The songs are foundationally solid enough in their swaying rhythms and sublime melodies that they don’t need twists to keep them interesting, but the care Emmy puts into the album’s crevices makes it one of the fullest-sounding and fullest-feeling singer/songwriter LPs of early 2016.

This third batch has something to prove, and Bloom makes the most of it, stutter-riffing his best Toadies impression on “Hearts in Motion” and sneaking the timeless gorgeousness of Sebadoh’s “Too Pure” into “Down.”

There’s not much artifice to be found in U.K. trio GoGo Penguin’s sophomore album, as even though the LP is a construction of jazz, classical, electronica, and trip-hop building blocks, it flows together naturally.

Sunflower Bean have enough homegrown ability between them to draw up a series of immersing and original compositions.

This smart, jagged, contemplative work makes you wonder if Williams could wring amazing stuff out of Bennington too.

His new self-titled record slips out of the leather jacket in favor of body-oiled synth-pop that balances between swagger-happy and tooth-rottingly sweet.

Her fifth album is indeed one of the most alt-friendly jazz cycles you’ve ever heard, pivoting constantly on tight, proggy arrangements that evoke St. Vincent, tUnE-yArDs, and Incubus in their odd-angled crunch more than anything on Blue Note.

They say good artists borrow and great artists steal, but here Gonzalez does neither--his heart doesn’t seem to be in the heist anymore.

Although Young Thug moves away from exploring emotional pain, SS3 is still very much informed by introspection.

At times it’s hard to tell where exactly he’s going, but that’s okay when it’s all too easy to get lost in the Field’s subtly nimble percolations.

His songs get to where they need to go, but they’re lacking in narrative, specificity... purpose, if you will.

For a lo-fi project, Celebration is a particularly imaginative, lengthy work full of vivid character portraits, using additional instrumentation and computer-generated distortion to expand far beyond the boundaries of more straightforward guitar-driven indie acts.

Slow was born of isolation and betrayal, but it’s music that was meant for concert halls Cobalt deserve to fill, music that rewards both introspection and reveling in like-minded rapture.

The White Album not only matches the sounds and feelings of Buzz Bin-era Weezer, but also the craft.

The addition of female vocalist Mama “Mahassa” Walet Amoumine and periodic excursions into skanky Caribbean rhythms (wryly dubbed “Tuareggae” by Bombino) stamp Azel as yet another remarkable transition for the guitarist.

That sense of newfound freedom and exaltation surges through Potential, a rich matrix of the Range’s knack for digging up strangers’ stories and assimilating breakbeat, grime, U.K. garage, and late ’90s R&B.

Vroom Vroom is scintillating new ground for Charli, totally unlike anything she’s ever done before, and still quintessentially her in its streamlined, indomitable turbo-pop.

The sonics find themselves not proving enough either. They’re free, to do what they want, any old time. And it costs them.

Open Mike Eagle’s momentum has raised anticipation for his fifth collaborative full-length (and ninth album altogether), Hella Personal Film Festival, this time made with British producer and vocalist Paul White. But he doesn’t quite scale up his political and personal concerns. Instead, he gives us more modest delights.

“Direct Address” fails to make sticking mantras of “Honesty is like a kiss on the lips” or “I don’t believe in first sight” or “I fall in love with everyone I see,” but there’s plenty of promise here that she’ll move past them, and it’s sometimes fulfilled.

It’s a seamless, flawless mix that in Moodymann’s hands becomes a timeless capsule spinning across the galaxy to rally any generation that finds it.

The pop-rock of the album’s first half is relaxed, breezy, intimate, and dull; the twitching beatscapes of its back end are tense, fiery, theatrical, and void.

It’s hard to say if Homme and Pop are better served by the nine-track length or not. Post Pop Depression doesn’t feel particularly tight or focused, but neither dude is conceptual enough to really justify a larger sprawl.

In declining to meet expectations, the Body have gotten free of the potential pigeonholing that plagues both them and the genre at large, providing something so utterly resigned, hopeless and, above all, barren; the most exciting bits on No One end up heightening the frustration and disappointment we crave more and more with each listen.

Hyde and Smith prove they still have the Midas touch.

It wants to achieve what other singles artists (Demi Lovato, Justin Bieber) do with hits-and-filler records that boast enough of the former to justify the existence of the latter. Instead, Miike Snow’s got the filler but only half-failed attempts at hits.

It meshes the two rappers’ sensibilities seamlessly, proving them kindred spirits all along.

The songs on this album may well become standards for fans at a certain place in life, but they definitely raise the standards for Into It. Over It.--as well as for anyone who actually still thinks emo needs help being revived.