Expectations for a crowdfunded album should be naturally tempered, and yet it’s hard to ignore that none of the songs on TLC present an engaging point of view as smoothly or with as much brass as the group’s biggest hits, “Waterfalls” or “Creep.”

For an artist never exactly afraid of taking risks, Dust still finds new forms of experimentation, moving beyond dance toward something softer and more reflective. Halo juggles new elements with gorgeous sparseness that gives weight to each sonic addition.

A far more thoughtful album than the glossy and disconnected Magna Carta Holy Grail, it’s a 36-minute confessional that attempts to bring JAY-Z’s narrative full circle.

There was little to nothing as picturesque and vivid in major-label rock as OK Computer in 1997, and it’s debatable if there’s been anything since. ... If OK Computer seemed to wither over its runtime, there is a more consistent, punchier quality to the second album sequenced out on OKNOTOK–full of big guitars, sweeping sentimentality, and drier wit. Here, its bold half-ideas, this many years on, sound better than ever, and find a new coherence.

Big Fish Theory doubles the ambition of Summertime ’06’s corroded soundscape but condenses that breadth within a tight 36 minutes.

The album feels unprecedented within his catalog because it strikes a balance Thug has never quite pulled off on a single project: mixing a unified, album-wide sound with moments of aggressive experimentation and nagging hooks.

Pretty Girls Like Trap Music, his third solo full-length, feels like a cousin to Migos’ Culture, another highlight of 2017—a bit more sinewy but still overflowing with seven-figure absurdism.

Accept its odd phrasings and vast negative spaces and Lorde’s sophomore effort reveals itself dark and glorious. ... The smoky, slightly hoarse warmth of her maturing voice immediately sets the new material apart from rivals, and from her 2013 debut Pure Heroine.

Though they may take several listens to reveal their beauty, the payoff for your patience and attention is substantial.

Wooly and long-winded, Weather Diaries gathers eleven rock songs of astonishing vapidity; it has the feel of a term paper printed five minutes before class and forgotten the moment of submission.

Tiller thinly stretches himself to 19 tracks with no added dimension. It ultimately amounts to a checklist for Broke Boys-turned-Hurt Boys, with Tiller listlessly ticking the boxes.

This dichotomy between the album’s two bandleaders makes the album an authentically interesting listen instead of a throwaway reunion effort.

Witness is an album full of bizarre choices--both the DJ Mustard and Hot Chip-produced tracks are, for some reason, ballads--that has the inherent appeal of a spectacular failure, but that’s about it.

It’s hard to overstate how exceptional Ti Amo is: every song is complete in its own way, and while there’s perhaps the slightest softening of focus near the end, it never starts to coast on its sultry aesthetic.

For now, we’re left with a deeply imperfect and too-often derivative album that is not without its charms, but won’t exactly help form the connection with the average listener that Halsey long ago established with her core fanbase.

The brighter moments of the second half can be interesting, but never as achingly perfect as that opening stretch.

There’s something whimsical about the new record that’s hard to pinpoint. The disparity between the lyrics and the sounds is a little disorienting at first, but progresses into something remarkably natural, and invigorating.

It’s a confusing but enjoyable record that sidesteps the rap hand-wringing and telegraphed weirdness of the drama surrounding Yachty.

There’s not even anything very embarrassing about Black Laden Crown, the first Danzig album since 2010’s Deth Red Sabaoth--it’s just plain old boring.

The King & I wastes too much energy centering a known relationship on these formless descriptions, a flaw that turns a 72-minute project into a poshly produced endurance contest.

There is no note out of place or sample used without careful thought. The album asks the listener to unpack each second, find thrills in its surprises and layers, or simply get lost in the rhythms that will make one’s body jerk and jut out in ways not yet defined. It is the work of an exacting mind, one that should challenge other producers and musicians in the future.

Styles plays all his roles gamely but unthreateningly.

It’s a lot to take in, especially from a band formerly so minimalistic, but musically, it holds together.

It’s the band’s brightest, most animated album. The sound is crisp, every layer discernible, lacking the blurs and reverberations that constitute traditional rock production and instead drawing from the rhythmic separations that characterize ‘80s pop and freestyle.

Luaka Bop has done a remarkable job of collecting recordings that were originally scattered across multiple releases and giving them the feeling of a consistent whole.

Sonically velveteen the whole way through, it’s certainly a comforting album, though Gonzalez’s efforts to capture the commanding, immediate quality of the music of her influences feel, overall, a little too cautious.

The fan service can only go so far, though. With each successive spin, the LP’s post-reunion giddiness recedes, revealing the overarching déja vu as a crutch.

No Shape is Hadreas’ longest album yet, and even moreso than its predecessor, it feels like a complete conceptual project. Taken as a whole, it’s a real thicket, imbued with the innocence and horror of fairy tale.