Try Me is an album that does things completely on its own rather difficult terms and succeeds on those terms.

Birkenes’ vox often skews towards the incorporeal, a little too airy for its own good, and requires some form of substance to keep it tethered to the music. Without it, Pocketknife threatens to float away into some ethereal realm (as it tends to do in the latter half). That being said, Birkenes does craft some gems throughout the record.

The about-faces make for an engaging, challenging listen, but by the end it all seems a bit vague.

It is an album far less fun than her previous ones, but that’s the point: Allen’s a bit tired of fun, and isn’t afraid to admit that “fun” can sometimes be the source of your troubles.

Ultimately, since it took them 7 years to follow-up their last album, both of the Let’s Try the After EPs function, at the very least, as a stop-gap until their next one.

For the most part, Space holds it together, but there are a few moments that feel a little... moronic.

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.

The moments when his music really comes alive with joy are the best on Teenage Emotions, and they’re often the less rap-oriented moments.

Black Hours is a throwback, but it’s a throwback that could have benefitted from a few more forward-looking ideas.

Though her new material is of mixed quality, Sia’s instrument remains uniformly magnificent. She executes vocal cartwheels throughout these twelve songs, delivering great pain with even greater triumph.

There’s good reason to think that some of the more middling fare on The Way and Color is no more than growing pains.

Everything musical seems startlingly familiar, and not in the paying-homage-to-the-denizens-of-rock-past way the album’s conceit might have you imagine.

The Air-Conditioned Nightmare is ultimately an experience as disorienting as the sensations and emotions that Woodhead describes, strangely beautiful one minute and aggressively ear-splitting the next.

Let’s Go Extinct isn’t the breakthrough that will earn them that big wave of new press, but it’s good enough to warrant some recognition.

There are moments on Julia where he succeeds in creating the important and honest music he wants to make. Of course, when you’re using a shotgun, you’re bound to hit something.

The album is good, which is a component never worth underscoring. But it could be much more than that.

The album is one giant, immaculate anachronism, unimpeachable, but rarely brave.

Blade Of The Ronin is a well-crafted, entertaining, and moderately inspired follow-up that doesn’t do justice to the fourteen-year wait, but it reimagines Can Ox as competent storytellers rather than progressive geniuses.

While 99¢ manages to find its footing at a number of points, it never manages to prop itself up as a whole.

Although it exhibits significant growing pains, it still makes for an exciting and entertaining spin.

Whether we like her or not, Sia might be authoring the most iconic pop music of our generation. For this reason alone, This is Acting is worth at least one listen.

True Romance may not match Aitchison’s high ambitions for her debut, but it’s a hell of a start.

Overall, there is an unfortunate, unintended fatigue that permeates the rest of this album, likely due to the reliance of syncopated guitars to carry most of these songs.

Ruminations is ultimately a lamenting, low-key record. It’s sobering but never elevates higher than just a sparse collection of gloomy acoustic songs. It took just two days to finish and, for better or worse, that makes a lot of sense.

Short of their obvious opposition, there is little here in the way of meaningful tension between the Angels & Devils.

This Is… Icona Pop is not revolutionary, original, or inventive.... What This Is… Icona Pop, and Icona Pop as an artistic duo, possess that few others can lay claim to, is a firm grasp on the musical zeitgeist.

Sophomore album Always Strive and Prosper had ASAP Ferg striving to expand his lyrical and sonic palette and prospering less than half of the time. Still Striving then, perhaps self-consciously titled, course-corrects by dropping pretense and delivering what we came to Ferg for in the first place: banging beats, fire flows. Some of the time, anyway. 11 out of 14 of these tracks have guest features, and a high percentage of them don’t leave much impression.

Clocking in at 61 minutes, Alternate/Endings haphazardly splices together twelve breath-stealing drum & bass tracks recorded throughout 2012 and 2013; the result is more a tasting menu than an actual statement.

All told, Ye is thin gruel when placed next to Kanye’s intellectual transgressions, not to mention an impeccable oeuvre. As an aural experience, it offers a mix of triumph and nostalgia. Results will vary, depending on your willingness to embark on this very short, often thrilling, ride. But for an artist defined by grandiosity, Ye is frustratingly slight.

It is intensely personal, tangled in the sentiments that privately plague each of us. Untogether is meant for those cold, murky nights in which we feel completely and utterly alone.

The blip-bloops and motorik groove of “Dear World”, could’ve easily slotted in as one of the better tracks on Hesitation Marks, and then there’s the contrast between hearing the digital diary entries in the verses of “The Idea of You” with the exploding choruses (aided by Dave Grohl). But nothing here is truly great.

