What makes Gem feel like a such step forward (and such a straight-up enjoyable romp) is the way it playfully appropriates the debauched excess of glam rock to achieve its own singular vibe.

The miracle of this album is how it ties straightforward rap thrills--dazzling lyrical virtuosity, slick quotables, pulverizing beats, star turns from guest rappers--directly to its narrative.

A restless and sometimes laborious album that attempts to spotlight all of Enslaved's parts in one very overbearing package.

At once striking and enigmatic-- and artfully constructed.

That sense of the ludicrousness of life runs throughout Tragicomedies. It's what gives it its spark and forgives its slip-ups.

Night Moves rely on the sound that got them signed rather than pushing themselves in a new direction, and the results are not as exciting as they could've been.

Their debut does more than enough to stand on its own, not only ambitious in its own right, but leaving little doubt about Hundred Waters' capability of handling wherever their ambition takes them from here.

Department of Disappearance does sound strangely complacent and monochromatic, offering no twists on the technorganic aesthetic he's been plying since Grandaddy were still a bedroom act.

Unknown Rooms is a short album, but its nine songs capture and sustain free-floating fear and menace.

[Listening to the album is like] a reunion with an old friend, but not necessarily a close one. For half an hour, you think "why don't we do this more often?" until it ends and you remember how frustrating they can be.

As with prior Matmos efforts, the ambition here is bold, both in the base concept and its execution.

Numbers is a solid rap record, but MellowHype have shown themselves to be capable of more.

Daughter of Cloud accurately depicts an artist who has pushed his artistic license to its very limit. It also makes a convincing argument for the virtue of accepting some of those pushed-aside limitations.

Whether it's a unique opportunity to peek into a talented musician's creative process or a throwaway collection of sonic gags depends on your tastes.

Snaith's fascination shines, taking him places that po-faced peers are blind to.

Tender New Signs makes the listener work a little harder within Tamaryn's framework, but it rewards as much, if not more, than the walls of noise threatening to hem them in just a few years ago.

Even as he shifts from his typically elliptical songwriting to more structure-bound forms, he never sounds overly fussy. It makes Former Lives a brisk listen even when the songs themselves aren't particularly innovative.

There's never a dull moment across AWLWLB's 38 minutes. It's all peaks.

While Pink should not be conflated with a proper follow-up to There Is Love in You, even as a singles comp it suggests that the undergrad producer circa Rounds is now post-doctorate, and Four Tet is capable of going deeper and expanding higher than almost anyone else out there.

The looseness of Oblivion Hunter is a nice reminder that the core of their appeal isn't so much that they're pushing their sound into new places, but that they're two guys who can't hide how happy they are that they get to spend their lives making this kind of a racket.

Rather than stampeding recklessly forward on the heels of cataclysmic frontman Lee Spielman, Trash Talk have re-directed their energy into mountainous, pile-driving riffs that hit with a lowdown, deliberate force.

Sundark and Riverlight is like the thumbnail version: everything compressed, details lost.

The Killer works slightly better than either of its predecessors as an album, with the promise of what is to come relieving the earlier stretches of some of their grimness. The gaseous (and Gas-eous) ambient interludes, too, are perfectly sequenced, offering soothing counterpoints to the album's most pummelling efforts.

The discrepancy on Bootlegs between studious songcraft and rambunctious execution occasionally sounds distractingly self-conscious, but Lerche still sounds better here for sounding so unguarded and loose.

There's a surface graininess that amplifies the corrosive qualities of the band's sound and the strep-throat rawness of Edkins' voice, but also serves to accentuate some of the more surprising elements in the mix.

Newman's melodic gifts continue to serve the emotional core of his songs well, but he pulls his punches with opaque lyrics and too many wheelhouse-sticking power-pop cuts that keep Streets from achieving the impact it could have had.

Lonesome Dreams' instant knock of familiarity will prove comforting for some, but it gives these tracks something of a plug-and-play feel. Many songs are dramatically assembled, and all of them move, but when they move in pretty much the same ways as another, spryer band, it's that much harder to get caught up in their attendant drama.

Twins doesn't stick to the middle or even pick a lane. It swerves, visiting territory well-tread with a perspective that feels new.