Fleetwood Mac connected with listeners because their perfect songs enclosed personal imperfections--they created an illusion of glossy best-coast living, then punctured that illusion with brutal truth. Hardly anyone on Just Tell Me That You Want Me summons that friction.

You're being pulled close, but thoughtlessly, reflexively. And you only feel further away.

God Forgives is a comedown--sporadically introspective, occasionally rousing, and sort of without purpose.

So, every sha la la-la and wo-o-wo-o still shines, as the brothers McDonald once crooned in Carpenters cover "Yesterday Once More" (which reached No. 45 hit on the charts in England!), or at least sort of shines: Cleaner production might've buried the vocals less.

The trio's new album, Never, is a fleet, fizzy experience with a mixtape-like flow (Levi has created or co-created five of those, as well) and makes earlier Shapes music seem undercooked by comparison.

The contrast between Purity Ring's two halves is special and compelling, but Shrines goes over best when Roddick's reverent sound and James' lustful fury synchronize and break you off properly, womb-stem-style.

The album clicks because beyond the date-stamping visuals and the music's timeless project to unite art and pop, the longtime partnership behind Niki & the Dove has finally found a proper voice, and a proper name.

As a lyricist, Fallon has moved beyond bald cliché to bland commonplace.

For all of the tension in the music, Barrow and his cohorts couldn't sound more relaxed, natural, and at home weird home.

Everything here, though, feels strangely organic and effortlessly joyful.

Producer Karlberg also has expanded his reach and grip, snatching sounds from all over and re-purposing them to serve Mwamwaya's immaculate, coruscating voice.

Channel ORANGE feels like one long, moonlit, air-conditioned ride.

The Offspring's nervousness is palpable in their protestations of relevance and liveliness, but no matter how fast or loud things get, there's no energy or wit, nothing to convince you this band could win, or even prolong, a fight with oblivion.

On Yellow & Green, he [John Baizley] finds the confines of metal itself too limiting; so Baroness dive, dive, dive, dive into '90s commercial alternative harder than a sackful of Yucks and come out smarter and weirder and better than any metal band this year.

Sometimes the best results, though, come when Kelly drops the exercise completely.

The Dirty Projectors' best album by a mile holds that balance, all magnificent wobble, no collapse.

The album's most compelling sounds get saddled with songs either forgettable ("Trumpet Lights") or regrettable ("Mirage," a sinuous reggae fusion that's Nas-boosted but unnecessarily nasty).

All Hell throws up no barriers to access--if you have an abiding interest in great stories told by a great new storyteller, it'll welcome you in.

Stripped of cheap but effective lo-fi tricks, Mysterious Phonk is meandering and moronic.

The unexpected triumph lies not in the spectacle of the singer raw-dogging her emotions, but in her total command of the anarchy that results.

Synthetica manufactures dependable, big-hearted joy straight through, whether it's slightly gloomy or coquettish or just flat-out pop fun.

On WIXIW, everything is in its right place.

This is not the sound of settling.

R.I.P. rewards background play just as much as concentrated listening, if not more so.

R.A.P. Music, the sixth album by from Atlanta firebrand Killer Mike, is a stunning anachronism.

The Only Place delivers riveting drama in a rousing pop package, with Brion rescuing Best Coast from the fuzzed-out, lo-fi indie template, cleaning up their sound and enhancing the potential for mainstream appeal exponentially without diminishing their artistic credibility.

The Money Store fits into modern hip-hop like a square peg on fire, a 40-minute straitjacket tantrum of vein-popping, slow-flow barks closer to Helmet's Page Hamilton than Harlem's Charles Hamilton.

The [album] is exuberant and enthusiastic, and its architect bops along with an unapologetically clean-cut strut.