Even with its minor misstep, Songs of a Lost World is a singularly sombre picture of triumph, a band in their collective 60s still making music so vital and beautiful it can genuinely steal the words from your mouth and the heat from the room.

The outfit’s edge has found a whetstone that is able to sharpen the previously-established chaos, whilst also adding a gut-punch severity to the overall effect, even if it remains just as playful in its lyricism and garage-band simplicity. Audacious in sound, digestible in focus and a big-bollocked, rollicking good time.

Overall, Strawberry Hotel manages to create a very dynamic experience, especially by introducing shorter tracks. Only during its latter half it starts meandering, a thing that could have been avoided had a couple of intense numbers been introduced at the right moments. Nevertheless, the album is another successful entry in Underworld’s catalogue, one that seems to be a grower this time around.

It may be unfriendly and demanding beyond a level I've ever experienced from the Necks, but it is so meticulously, disarmingly constructed as such that it might just stand among their most intriguing works to date; leave any expectations of an easy ride at the door, and you'll shocked at how expertly it drains you.

These Swedes know how to groove like they know how to make modular furniture, they know how to lay down a black resin-caked nastiness that reeks from each and every one of their guitar solos they, in short, know how to make a good psychedelic album.

Spiral in a Straight Line strives to strike a balance. It’s a collection of great songs, varies in pace, and is recognisably Touché.

Tyla's 35-minute runtime does feel a bit like a brief spin on an exercycle that refuses to leave low gear, and net dopamine levels are limited. .... Nevertheless, there is plenty of playlist fodder to be plucked from Tyla's trim confines.

To these ears See You At The Maypole is far more consistent in quality, despite being by far the artist’s longest release, at seventeen tracks and nearly an hour in duration.

Supercharged is a surprisingly decent, albeit flawed record. There are elements of greatness at the heart of it, but the problems soon arise when The Offspring attempt to veer away from their wheelhouse of driving riffs and infectious hooks.

Chat Pile leaves it all on the table. Everything they screamed about in God’s Country has been brought to all of humankind. Cool World is darker, bleaker, grimier, and more violent. The lyrics make the musicianship haunting, and the musicianship makes the lyrics tormented.

The interludes don’t do much, while a handful of tunes need a richer structure in order to develop an immersive atmosphere. As a result, Powder Dry is similar to reading pages from a diary, some entries describe full stories while others share only a few scattered thoughts. Nevertheless, I appreciate Tim for discarding all guest appearances and the idea of a comfort zone to truly realize his own vision.

Regrettably, Moon Music follows in its predecessor’s footsteps by being universally bland, lyrically barren, and committing the mortal sin of posturing as a deep and important record while containing absolutely nothing of relevance.

["The Magician" is] an astounding piece of music that has to be heard to be believed, and cements The New Sound as a triumphant success for Greep’s burgeoning solo career.

The relative polish on 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips doesn’t conceal its edge.

Harlequin is a brash and goofy mess that will surely be kryptonite to those who were never willing to buy into her many, many eccentricities. For everyone else, it’s a three-word proclamation: GAGA IS BACK.

Pulls its weight at the points that count, fumbles mainly at those that don't, feels less successful holistically than it does as the sum of its parts, leaves me with anything but satisfaction by the time it's done, and does very little to address the question of when Shepherd will finally show the chutzpah and scope of vision to make a truly great work on solely his own terms.

Foxing may be a cacophonous, unhinged symphony of chaos, but it's also one that quietly encourages us to look at what's already around us, open our arms, and embrace it while we still can...to reach out and touch what is real. It is one of the most dissonant, powerful, legitimately terrifying, and ultimately uplifting pieces of music I've ever heard.

This is In Waves’s fatal flaw and greatest strength. It’s music that can’t help but hold on just a little too tight to ennui and cynicism, expressing the future a respite from the now in place of extending a flexible present.

The truly interesting thing about this is that, for such a spacey album, it’s among the shallowest things I’ve ever heard.

Kantos isn’t all bad, but it is his worst album yet. It’s somehow both too cluttered and more conventional at the same time, and the lyrics, while pretty most of the time, don’t hit as hard as they did on this record’s predecessor.

My Method Actor is very likely an aimless sandbox, one which leads to some very cool songs, and others there's no chance we'll remember once we're eight albums deep into Nilüfer Yanya's career.

The essence is there, and it’s a force, to be sure. If it doesn’t feel as raw, as dangerous, or as alive as it did in the past, well, once a wildfire’s burned through a place, it’s going to be hard for it to relight itself. But those embers are still glowing with that evil heat, and Rack still carries more than enough weight to rest among all but the best of the Lizard’s material.

In short, Wish on the Bone is an excellent album, whether your preference is more on the indie rock or the alt-country side.

Sinephro builds on the cosmic shrapnel of her debut Space 1.8, reprising that record's chamber jazz arrangements and buzzing analogue synthlines, its New Age mystique (at the time packaged as ECM overtones) and its knack for gorgeous ambient expanse, all while furnishing the continuity that album's episodic tracklist so patently lacked — but Endlessness does not demand that context, or any, to stand as a great record. This album's draw is as simple and effortless as hearing each and every one of your intuitions for the possibilities of its palette spool out in real time.

Lenderman plays the tropes, sure, but when those warm blasts of fuzz come swelling up underneath that lazy slide guitar, what else can you do but smile and roll right along with them? If I don’t feel this hitting the status of its great forebears, that sure won’t keep them from being in the same conversation; hell, with Manning Fireworks Lenderman may find himself shuffling his way into that pantheon.

I Lay Down My Life For You isn’t brilliant for the ways in which it’s bonkers, but brilliant for the ways in which it’s not. This is no hyperactive pile-up of disjointed ideas, no scrapbook of jank, but (rather) a weighty and well-realized WOOF of a statement, one that retains the eclecticism, sense of humor and sample/prod-wizardry that put Peggy on the map, but honing that shit to a point.

There's no real dips on Triple Seven as even the slightly less engaging moments (“Busted”) enhance the excellence of surrounding highlights and sound perfectly fine in their own right.

Whereas Beatopia felt stuck between two different eras and styles, This Is How Tomorrow Moves takes the new ideas beabadoobee introduced on that record and fully fleshes them out with no reservations. As a result, it’s the most self-assured and downright enjoyable album she’s released in several years.