Pinegrove’s new album Marigold contains some of their signature warmth but lacks the luster that made their initial run of albums exceptional. Self-produced by Hall and Pinegrove multi-instrumentalist Sam Skinner, Marigold is endearingly rumpled, but the mood is more melancholy, more dreary.

Where R.Y.C. succeeds—and where Crossan reveals a real point of view—is in his ultimate rejection of these initial frameworks in favor of something more fluid, a hybrid space in which these sounds, stylings, and emotional responses work together.

Nothing on this album is intended to be heard from a distance, and at its best, it’s terrifying.

Despite a culminating victory lap in which riffs from the group’s past albums come back for a curtain call, the album doesn’t feel like a nostalgia trip. Instead, it’s a consolidation of the strengths that this band has been amassing over its long life.

UR FUN—a confection, a distraction, a collection of competent and sparkling pop songs—doesn’t open itself to the world as it stands in this moment.

Gaudet has such a witty way with one-liners, and the band is so effervescent in their execution, that it’s easy to overlook the elevated level of craft at work. Football Money clocks in at a lean 10 songs and 27 minutes, with nary a second wasted.

Modus is essentially the antithesis of the half-baked works that arose from Kanye’s Wyoming sessions in 2018. It is the result of a handful of talented collaborators who provide enough eclecticism to balance out the bombastic sound of G.O.O.D. in-house producer Mike Dean.

It’s certainly not perfect, but it’s easy to understand the need to release it. At best, Losst and Founnd is a way to feel closer to Nilsson, no matter how long it’s been since he left us.

Algiers’ audio zines, the last of which invoked the Algerian revolution to explore angst and uncertainty using thickets of drone, show that they are capable of more nuanced writing. But they haven’t yet learned to translate the political into the personal, to turn abstract ideas into matters of the gut.

Swimming hinted at an artist who’d finally cleared his mind and found his footing. Circles provides some resolution and helps finish Miller’s final thoughts.

There’s a familiar, overriding sense of a couple of guys reading something about history and having a lot to report. If you don’t mind the idea of These New Puritans as your dad after a Ken Burns binge, you’ll find signs of life and creativity within Making a New World’s overall confusion. If not, no one could blame you for moving on.

The Circus is measured, soothing, and a suitable accompaniment to brandy and a cigar in a comfortable chair.

No single passage lasts very long, which gives even the prettier moments an unstable feeling, like everything might at any moment crumble into a void of distortion and noise. Throughout, her lyrics are venomous and apocalyptic.

While none of these 13 songs attempt the subtle weirdness of “Bad Liar” and the emotional thesis—self-love!—can be a bit one-note, Rare is the 27-year-old’s most cohesive record to date. ... But it’s difficult to come away from Rare with any real perspective on who Gomez is other than that she doesn’t want to be the person she was, whoever that similarly mysterious shadow was.

The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City is too harmless to hate, but it’s hard to feel much of anything about it—which is a fatal flaw for a band that leverages an uncanny ability to rid people of inhibitions against their better judgment.

Even when it’s clumsy, Seeking Thrills never feels manufactured. It’s a passion project, a result of trial and error, the singular product of someone learning to write for her own voice.

Heavy Rain is a surprisingly inspired piece of late-period dabbling from a dub master.

To stick with the digital-age-anxiety theme, Networker feels not unlike a dating app meetup that went fine, but not great—just entertaining enough to hold your interest for a round or two of drinks until you’ve decided you probably wouldn’t see them again.

Walking Like We Do has moments of thoughtless escapism—and a couple of earnest bum notes—but it comes into its own when it blends humor with darkness, suffusing everything with gentle, sarcastic nihilism.

Their careful pace and refusal to succumb to instant gratification is a tonic against chaos, a reminder that otherworldly idylls exist within terrestrial grasp. The Ground Our Sky encourages sensuality in the most literal sense: an awareness of one’s senses and taking deliberate pleasure in them.

There is very little club to be found on Jesus Is Born—it is a pure gospel album. One of the most radical elements of the album is what’s absent: Kanye’s voice. Instead, he’s assembled a massive choir to channel his Christian message in a joyous, all-consuming wave of sound.

It’s Toliver who sounds like he’s rallying, his voice less like a piece of software and more an instrument of feeling. His singsong verse is one of the few moments on JACKBOYS that isn’t just product.

Vollebekk laces his capacious, meandering music with a ’60s folk-jazz sensibility. As with Twin Solitude, he recorded New Ways directly to tape, allowing each song’s mood to dictate its direction.

Each track is its own study in loneliness, yet each is in communication with the others, like spirit mediums.

Masseduction Rewired is by no means indispensable, but as a distraction it has the frustrating charm of a good crossword puzzle.

Most rappers would sell their soul for his ability to shape his melody to latch onto any relevant sound, but everything here feels so safe.

There are isolated moments here and there, but even when when they strike an appealing note or two, the Free Nationals never come across as more than a backing band missing its leader.

Their new, self-titled album bears all the hallmarks of classic Duster records: plodding drums, skeletal basslines, and guitar work that sparkles in the darkness like dew on a cobweb.