Not since Kid A has an album so superb pushed away and pulled closer its audience, simultaneously and with such aplomb.

Even in ending on a starkly depressing note, Heads Up is a strong, evocative record that solidifies Warpaint as one of the genre’s most creative and entertaining.

The production is superb, crisp drums that pop, keys that sparkle and tones that you recognize from Rostam’s other production. ... When Hamilton and Rostam record together they use the same voice.

A widely varied and ultimately satisfying record.

So, bottom line, you’ve got a few pieces of trash, a couple of sketches whose mileage varies on how well you dig their hooks, and plenty of fantastic stuff that ranks with M.I.A.’s best work, and M.I.A.’s best work is fascinating and damned fun.

Catchy as anything choruses, short track times, tight and sparse rhythms make this a record I wish came out when I was in high school. If the record does have a fault, is that it colors inside the lines.

Sunlit Youth does feel more indebted to contemporary indie bands like Young the Giant or Phoenix than their previous records, but it’s also a fascinating snapshot of the band during an inevitable transitional phase.

Truthfully, every song is a goodie, except “Sense”, which is a minute of breathing room which won’t kill you to listen to.

Both Doris and The Sun’s Tirade are filled with sleepy beats, are overly long, and while Earl Sweatshirt sounded mechanical and detached through most of that album, Isaiah Rashad has yet to really develop his persona/presence.

It’s simply, as mentioned, unpretentious, unassuming, and crucially, good music.

It’s more ambitious than her last one; better too. But I simply don’t think the formulaic songwriting is worthy of praise, nor the very notion of being more ambitious. Nor do I think the anti-septic production of the second half to be the best fit for her sound

Jeffery isn’t the best rap album of the year, but it comes on strong enough to convince you--even for a few fleeting minutes of “Wyclef Jean”--that it just might be.

Prima Donna may not stand up to the unfettered brilliance of Summertime ‘06, but it was never supposed to. Instead, it tells us just a bit about Staples’ scope as an artist.

It sounds great while it’s playing and means nothing except that it sounds great and will sound just as great 10, 20, 30 years from now.

In the show’s context, this soundtrack is a solid A. Evocative, thrilling, and dynamic, it’s everything you could possibly want from a TV score. On its own, it’s one of the most refreshingly forward-thinking electronic releases of the year, even if the tracklist could use some cleaning up.

On the whole, Blonde is more assured and consistent than Channel Orange. It inherits the bagginess of his overstuffed debut, but lacks the thrill of groundbreaking novelty. Frank Ocean is an outlier, an artist who can produce an album this phenomenal and nevertheless fall a bit short.

The first product from Crystal Castles 2.0 is a mixed bag of nostalgia, proficiency, and carefully staged continuity.

Like Wilson before him, Ocean has delivered a non-commercial pop curio that now and then slows down to focus on an idea long enough to form a “complete” song, or not.

Roosevelt listens less like a dynamic pop album and more like a static soundtrack that only becomes more and more significant as time goes on.

Even songs that aren’t so charged are worthy of our attention, either for her vocals or some other worthwhile detail.

Expanding their lineup with a second drummer, Thee Oh Sees are allowed to stretch their sound and release one of their most cosmic, trippiest records yet.

In trying so desperately to be universal, they’ve ended up with their most stiflingly insular album yet.

Critically, this may not move many needles. But to casual listeners, Wild Beasts are on a mission to refine their own definition. This is must-witness music at its very finest.

This can’t hold a candle to Late Nights: The Album (was anyone expecting it to?), but it’s one of the better mixtapes released this year.

As it stands, it’s a moderate success following her appearance on Disclosure’s Caracal and Samsung commercials.

The genre-spanning approach dilutes what could have been a memorable project, leaving 32 Levels with a storage of untapped potential and only a few beacons shining their fullest light.

Is Wildflower the best album of the year? Probably not. But it was made by one of the most influential artists of our generation. Take note.

Cheetah is still his best release since his return to the music scene. If you’re looking for something groundbreaking, you’re probably going to be disappointed, but this is still one of 2016’s best electronic releases, and a worthy addition to the Aphex Twin canon.

IV feels subdued and professional, something you would never expect to associate with the quartet.

There are over-arching problems here: the lyricism that doesn’t relate to anyone except the singer, which is especially troubling on the mostly lyric-driven “Widow’s Peak”; the lack of color from the lugubrious and minimalistic approach (excepting the vocal shading of “Joe’s Dream” and the Western-tinged “Honeymooning Alone”); the dearth of melodies, make the relatively short album get wearying over time, especially when you add the too-pristine production.

This is a good record, where two inherently different musicians who speak the same language get together in the same room and produce something that’s as amorphous as the cover and as emotionally charged as the album and track titles suggest.

Consider the context of the odd drum machine and her monotone delivery, giving more emotional weight to her words and that pause, and the contrast provided when the riotous saxophone comes in. Other highlights include the gorgeous harmonies of “I Bet on Losing Dogs” and the Pixies-inspired “Dan the Dancer” and “My Body’s Made of Crushed Little Stars.”

