EVOL is the first time we begin to hear the ostensible rigidity in Future's formula revealing itself.

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.

Offerings of pure pop pleasure are offset with healthy doses of weirdness. It’s a sincere, exciting and excitable album that successfully adds by subtracting.

[A] near-classic, West’s Physical Graffiti, his White Album. The Life of Pablo makes the wonderful Yeezus appear minor by comparison.

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.

What we have instead is a brooding, oddly sequenced, and scattered collection that defies easy categorization.

The only thing that comes through is that it’s competent. That’s enough to be pretty, but it still has the unremarkable safety of a band that hasn’t broken through to find a distinct voice.

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.

Moth is a breezy, immensely enjoyable pop record that provides just the amount of pep that you’ll need to make it through the winter.

New View isn’t the crowning jewel in Friedberger’s catalogue, but it is a beautiful, unadorned meditation on life’s most delicate mysteries: potential, narrative, and the passage of time.

Paak’s got the musicianship down to a science. Now it’s clear he’s working on what his music feels like.

By challenging their audience in such starkly interpersonal terms, Savages have pulled off an even more impressive trick. On Silence Yourself, they were shouting a rallying cry from the rooftops; on Adore Life, they’re shouting a foot away from your face.

When packaged together, the album’s 41 minutes of clatter, jazz, and incantation coalesce into something otherworldly and almost marvelous.

The bottom line is this: Product is a great album, even though it isn't exactly surprisingly great. Many of Sophie’s best tracks, come to find out, are the ones we’ve heard since 2013.

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’s a funny and effortless mixtape.

With this album, Ty has proven that he’s not just another hook and single singer. He’s actually capable of creating a project that keeps listeners engaged for 16 tracks.

25 is not a bad album, nor is it an excellent one--it’s just good, that’s all.

Art Angels is the maximalist brainchild of a prodigious talent. It’s hugely entertaining. It’s delightfully bizarre. It’s refreshingly caustic.

Divers takes another logical step, tightening up from the sprawling consistency of Have One on Me without quite tightening up enough to return to Mender’s folk-pop. This is easily Newsom’s most sumptuously arranged album, with a more eclectic palette of instruments than she’s previously employed.

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

It goes down like a reimagined debut, because it introduces a newly carefree, naturally focused Neon Indian.

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.

Rarely does The Documentary 2 feel, or sound, important enough to warrant a double album, especially not one that spans three hours. The Documentary 2 perhaps works best when Game suffuses tracks with growing pains.

Deerhunter have returned to tasteful pop-shoegaze mode and made their mellowest, most lyric-driven, most calculated... and, err, most cheesiest album. Best Beach House record of 2015!

It’s not something that plays as well in the daylight. But when it soundtracks your darker, interior night life, it’s like being given a tailored suit. Everything fits, and the sum effect is something sharp and modern.

Disclosure’s second album was never going to be as huge and loud and groundbreaking as Settle. So rather than lamenting the loss, check out what you’re missing. Because what you’re missing is terrific.

While B’lieve won’t always command attention, that’s part of what makes it such a pleasant experience--Vile freely expresses himself without demanding anything in return.