Campaign--a mixtape in name that feels not quite like a mixtape but not exactly like an album, either--is at its best when it carries on that tradition of richness of sound as a virtue in and of itself.

With help from frequent collaborators Paul White and Black Milk, UK electronic producer Evian Christ, and crate-digging maestro the Alchemist, Brown brings his persistent terrors to life.

The wonder of 22, A Million is how beautifully he melds the disparate forms--inside and outside, acoustic and digital, past and future, ground level and interstellar. It’s a stunning record, well worth the wait.

A lot of a listener’s acceptance of Care depends on their acceptance for nervous candor; for purposeful titles like “Lost Youth / Lost You,” for earnest existential wonderings of what “care” means, for transcribed 3 a.m. chats about how everyone looks at their phones and how warm skin is awesome.

For its all its pleasures, Hard II Love isn’t strong enough to convince you he’s decided to stick to a lane.

Preoccupations works with a richer emotional palette.

By grounding their idealism in simple, anthemic rock and a vague mythology, they’ve created an angsty, mutable codex of sorts, an inclusive machine by which to punch all the hearts.

Even though it’s a brisk seven songs, it lingers as the best pieces of writing tend to do.

Mangy Love, his eighth album, now finds him on the Anti- label and like the title suggests, it shows divergent aspects of Cass, at his most subtle, resonant, and resplendent, and at others, his most maddeningly repetitive and scabby.

The first half of Blonde is astonishing, sustained beauty. The second is more distant, closer to the shower improvs of Friday’s sounds-like-a-soundtrack-and-it-is Endless.

The strength of and the Anonymous Nobody... remains how it holds together as a complete, cohesive listen.

Dead Ringers embraces zero-gravity keyboards, clean vocals, and the spaced-out guitar sprawl of the best Popol Vuh records. It’s the farthest he’s gone from traditional metal signifiers, but it’s proof that inky bleakness is no heavier than blinding light.

Aside from a new perspective on Myrkur’s music, Mausoleum provides a welcome diversion from the general praxis of live albums as we know them.

The new Fishing Blues feels so rote you’ll have to play the old records to remember that it’s not the Atmosphere norm.

There are pleasures to be found on SremmLife 2 once you adjust your expectations and realize that it’s not a “No Flex Zone” sequel. Instead, it charts a different but still familiar path: Every youth explosion is eventually tempered by the grind and hard-won rewards of grown-man work.

Episodic is a steady, ten-track affair that doesn’t overstay its welcome, and it leaves on an anxious note.

Thee Oh Sees are always the same but different, drifting through genres before twisting them out of shape, from the bubblegum of Castlemania to the metal-tinged Floating Coffin. On A Weird Exists, they do this more successfully than ever before. [Sep 2016, p.80]

This is the soundtrack for when everything feels like static and you can’t bear to press on.

Innocence Reaches is lighter than last year’s appropriately titled Aureate Gloom, but it’s less fun than it thinks it is, and in pursuing a more “current,” electronic-inspired sound, it’s lost the psychedelic charms of a better post-peak Of Montreal album like, say, 2013’s lousy with sylvianbriar.

The problem with the fantasy of a major Khaled Album though, is that, like a summer blockbuster, Major Key is too front-loaded.

Those noisy, waxy workouts (“Tarpit,” “The Post”) that served to make the hookier tunes even brighter on the ’80s Dinosaur albums have mainly been left behind with the band’s youth since their 2007 return. But the swaying, softer respites on Not prove just as effective.

Far from a run-of-the-mill concert LP, Live provides a much-needed reminder of Pylon’s understated genius--not just as a live act, but as unparalleled, influential alt-rock progenitors.

Even at the EP’s most florid moments--say at the 11-minute mark, where they zone out for a minute of cobweb-like arpeggios--it remains music of immense impact and gravity.

The best bits are when the band’s own drummer Dale Crover picks up the bass for a third of the album’s 12 tracks.

They maintain a slow, directionless drift that weights their third record with the dread of what’s beyond the sky.

Late Nights: Europe is a dirty, delectable paean to the mischief that takes place after three in the morning.

[A] sensational debut--she’s evolving into an artist serious pop listeners can commit to.

Everybody Talking might not be the very best record Gucci’s ever released--as much as everyone’s rooting for him right now, it’s hard to say whether this album can displace Chicken Talk or Mr. Zone 6 in his vast canon. But it’s by far the greatest cause for celebration in all of Gucci’s career; the iceman comebacketh.