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.

Ryan Adams unearths new emotional riches, mostly sad ones, from his source material. And his 1989 transcends mere tribute.

Del Rey has struggled to back up her provocations with substance. Ultraviolence was an exception, a singular breakthrough. Honeymoon is, sadly, a slip and fall after a promising stride forward.

[A] strange, frequently beautiful, and unabashedly indulgent album.

It finds Prince embracing EDM and his band 3rd Eye Girl lays down some sturdy, derivative grooves that ought to signal bathroom breaks and beer runs at shows to come.

Ostensibly their pop record, this brisk, 29-minute album album runs out of ideas in the first ten.

It’s been well over a decade since Julian Casablancas & Co. have released an album as taut and wasted and sexy as Anthems for Doomed Youth.

Every song has key x-factors that transform already solid works into longer-lasting excitement.

Yours, Dreamily will be perfect comfort food for rock and roll purists.

There’s a lack of personal narrative or identity on Rodeo, and Scott will often overcompensate for the hollowness of his music.

Foals daub from a palette of varied hues on What Went Down, occasionally with spectacular results. But as an album it’s revisionary as opposed to revolutionary, refining and weaving its DNA from the albums that preceded it.

Stuff Like That There is Yo La Tengo’s gentlest album by far. It’s also their least eclectic, which is to say their most samey-sounding. Summer Sun wasn’t dynamically varied either, but it had color and texture--pools of it! Stuff Like That There is just as consistent, but not nearly as rich.

The end result is 40 minutes of music that drain the listener’s energy and will.

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

M3LL155X, whatever the hell it is, is perfect. Rarely have five songs sounded so cohesive, or made such a dramatic statement.

A heavy-hitting, beautifully arranged EP that might or might not have been recorded between 2006 and 2008.

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.

Compton is an exceptional, big-budget rap album up-and-down.... Although fat definitely needed to be trimmed from this animal, it’s humbling to know Dre hasn’t let his ego get the best of him musically.

Minor sonic updates don’t entirely compensate for the lack of deep cuts, but it’s hard to fault Depression Cherry for playing to Beach House’s well-established strengths.

Emotion is so good, it’s formed sky-high expectations out of thin air.

Throughout, tracks will leave you with a noticeably bittersweet aftertaste--although it isn’t exactly lacking in flavor. It’s as though the album is missing a secret ingredient, or doesn’t ever find the right blend.

Love is Free makes a seriously compelling case that the EP should be the standard form of pop-music communication. Robyn’s latest is all killer, no filler, and leaves you begging for more.

Mine a little deeper, and all of a sudden, Another One is the most technically refined album DeMarco has produced.

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.

Poison Season is a caustic, beguiling masterpiece.

No, TMLT is not as precise as The Monitor, nor as pleasurable. It does, however, surpass it in imagination and aim. This alone cements The Most Lamentable Tragedy as one of this year’s greatest rock records.

Smartly abandoning the sappy balladry that alienated many on his debut album, Pluto, and trimming all the excess fat that made Honest, an otherwise solid sophomore effort, feel largely uneven, Future goes for the gut and DS2 can pack a wallop.

Secondhand Rapture was inconsistent and uneven at points, but it also drew some power from its unpredictability. Its successor is twelve straight tracks of mostly the same thing: worn pop clichés. This dullness plagues the album from start to finish despite Plapinger’s best attempts at shouting through the monotony.