It’s hard to grasp who Childish Gambino is supposed to be. So even when he’s genuine, I have a little bit of skepticism on my mind.

Without romanticizing their lives, they do manage to find something meaningful in that pursuit, even if it’s just another song to stave off the darkness.

It’s clear that Lava La Rue’s ambition as an artist burns brightly. Right now, its light and heat is overflowing, a little messy and uncontained; but the stardust is unmistakable.

Harmonics’ collection of relatable songs and interesting ideas could use a stronger hand on the tiller to reach its intended destination.

The astonishing amount of care and detail that went into All Hell might just be the result of seven and a half years of creation, or maybe it’s Los Campesinos! giving us an album big enough to live in case it needs to last a lifetime.

Big Ideas plays like an eclectic compilation of scattered thoughts from her journal. Songs grapple with big questions but offer few answers.

“Only One” highlights Jenkins’ facility for understated sophistipop; she’s a masterfully silky interpreter of hurt, a canny channeler of failed love in the softest possible tones. But the album’s very best song is its most atypical. “Delphinium Blue” is mostly synths.

Cohen’s inviting arrangements may not always strike the delicate balance between peace and uncertainty that he strives for, but when they do, his music remains as warm and rewarding as a fresh cup of coffee at dawn.

No other American singer is repurposing our old folk scripts with so much authority or ingenuity; When I’m Called proclaims—softly, gently, and slowly, with a sly grin and a Southern ease—that what these songs have to say isn’t old at all.

At just 28 minutes, HEIS moves with ceaseless hustle.

It’s a long slog to get to “Guilty Conscience 2,” but there are moments of genuine inspiration along the way.

Macro’s swooning arrangements bloom and bend, revealing a band comfortable with experimenting within the boundaries of a certain sound.

The sound of Bar Scene is the most full-bodied of Bryan’s career, building upon the heartland rock that he explored in his 2022 major-label breakthrough American Heartbreak and the self-titled follow-up from last year.

It’s been only three years since Dood & Juanita, but Passage still feels like a comeback. .... On Passage du Desire, he sounds more like himself than he has in ages.

Rarely do these songs stray from this sophisticated palette. It suits her well, but it marks Charm as yet another successful but polite soft-rock outing, a format with somewhat diminishing returns.

Small Medium Large might signal a new iteration of jazz, or it might not be jazz at all, or it might not matter. At the very least, it represents the thrilling next phase of a vibrant L.A. community that, for a decade now, has only moved from strength to strength.

God Said No stands apart from Apollo’s previous releases not only because of its genre experimentation and its stickier choruses, but for its willingness to get ugly.

Walk Thru Me’s idiomatic alt-rock composition feels too stable to properly channel it. At their best, Barlow and Davis wrestled with seemingly opposing interests in the primal and futuristic: After a long period of inactivity, they’re still finding their footing in the present.

Redd Kross is a hit parade that perpetually walks the tightrope between the McDonalds’ pristine melodic craft and their innate garage-band insolence.

Despite its slightness, Notes From a Quiet Life is still a landmark in Washed Out’s catalog: a true solo turn and a complete break from chillwave sonics. But having finally acquired all this space, Greene seems unsure how to fill it.

Forgoing their usual evocative song titles in favor of a suite of numbered pieces that often flow into and out of one another, Dirty Three have made not only their most absorbing album but also the one that’s most open to interpretation.

The cloudier nature of Ishibashi’s score leaves it feeling less like a standalone piece than the soft, jazzy pop of her Drive My Car soundtrack. But as a mirror to Hamaguchi’s tale of creeping environmental anxiety, Ishibashi’s ghostly music makes a rich companion.

An uneven album so preoccupied with giving every single type of fan exactly what they want that it might as well be crowdsourced.

Like many other major pop albums of the 2020s, it would have benefited from a careful edit and a more varied track order.

It can be difficult to hear Cash’s charms through the bright, digital clang that plagues his ’80s recordings. The refurbished warmth of Songwriter makes it easier to concentrate on the clever turns of phrase and solid construction of these excavated tunes.

While it often sounds like Kehlani is trying on a series of flashy outfits to see which one fits best, it’s still exhilarating when Crash dials up their signature swagger.

The bulk of Bad Cameo’s novelty arrives, instead, in songcraft. To Blake’s credit, he’s a master of seeing tracks as living things, subject to as much growth and meandering as the masterminds who make them. Familiar as they may feel, the most striking songs on this project keep some powder dry, sprawling into realms far beyond their starting places.

Cabello has the juice to be her own artist and is more than capable as a writer, but the risks she takes are inherently safe when they’ve all been taken before.