Five tracks, two very good, three just good, and three remixes, one worth your while, and two that don’t fight to be heard by anyone other than fans of the band.

Though More Life has its faults, Drake clearly worked hard on it. If the first thing you notice about More Life is its monolithic runtime, the second is how obvious it is that Drizzy is doing his damnedest to get your cosign.

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.

On his fourth studio album I Decided, he positions himself as hip-hop’s poster-boy for all of these qualities [hard work, sacrifice, persistence, gratitude], but in rapping about such unassailable ideas, he comes away with uninteresting results.

It’s one of Snaith’s least cohesive and affecting full-lengths, even as it provides us with some of his strongest individual tracks to date.

Crosswords, as a collection of loose leaves, doesn't have the weight of Grim Reaper but that also means it doesn't have the pressure. Crosswords is something you can just consume without trying to wring every inch of intent out of it.

The main downfall of Z is a lack of strong lyricism. In the rare moments that the murk clears or the light becomes too bright, what lies behind is less graceful than what it seemed.

A game-changer Bigfoot is not, but it’s a very solid debut album full of eight consistently catchy, easygoing tunes ready-made for summer beach trips, pool parties, and barbecues.

The album doesn’t always work, but more often than not it sounds enough like vintage Coldplay to satisfy both diehards and casual listeners.

It is a diffuse album, constantly but immeasurably changing its shape and diverting itself when you attempt to grasp it, like smoke. Warpaint’s epiphanies are minor, its surprises few, but the general immutability alludes to vision rather than a lack of progress.

Though at times a little errant and borderline-satirical, A New Testament succeeds because it showcases backward-facing storytelling and incontrovertibly catchy vintage American music.

An easy criticism to level at St. Catherine is that it breaks no ground, that Mondanile can probably pen these kind of fuzzy and meandering ditties in his sleep. That might be true, but St. Catherine’s highpoints will hypnotize and hold sway long enough to keep you entranced until Mondanile’s next contribution.

There are so many moments when the music seems on the verge of exploding, but never does, and that’s ultimately to the album’s detriment.

Uptown Special exhibits a long-playing cohesion missing from his prior output. The sense of free-wheeling fun, however, is largely absent with the exception of the record’s funky A-side trifecta.

In The Wild won’t ruffle feathers, but it’s rarely less than enjoyable.

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.

As Tesfaye notes on “Reminder”, The Weeknd has inspired a lot of imitators. Instead of moving forward on Starboy, he ends up sounding like one of them.

The campy Scooby Doo spookiness that inspires Slasher Flicks’ aesthetic is so charming and irresistible that Enter the Slasher House regularly succeeds despite its faults.

It’s not her best (nothing is quite like “Get Some”) but it’s a fresh change from an artist who gave us both subtle and surefire signs she might head in this direction.

Big Baby D.R.A.M. makes it clear he’s interested in a lot more than just writing breezy radio tunes. The only problem is that’s unequivocally what he’s best at.

Given a dearth of hooks, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes demands a decent set of headphones to appreciate its foremost asset, technical construction.... Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes disappoints most when it approximates ordinary song structures.

Despite consisting of well-crafted, thoughtful songs, the emotional gutpunch that is to be expected from a Grouper album never quite arrives over multiple listens.

They’re not always entirely compelling, but it’s difficult to question Meloy & co’s sincerity in these Kumbaya moments, and that is the band’s true triumph here.

As a whole, the transitions are a bit choppy and sudden, digging away at the coherence of the album.

THR!!!ER is a remarkably fluid album, transitioning seamlessly between songs and only rarely getting mired in moments of subpar music.

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”).

In the absence of the chill-ed out R&B and funk that defined his early sound, Toro y Moi’s newest album just doesn’t stand out from an increasingly crowded field.

The way it ping-pongs between pastiche and higher art is interesting. But so much of this music has been done better by other artists that it’s understandable if you see no reason to listen to 2012-2017 in favor of superior disco edits by Tiger & Woods or DJ Harvey, or more beguiling avant-acid house by Africans with Mainframes--or, y’know, a Nicolas Jaar album.

As welcome as is this darker tone, the unapologetic sonic uniformity makes it difficult to pick out individual songs.

Like [Prince's 1981 album] Controversy’s title track handing off to “Sexuality” or many other examples, there are stylistic switches in War & Leisure too: the aforementioned “City of Angels” between the album’s two best grooves (“Told You So” and “Caramelo Duro”), but the switches don’t feel natural--they just feel like the “shuffle” was the chosen method of sequencing. Too much leisure, not enough war.