The album is monumental in every sense of the word, a visceral testament to the abilities of an incredible group of musicians, each member contributing equally to its breathtaking chiaroscuro.

This is an album that belongs in a 2016 time capsule, and one that any indie bard hopeful should be required to hear.

While Goodness doesn’t match the raw feeling or sincerity of Home, Like Noplace Is There, it’s well worth the time of any self-respecting emo junkie.

In addition to nostalgia, they also use the easy weapons of doing that juxtaposition thing of pairing cheery music with sad lyrics and vocals and putting the other single (a nice climbing keyboard line in that one) wisely as what would be the opener of the second side if this were the vinyl age; spacing out the good stuff instead of front-loading the record. The other songs aren’t bad, but their pleasures are pleasant at best.

All of the songs (minus one useless interlude) had at least something worth returning to.

Some passable stuff here, mostly confined to the second half.

So spend your capitalist dollars on this album. He’s worth them.

All of Weber’s best qualities as a producer are on display on The Triad, his fourth album and first in six years. But The Triad also reveals a previously unforeseen Achilles’ heel: the guy doesn’t have a clue what to do with vocals.

Good Luck and Do Your Best is dull, an affair that lacks curiosity because the answers are in front of him. None of the production is outright bad, just done before by the likes of Four Tet, Nujabes, and John Talabot.

Skin is the sound of Flume reaching for great heights and almost grasping what he seeks there.

Dangerous Woman shouldn’t be taken particularly seriously as any kind of “maturation,” but that it still has some pretty good songs on it. Not counting the bonus tracks, there are only two outright throwaways.

On Dynamics, Frankel and Millhiser made an unnatural-yet-understandable misstep, but on Crime Cutz, they’re hoping to regain their footing and play off their awkward slip by reverting back to what worked for them in the first place. It’s fun hearing it work for them again.

This is a vibrant, uneven, irresistibly likable, and occasionally transcendent release from an artist who shows no signs of falling off anytime soon.

The best release from one of the most exciting artists of the 2010s.

Even if Colour doesn’t drastically alter Blake’s sound, it widens and refines it, keeping what made his first two records so memorable while hinting that there remains ever further room for growth.

A Moon Shaped Pool is the best album we could expect from a rock outfit already into its third decade of existence, and a superb work from the last important band left in the universe.

While this sort of economic chords and vocal/guitar/bass/drum hardcore punk rock record is easy to come by, what’s rarer is when its aggression--not necessarily just in the vocals and lyrics--comes from someplace genuine.

Songs on Oh No never outright fail, but they don’t all inspire the same level of intrigue and enthusiasm. There are moments when Lanza sings entirely in falsetto over an ambient afterglow where you will get FKA Twigs deja vu.

Will is a wobbly baby step from a well-honed sound to something greater. There’s not much reason to listen to it over any of her other albums, and it’s less interesting for the music it contains than the music it promises.

The most critical takeaway is how nuanced every single track is on behalf of Kaytranada’s unparalleled attention to and manipulation of detail.

Even if I miss the personal struggles of I Am a Bird Now and The Crying Light, Anohni and her collaborators have created a dazzling musical artifact. Hopelessness ultimately betrays its title, and its banner-waving, because the voice at its center is fundamentally the opposite of defeated.

Yes, Views is both overlong and underwhelming. But there’s a glimmer of something more poignant beneath its bloated surface.

On Spiritual Songs for Lovers to Sing, Roberts and Hoorn deliver a beautiful album filled with bombastic, gothic and anthemic hymns that aim for deliverance.

There’s plenty of substance to be found here if you look hard enough.

Basically, this particular ambient music doesn’t lend much intellectual export or posterity that Eno so often claims to pursue. (Being slower isn’t necessarily a sign of intellectual maturity.) His approach may show it, but that’s his prerogative. Nothing wrong with staying in a mood, but this mood--whatever it is--sounds pretty played-out to me.

The sparks of great art are there, but the brain behind the creation lays dormant. Time will tell where Domo goes, and honestly Genesis isn't a bad beginning.

Not To Disappear is an intermittently pretty affair with painfully little substance, an album that spends so much time wallowing in its own self-indulgent loneliness that it fails to offer up anything listeners can actually relate to.

Despite some glaring issues, Sept. 5th manages to stay listenable, and offers occasional glimpses of genuine inspiration.

It’s a better seasoned Feast of Love, yes. But when the wagon still has wheels, it’s hard to knock them for continuing to ride it. It’s still as smooth as it’s always been.

Clocking in at roughly 47 minutes across a charitable eighteen tracks, Always Strive and Prosper does not seem to break any new ground.

It’s a rare album that sounds this warm, this easy, this melodic, this fierce, this startling, this unforgettable.

The songs on Please Be Honest are in keeping with the constant state of evolution and experimentation of most GBV albums. Which is to say, the songs are hit or miss.

It’s dripping with oldness, but it’s far from good.

