Vol. 2 dive-bombs deeper into the zonked-out ephemera, letting the outré tape noises and sound effects hold center stage.

It is a mostly great show, though not all dynamite.

For a band that once stood out for its too-much-ness, Walk the River now gives us too much of the wrong things: too many midtempo songs, too many minor-key acoustic strums, too many codas that outstay their welcome without really connecting.

It may not seem like much, but 32 straight minutes of lyrics about rodents, dead bodies, and acid rain can get exhausting. But, however biting, the payoff is worth it with each individual song.

Though not without highlights, Not Your Kind of People contains nothing as memorable as their big hits, and it's heavier on the filler than their earlier albums.

The album does have its charms. Cosentino is still in fine voice, and she continues to have a warm and agreeable persona... [Yet linear] thinking permeates The Only Place, a grinding sense of marks being hit while inspiration is in short order.

True shows that Elbrecht and his band are more than capable of recreating moments from the past in a way that is reverent and still provides pleasure to those who grew up listening to those past sounds and relative newbies alike. But I'm not so sure that they're good at doing much more than that.

[Blackshaw's] playing carries some of the echoes of his ornate 12-string flourishes, but here there is a grittier edge, with bent notes and the audible sound of his fingers sliding on the strings, his winding melodies casting out concentric smoke rings that call to mind Ben Chasny's acoustic work in Six Organs of Admittance.

Gallery is six Craft Spells songs that range from good to pretty good, which theoretically should make it a welcome addition.

Koima is a beautiful album, and at times beautiful to the exclusion of anything else.

Dopesmoker is an infinitely explorable listen, the kind of record that will goad your attention through miniscule rabbit holes whether or not you're as stoned as the people who made it.

While this record is sure to please longtime fans, it also works as a compelling introduction.

This album provides Dredd fans with a chance to fix this music to their own favorite stories, giving the unrelenting decay and despair of Mega-City One the ferociously solemn musical backdrop it's always deserved.

A rotely rollicking, backward-facing fuzz assault.

Structural over-tinkering is endemic on Neck of the Woods, an album that Silversun Pickups claim was inspired by horror movies; if so, they're the kind of horror movies where you wait a long time for twists you can see coming a mile away, with the visceral impact all but diluted by a glossy CGI sheen.

Tillman varies things up on Fear Fun, reveals an adventurous palette, and makes what may be his best album to date.

Prophet's widescreen music is wonderful to listen to; it's just hard to really feel.

"Bloom" is also what these 10 songs do, each one starting with the sizzle of a lit fuse and at some fine moment exploding like a firework in slow motion.

Urban Turban feels especially emblematic of a band that's fully liberated itself from any commercial or audience expectations and shifted its experimental ethos into overdrive.

Hoyas, sounds like a soundtrack for an ice-slicked, insomniac winter drive. Blending mumbled folk and bleary-eyed blips, lead-off track "Two Angles" sounds like the Postal Service might have if Jimmy Tamborello's tapes had gotten lost in the mail and accidentally ended up on Phil Elverum's doorstep.

Essentially perfect... It remains a landmark that hasn't aged a day.

Presley finds melodic inspiration in classic rock, but blurs his reference points toward punk by coating the music in lo-fi grit. His third proper album, Family Perfume, doubles down on those zonked out inclinations.

It's an impeccably polished and careful record. But like a shirt buttoned all the way up to the neck, sophistication can wear a guy out.

While OFF! may not have the shock of the new (or, at least, the revitalized) on its side, it still gets in, gets angry, and gets moving in a skull-crackingly satisfying fashion.

Spontaneity is woven into the fiber of every track; it's easy to hear how some of them may have begun with the same sounds and patterns before the musicians' hands worked their magic on the filters, EQ, and delay, rendering each take unique and unrepeatable.

His new EP, Meantime, is an unabashedly beautiful, even sensuous 17 minutes of music.

Oh Holy Molar, Felix's second album, recalls the starkness and exaggerated intimacy of records by Cat Power and Scout Niblett, but Chua is a far more reserved and poised individual... [Yet some songs] reveal the limits of Chua's voice and aesthetic.

[Galaxy Garden is] a wonder, his most complete statement yet, both a refinement and an expansion of the genre-of-one he's been perfecting over the last few years.