone’s improvised funk and buffers Bilal’s ruminating ballads, and the LP falters when it strays from that sound.

The confident diversity of My Love Is Cool indicates a band who have their own thing all figured out, who shouldn't veer from their own strange path to live up to outdated narratives that dictate what a young British band should be.

Some moments on Moonbuilding show the Orb, if not regaining their form, then offering up decent ambient music. But elsewhere they revert back to a formlessness that's devoid of their quirky stoner persona.