Currents is a consummate grower, in part the musical evolution is overwhelming.

The record’s occasionally bright moments are swallowed up by scattered thoughts and stale beats.

As patient and even elegiac as these sounds get, both “sides” successfully split the difference between, shall we say, swelling waves heard from a distance and the clatter and buzz of gadgets tuning up all around you. And a lot of the implicit distance in between. Buy it.

My Love Is Cool is volatile, but it’s also invigorating, charming, and hugely exciting for what it promises.

It may not be the most talked-about rap record of the year, but it probably deserves to be. Long live Ramona Park.

Wildheart is his finest and most stubborn statement yet.

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

Kacey’s dulcet voice and talent for melody are still worthy of great respect--just about every tune connects.

Where the album certainly succeeds, though, is in its crafting of a colorful, if a tad overlong, mission statement for a producer still only beginning to approach the extent of his potential.

Instead of utilizing the talented crew’s many particular strengths to create a unique and unified sound, The Fool comes out feeling like nobody in particular and everyone at once.

Even if we were to give ALLA’s abysmal lyrics a pass, the production doesn't help, either.... Still, Rocky can, at times, be an engaging figure that radiates charisma when he wants.

Once a few months pass and the buzz has died down, this will no longer be a groundbreaking album about the complexities of modern relationships. It will just be another very good album.

Chrissybaby Forever is the music of Owens’ heart--unfiltered and unpolished, both to its credit and its detriment.

The crowd-pleasers are big and full, richly accessible and eccentric at the same time.... And yet even at its most infectious this music can pivot on a dime, emotionally, and the effect is often shattering.

The fun here is manufactured beyond belief, sometimes for better, but more often for worse.

Universal Themes covers so much ground, it can’t help but live up to its name.

How Big How Blue How Beautiful may just be a better record than the one it follows. It chisels at Ceremonials’ baroque marble sculpture to reveal something smaller and more appealing.

A collection of emotionally evocative soundscapes punctuated by more conventionally structured compositions.... It's an ear candy confection of the highest order.

The record is weighty, but with a defter, more nimble touch than on prior efforts.

Ratchet isn’t an unqualified triumph. But the album doesn’t have to be perfect to be a success. Its highs are high enough that its lows can be forgiven, or forgotten entirely.

The album doesn’t take nearly enough risks.

Each song works on its own terms, but many of the songs don’t seem to share terms.

Matsson makes solid use of a band this time too, to flesh out the bare-bones folk-pop for which he has previously been renowned.

Born Under Saturn is only intermittently gripping. Certain tracks feel heavily procedural and oddly joyless given the album’s lighthearted tone.

Production has never been cleaner. Progressions have never been tighter. The adhesive has never been stronger. And Jim James has never been finer.

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

MCIII is, in the end, the perfect sunny day album.

Wilder Mind, airless to the extreme, plods on, song after saccharine song. Melodies do abound. But they’re wearying, like the mundane hell of children’s tunes, blasted on repeat, throughout a long car trip.