Continuing the convention-defying structure that Deerhunter pioneered with "Cryptograms," Microcastle starts slow and spirals into something much larger.

It is a record that tries to rise above the expectations created by the band’s past success. In doing so, it loses sight of where their past success came from.

A Deeper Understanding is an epic, panoramic record, but its effect is an intimate, personal one. The way these song stretch out make them grand, but they still leave space for you, the listener.

Rainbow is simply the record she needed to make. And at a time where most pop music is either designed by committee or drowning in beigeness, it’s also the kind of individual and achingly honest record we needed to hear.

Past albums might have romanticized drugs and booze as the way out, but here it's music, and the album feels more healing as a result, even if its ode to the sweet sounds that came before it presents its own complications and delusions.

A lack of self-editing is the only real flaw on an album which proves that two decades into their career QOTSA are sounding fresher than ever.

Barnes's most personal and emotional album to date.

Barring any idiomatic prejudices against the contemporary production techniques, there are no glaring missteps here.

Each pass cements that Stevens has done the impossible yet again: He's released another album that's both genre-defining and genre-defying.

While there may not be a ton of surprises from his solo work at this point, this is still an awfully strong set from a guy who's pretty tough to beat when he's on his game.

Break it Yourself dodges the feedback of erring too closely to its own sources--but not all of it soars.

It does two things that disparate types of electronic music do, and manages to bridge the gap between ambience and glitch so seemlessly they feel much closer than you might have first thought.

There's still an eerie distortion saturating Halo's vocals, as has become her trademark. But the prominence of her singing here is almost jarring, raw, practically emotive.

Offend Maggie’s mellowness is not a lessening of Deerhoof’s strangeness. In fact, the emotional intensity of these songs may be even more pronounced than in songs from the past.

If Donuts was Jay Dee's swan song, The Shining is a glimpse of what his work may have sounded like in the future.

Like the White Album, Exile on Mainstreet, or Wowee Zowee, this album's risky lack of sonic cohesion becomes the very through line that binds the work as a whole. Unlike those albums, however, not all of the experiments here are uniformly excellent or thrilling, nor do they all live up to the promise of the wonderful, muted Satan.

The Crying Light is not exactly light and happy stuff, but for Antony, it’s a giant step forward down the path toward personal and artistic happiness.

The playing on the album is strong throughout, and unfortunately the lyrics don’t quite pass muster. Though Hood acquits himself nicely, none of the songs rank near the top of his considerable artistic output.

In a perfect combination of inspired production, innovative instrumentation and transcendent songwriting, Akron/Family is a richly layered and flowing album that is as emotional as it is challenging.

Real Life Is No Cool is essentially all pop structures. It's maybe an accident that Lindstrøm and Christabelle's project so successfully feels like something hip and modern, like a photograph hung in a museum or cut from an obscure magazine that's suddenly become part of the landscape.

Return to the Sea is filled with breezy, infectious melodies and quirky whip-smart lyrics; qualities that were sometimes lost underneath the Unicorns' shtick.

Stephen Malkmus is back with Mirror Traffic, in a way he wasn't with the Pavement reunion, which is to say in a way that reaches past nostalgia and easy money and is based in great music built to last.

For all the bravado of its title, Destroy Rock & Roll is in fact a neat, listenable trip.

By turns exuberant and hushed, intricate and occasionally frenzied, Gorilla Manor more than lives up to its title.

Fin creates a passionate kind of poetry not only in its music but also in its listeners.

In short, Thursday is a mixtape of subtleties.

Its power and poise never ceases for 90 wonderful minutes.

For all its delectable dance tracks, infused with Barnes’ latest influences of Afrobeat, disco and electronic music, The Sunlandic Twins still offers thoughtful lyrics and emotionally heady songs.