For now, on record, Chvrches know how go big on an intimate scale, to remind us of the stuff that keeps us living.

There's a strong sense of someone not reaching particularly hard to get beyond their influences, but even that takes on an appropriate hue as the album progresses.

Colonial Patterns is a fine album title, suggesting so much yet giving little away.

The new version is in fact more textured and nuanced, but not at the expense of the album's bone-dry, brutalizing crunch. Most of its touch-ups are tastefully unobtrusive and illuminating.

It might be subject to less scrutiny had it not followed Interstellar, but then again, it might not be subject to scrutiny at all, and simply filed away with any other competent and unexceptional dream-pop.

Yours Truly is a very safe record. Mostly written by two of R&B's most mawkish hawkers, Babyface and Harmony Samuels, it’s built on cliché and tradition, and written professionally to a fault.

Nothing Was the Same is Drake and 40's most audacious experiment yet in how far inward they can push their sound; a lot of the album sounds like a black hole of all 40's previous productions being sucked into the center. Song-to-song transitions, which have always been melty and blurry, are more notional than ever.

Like most records that lack a central stylistic thrust, Take Me to the Land of Hell often resembles a great collection of tracks instead of a coherent overall work.

While this record's sense of self and attention to detail deserve to be praised, a small shift in Lanza's positioning and prominence could be the change that takes her next project from good to great.

It’s an enjoyable and subtly diverse listen only if you give it your undivided attention.

The best that can be said of Defend Yourself is that it isn't embarrassing; they didn't lose the plot like the Pixies, and it's better than The Sebadoh simply because they got out of that L.A. studio and back to their roots. But it also doesn't add anything to the story or feel like it needs to exist.

Imitations may not alter Lanegan’s roundabout arc as a musical itinerant, but it’s a steady reminder of the breadth of his scope and the depth of his roots, not to mention his stature as one of the most potent voices of his generation.

Some of the songs are undercooked, or at least they begin to feel that way as the grooves stretch out past five minutes.

It's the stay-the-course dancefloor material that proves the most rewarding.

B.O.A.T.S. II is an album that feels happy just to exist, a rejection of the modern idea that album releases are serious events and all the tracks that sound like they were fun to make get relegated to bonus cuts or mixtapes.

This trio already functions like a well-oiled machine, and they've produced a stylish debut that demonstrates both their immense talent and impressive instincts.

Nature Noir is nothing if not a well-crafted, whip-smart record, but it leaves me yearning for the days when the Stilts would put passion into trying to find the pulse. Or better yet, yearning for the days when the pulse may actually have existed.

At its core, this is a record about accepting and even embracing the smallness of human life, and how difficult that can be, given our damnably innate sense of adventure, ambition, and restlessness.

It's all pleasant, but when it's over, the only truly memorable song is "Wave Forms."

In other words, it’s not MGMT vs. Oracular Spectacular; if anything’s holding MGMT back, it’s themselves.

After a while, Nobody--frenetic but faceless, too nonchalant for true nonconformity--starts to blur together.

B&C aren’t at that level [Foo Fighters, Deftones, Brand New or Thursday], but considering the leap they’ve made from their pedestrian debut Separation, The Things We Think We’re Missing serves notice that we shouldn't be surprised if they get there.

A broader palate is still under development, but Apar provides a path forward without forfeiting Delorean's effortless energy.

In a year where the likes of Kanye and Trent Reznor have reached deep into the dark circuitry of the Wax Trax back catalog to revive the corpse of industrial music, Factory Floor’s relentlessness suits the present moment.

A deeply passionate, impossibly noisy twee record.

Jacuzzi Boys is a collection of well-recorded, well-constructed, boring songs.

Their spit-polished full-length is a throwback to the sort of CD-era pop rock album everyone remembers buying at least once: The one with the re-recorded single surrounded mostly by less-developed, vaguely similar stuff.

The real irony of Nobody Knows is that it makes him sound like a more fully realized artist, but a more conservative one, too.