With little penchant for bedlam, it’s an album that lacks the exact thing that makes Flume’s music exciting.

The writing remains the main attraction in Finn’s work, and both as a storyteller and a rock songwriter, he has never sounded more in control.

Though these heart-in-her-hand lyrics take center stage, the production across EYEYE is both entrancing and bizarre. The album balances mourning and meditation, filling its vast, gelatinous sound field with phantom backing vocals, floorboard creaks, spaceship synths, and eerie, carnivalesque melodies.

Ballad of a Tryhard is a relatively straightforward collection of orchestral pop, bursting with hooks. Like the heartfelt folk songs of Amen Dunes’ Love, it is a grand step towards traditional songcraft.

So what if Harry’s House isn’t especially bold; innovation is not a requirement of a solid pop album, and working too hard is out of fashion, anyway. Better to slip on your Gucci pajamas and just enjoy.

Waterslide broadens Porridge Radio’s sound with honking synths, megaphones, horns, studio luxuries with the patina of junkyard grime—the influence of Rain Dogs smuggled into radio-friendly indie rock vis a vis Modest Mouse. Still, it’s Margolin alone who determines the trajectory of each song.

As captivating as Cain’s mood-setting can be, Preacher’s Daughter is such a slow burn you periodically wonder if the flame is even still lit.

This Is a Photograph succeeds not because of its nostalgic freight but in spite of it, and Morby’s dialogues with the living, not the dead, are when he speaks most clearly.

These tracks are plenty muscular, but there’s no bulge, no bloat. They’re as sculpted as the six-pack on a plastic superhero costume.

Without being told how to feel, one can simply feel; the music meets you where you are.

The stumbles keep Heart on My Sleeve from being truly exceptional, but Mai’s sumptuous voice and attention to detail make it a beguiling delight.

Un Verano Sin Ti is a cohesively packaged voyage through the various sounds synonymous with the Caribbean region—reggaetón, reggae, bomba, Dominican dembow, Dominican mambo, and bachata, among others.

Despite all its aggrieved poses and statements, the often astonishing rapping, the fastidious attention to detail, and its theme of self-affirmation, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers ironically never settles on a portrait of Kendrick.

They’re the sort of tunes that the Keys can pull off with ease, as satisfying as a perfectly tossed curveball landing in a beaten-up catcher’s mitt. But they also make you wish the Keys didn't spend the rest of Dropout Boogie lobbing underhand pitches right down the middle of the plate.

Dance Fever is as propulsive as any Florence and the Machine album, but its momentum sometimes feels unearned.

At no point does Headful of Sugar come off as cynical, though the central premise falls apart under the slightest bit of scrutiny: This is a largely beloved, well-connected, and unabashedly accessible rock band trying to be convincing as the voice of outcasts obeying their most reckless impulses.

A Light for Attracting Attention sounds more like a proper Radiohead album than any of the numerous side projects the band’s members have done on their own. ... The Smile spotlights the creative relationship between Yorke and Greenwood like never before.

Although Sigrid sings each line as if it’s eye-openingly profound, anyone looking for depth on How to Let Go will quickly find themselves in the shallow end.

On Spell 31, they rework their signature layered spirituals into fleet grooves that shimmer with color and joy yet still channel pain and loss.

Musically, it’s unfulfilling, lacking standout melodies or exciting rhythms. The sound of Come Home the Kids Miss You, in turn, is about as sophisticated and interesting as a Daniel Arsham sculpture, neat at a glance but vapid upon any extended interrogation.

There are few moments across No Fear that feel immediate, timely, or necessary, and their sense of urgency has dulled. For all the hype, fans deserved something better than just good enough.

They’re more interested in making a lovable rock’n’roll record than a pointed political statement, even though at its best Endless Rooms happens to be both.

We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong is a raging bonfire, and although its scale is monumental, it boasts a revealing depth of field, every dramatic arc finely detailed.

They’ve still got it: Murdoch’s droll reflections on youthful bliss are heightened by a flitting violin and a heavenly little bridge that flies high with a trumpet and Sarah Martin’s topline vocals.

The album’s best hooks feature Bartle duetting with Okereke, a new trick in Bloc Party’s repertoire. These strengths are even more frustrating because they reveal an alternative path to the binary rut in which this band has been stuck for 10 years.

Omnium Gatherum proves King Gizzard still have a whole lot of it left in the tank.

To their credit, they mostly remember in the second half of the record, where the songs become more modest and refined, the writing more confident and precise.

Mahal is as fastidiously layered as the rest of Toro y Moi’s style-shifting discography, but Bear leaves the edges rough, connecting the tracks with radio tuning noises and relishing in unvarnished instrumental expression.