These tracks don’t feel futuristic, but they shine with a blinding light, capping one of the most impressive arcs of any album so far this year.

What he’s presented us with, essentially, is the skeleton of Animal Collective’s fleeting creativity, stripped down to its roots, revealing that even at its rawest, purest form the music still has an instinctive grasp of sincere emotion and beauty.

Add production issues that have marred the bulk of their discography to the lack of tune and we have something that never lifts off: everything sounds mixed at the same level, resulting in mush.

The record is a bit too downtempo to be ideal party music, but it’ll make a killer soundtrack for your walk home from the party.

The main two highlights are the strutting “Mandy Cream” and the bass-heavy closer “The Magazine,” with rapid-fire handclaps coming in during the choruses and a sustained falsetto melody recalling Yes’ “We Have Heaven.”

Varmints displays both extremely well crafted instrumentation, and an overwhelming creative freedom.

Whether by Simpson’s own design or in spite of it, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth is ahead of its time.

These eleven joyous anthems and campfire sing-alongs find Harvey striding across fresh stylistic ground. Despite their bleak topicality, vibrant optimism radiates out from lyrical melancholy. Sonic warmth envelops the album like a sumptuous blanket.

Gore ferociously asserts that Deftones haven’t lost any of their creative spark. If anything, their fire is blazing higher than ever.

Love Streams is far from Hecker’s best release. But it’s a promising development in his career, in that it proves not only that Hecker hasn’t run out of ideas but that he’s still bursting with them.

Muppets In Space album cover aside, Gonzalez has still left plenty on Junk for his merry usual band of misfits--the lovers, the dreamers, and him.

Next Thing truly is beautiful, if a little too slight to be counted among the greats in its genre. It doesn’t seem to strive for that type of greatness, though. It’s content to revel in purely being, basking in its own breathless embodiment of grace and lightness.

It feels disjointed and incomplete.

While there are elements within that suggest a compelling cocktail of high-drama and low self-awareness, Everything You’ve Come to Expect is more dour than it needs to, or should, be.

It lacks the game-changing element of The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place or Those Who Tell the Truth. Instead of pushing into new universes, they’re content to find a quiet corner in one they’ve already built. That being said, the craft involved is evident, and there’s an assuredness and polish to the compositions; the fingerprints of a veteran group.

Slime Season 3, while still with its flaws, is the perfect introduction to those wondering just where the hell popular hip-hop has come, gone, and will soon go in the snowballing south.

Mind Of Mine is a better whole than a collection of songs, and the standouts tend to be the shorter, less unambitious ditties (the theatrical “It’s You”; the gut-punch party jam “She”).

Cuomo seems to have found his commercial home embracing a beach-party rock flavor for California kids who’ll “throw you a lifeline” and “show you the sunshine”, and indeed the beach tone persists through the album. This should be fine and modest, but in Weezer’s hands it’s just too overbearingly gross-sounding to let off that easy.

Are You Serious isn’t perfect by any stretch, but on this record, Andrew Bird has compiled 11 good songs. Every track is well-produced. Every track has competent lyrics. Every track is melodically solid. Every track exhibits Bird’s impressive performing abilities (the things he does with a violin are incredible). Every track is individually memorable.

The Range’s new album Potential overflows with humanity, and that fact is what elevates it from just a quality electronic record to a universally important piece of work.

Vroom Vroom might have worked had Charli written some better hooks, or actually put some effort into her raps, or just not rapped at all. Or if even Charli had coasted, just as she does here, and Sophie taken the reins.

There’s nothing even remotely inventive here.

On No Burden, Dacus follows up the stellar opening track with a wonderful debut album full of bigger, bolder slow-burn anthems and subtle epics.

Ritual Spirit, apart from the rapping portions (which don’t detract from the experience), pores over a genre Massive Attack helped shape.

It really only hopes to make you smile with smart twin harmonies and silly lyrics. On those terms, Leave Me Alone is a unqualified success.

There’s no flash here, just a finely crafted batch of searingly personal indie rock songs. Unless you never had to grow up, it will resonate.

“Kevin” and “White Privilege II”, obvious attempts to spark political discourse, see an artist not afraid to speak his mind. It makes meme-chasing moments like “Brad Pitt’s Cousin” and “Dance-Off” all the more forgettable.

For what Aa ultimately assumes itself to be--a glorified promo tape of talents--the result is quite enjoyable.

It’s all over the place, but in a good way. After all, when two people come together to create one identity, it makes sense for that identity to be a bit mercurial.

Time will tell if this record is a blueprint for a new way or something significantly less. For now, it remains one of the most compelling genre albums of the early year.

Throughout ColleGrove, the dominant statement that seems to be made is one of discordancy and dullness. Wherever these two succeed, there is always an antithesis to mute the momentum.

Emily’s D+Evolution is a tight package that should appeal to fans of Janelle Monáe and Joni Mitchell’s more jazzy endeavors, or anyone who is looking for some well crafted, ambiguous music, with elements of jazz, rock, and folk accompanied with some stellar singing.