These are heftier tracks that, because of their added weight, move slower; and like any collection of thematically linked subwoofer-challenging, chart-charting songs, some feel a little Skyped-in--or at least tailored a little too much to their guiding spotlights.

Where the strong Horehound and Cowards sounded interchangeably enough like other White projects, Dodge mostly does not.... Dodge and Burn is one of their greatest.

Spell-casting pop and Twitter branding this is not; the excellent force of this album is how it taps into the sheer pain, anger, and sensuality of the idea of “the witch,” rather than its archetypal signifiers in pop culture.

CHVRCHES aim for nothing less than maximum forward impact at all times. Beneath the ice-floe synths and Mayberry’s cool, collected belting is an anxious impulse to please.

It’s disorienting, upsetting, and edges toward unlistenable in its brutalist structures. But it’s a reminder that even if claustrophobia’s an unpleasant feeling, it’s always a powerful one.

What a Time to Be Alive is not the best album of 2015, but it is the album that best defines 2015 so far.

She fills the space with more intellectual depth than she’s shown before, incorporating T.S. Eliot’s apropos poem “Burnt Norton” as a space-age interlude. Ignoring the most offensively nonsensical of her lyrics (“Baby you’re so ghetto / You’re looking to score”), such a relatively monochrome album spans a breadth of cultural markers.

B’lieve bears a much closer resemblance to Vile’s true breakout, 2011’s Smoke Ring for My Halo. But even though the late-night atmosphere carries over, the haze isn’t quite the same.

On Persuasion, which came out in August, Blondes waste no time stripping three tracks to their most essential elements, decorating them with just scraps of tinsel.

The blunt-tipped guitar chop on the title tune, glassy music boxes and slurping synths of “Give Peace a Damn,” and the more-Stones-than-country “Honky Tonk Rules” are all genuine surprises that no other legacy act is giving up.

She’s never more at home than when BJ the Chicago Kid accepts an offer of her “chocolate covered honey” on the closing “Beautiful Love.”

On Duskland, he veers slightly more into homegrown Kurt Vile territory, especially with the organ-saturated opener “Sundowner.”

Ian Parton's picked up Young Guv’s gauntlet and made the power-pop album of the year.

The album’s others [songs]--all of them, except for the title track and album opener, remarkably stick to five minutes--like the skittering, piston-punctuated “Pacer,” rise to the occasion of possibly even bigger stages.

His well-aged craft shows on his fourth LP in 15 years.

BAIO’s always had strange and smarts to offer in his world-class quartet; The Names finally gives us a first-person view.

Unlike Mirrored or 2011’s underrated Gloss Drop, La Di Da Di is where Battles demonstrate their competence rather than their virtuosity; there’s never that moment of dominos falling to their death or the mutated instruments and real-time looping opening portals to parallel dimensions.

He’s turned in 12 tracks of heavily orchestrated and unbearably sincere acoustic pop, territory that he hasn’t touched since the late ’90s.

Sun Coming Down is Robin Hood-rich with pithy one-liners punctuated by Keen’s hi-hats, crashing through Darcy’s free-associating swarm of noise like that one person in every New York-based rom-com or sitcom wending his way through an avenue packed with people.

Now even Gary Powell’s drums can’t give these sodden valentines the right kick.... The best Anthems recall a time when Doherty and Barât could still tickle each other.

There’s no question that Jess Glynne is a very good singer, but her debut proves her best work thus far is on songs that aren’t even hers.

Repentless was never going to be Lulu, though the lack of surprises amongst diminishing returns is almost as bad.

Sparhawk tentatively hits highs in Wayne Coyne territory, imbuing the canyon-filling swirls of background synths and simple, sad, jangly riff with echoes of The Soft Bulletin. “Spanish Translation,” on the other hand, is Low-core and lovely.

With the drums intimately booming and the occasional zap of an analog synth snaking across the formalist woodenness, the blessed simplicity of the arrangements on No No No makes one cry out for a more adventurous artist to place in these settings.

This is a cold, calculated record lacking in personality, though it certainly tries to deliver something that Scott is incapable of.

This new batch thrashes with abandon (“Punks”) and displays a remarkable leap in instrumental maturity with its airtight chord progressions and unhinged shrieks.

Brace the Wave doesn’t really crest above Barlow’s torrential output, it’s just another pre-frayed entry in a catalog of scratchy home recordings.

Dead Petz is a short-lived album by design.