Poliça flirt with greatness often enough to make Shulamith more than worth your time, but it’s not as brave as we’d like it to be.

While the rest of Outside may not deliver in such a manner [as “A Forest at Night”], it still showcases one of North America’s more unique and talented producers on his own terms.

As good as these songs are, their lyrical monotony can be punishing.

While Wolf’s Law has a few lulls, such as the syrupy, “The Turnaround,” and some of the prog moments like “The Leopard and the Lung,” run too long, the best moments shine.

The reality is that Something to Tell You, though strong in its own right, just doesn’t quite live up to the pomp and circumstance established by Days.

Beyond some excellent beats and a few flashes of lyrical prowess, Magna Carta... Holy Grail doesn’t invite the kind of intrigue that Jay-Z is capable of. He spends the whole album reminding us that he is the center of attention but by about halfway through most people will be doing something else.

It’s bizarre, and at times beautiful, but overall it leaves a longing for some direction, some movement in this exploration of the abyss.

The ambition on Every Open Eye is obvious, and Chvrches seem willing to relinquish some of their originality to take the next step. Nor does the album possess the thrill of the new. But it’s still more carefully constructed than 90 percent of what the genre currently has to offer.

Like Summer Sun, there’s more ambience, more general keyboard and synth blear, more lounge-pad speckles and dots, but the songwriting is rudimentary even by this band’s standards and the tone color doesn’t vary as much as they maybe thought it did.

Tomorrow’s Hits carries on the classic rock torch, for better or worse.

What it really lacks then is quality control and what it requires is a good deal of patience but, despite the occasions when it falters, elsewhere it’s consistently good, and sporadically brilliant.

Darlings is very listenable and mostly fun--just don’t overthink it and keep the BSS comparisons to a minimum.

It’s an enjoyable and diversionary, if not particularly nutritious, experience.

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

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

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.

Individual melodies may not stick in your head, but Magnifique, as a complete work, offers a musical experience unavailable beyond Ratatat’s veteran production table.

SweetSexySavage, because of its consistency, can be run through easily, especially in a car with the windows down and the bass up. Feminism, rebellion, and plain old badassery pour from Parrish’s lips, and her melodic sensibilities are sharp enough keep you engrossed.

If allowed a spot in your rotation, its placidity could nudge you into taking the scenic routes a little more often. And that alone is worthy of some (appropriately muted) applause.

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.

A record that’s all too often content with mediocrity even though its finest moments reveal just how close it came to greatness.

Is the Is Are is certainly honest, but it could use a little more optimism, and the music’s circuitousness only adds to the feeling that a single issue is being poked and prodded to exhaustion.

Only the opening stanza of “Waitress Song”--in which a major label signee fantasizes about escaping heartbreak by assuming a romanticized working class identity--is outright egregious. The rest is just innocuous.

Honest is a good deal more middle-of-the-pack for a post-Yeezus 2014 than its creator wants to admit.

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.

Overall, no risks are taken: all of the lyrics want to be mantras but end up as little nothings instead; practically all of the songs reveal their hands way before their often too-long song lengths; they mistake reverb as a songwriting tool.

There’s honestly no real low moment on Life of Pause, but then again, low moments were never this album’s problem. The problem is that there’s really only one high moment.

While Mensa’s flow is capable enough (especially on the opening two tracks, which are some of the album’s best), he also indulges in some painfully cheesy lines, from references to television shows long dead (“Tryna take over the world like Pinky and the Brain”) no matter how ham-fisted (“If she see her name, she get Goku tough”).

Discarding the albums actually awesome opener, “No Room in Frame”,--which briefly had me hoping for some tangible musical progress from the band--Kintsugi is more or less 45 minutes of boy-next-door, paint-by-number indie pop

Lyrically, High as Hope forsakes Welch’s knack for vibrant imagery and symbolism for more human modifiers and concerns. While it allows her to share more personal information, Welch’s straightforward songwriting means there are no “Howl”’s or “Ship to Wreck”’s present here. ... Despite these critiques, High as Hope surpasses many of them to solidify itself as a decent record.

Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son is long on atmospherics, but woefully short on songs.

Alt-J remain impossible to put a pin in, which makes This Is All Yours almost as frustrating as it is absorbing.

True, not every album needs to make a statement; sometimes it’s just nice to have music to listen to with your eyes closed and your brain off. But they can do better.

Unlike the best of the Notwist’s output, Close to the Glass isn’t emotionally nourishing, primarily because there’s no real sense that anything is at stake.

Despite its outward bustle and injections of colour throughout, the album’s personality is also disappointingly tentative and placid.

This album gets a C+ because I really enjoyed the time I spent hating it.