There's a clear aesthetic touchstone for pretty much everything this album does. If you're the kind of person easily frustrated by such influence-heavy music you'll be turned away, but I admire the consistency of songcraft needed to hold together an album pulling from so many places.

As expected, Duck wants to please everybody and this is the reason it fails to take off. ... They prefer the safety of the comfort zone, although they fare much better when they show some grit.

Of Monsters and Men use Fever Dream to reject the expectation that they’re nothing more than a “made-for-radio” indie folk band, and based on these results I’d tend to agree with them. This could be the group’s strongest offering to date, and it’s a noticeable few steps outside of their comfort zone. Here’s to hoping that they continue to wander astray.

Bandana is terrific because it makes you yearn for that imagined history, the struggle from page to audio that surely happened to produce such a god-given chemistry. Freddie's deep, choppy flows might initially seem somewhat at odds with Madlib's production but that's why it works, because playing too much to the soul-soaked nostalgia robs the proceedings of their bite.

This feels like a halfway point between a true Flaming Lips full-length and one of their many novelty side-ventures. This is undoubtedly a worthwhile pursuit for fans of the band that also marks a welcome return to accessibility; maybe with a bit of a stronger backbone, it could have been more.

There’s no delusion going on that Sum 41 have reinvigorated pop-punk, but Order In Decline certainly qualifies as a pleasant surprise. ... They’ve proven that there’s still something left in the tank.

Tiny Changes is an emotive listen start to end, especially if you already know the album by heart (if you’ve never heard The Midnight Organ Fight then by all means, start there), and contains several thrillingly imaginative takes on the classics we know.

There’s little to fault here in all honesty; it plays everything right and does so with a near flawless execution. Though one could argue it’s a little one-dimensional in terms of almost exclusively working with one style, as I said earlier, it nails the way these songs are presented.

This is a solid slab of industrial metal without a distinguished bone in its body, and not much else. Here’s hoping for next time.

On all counts, “Let’s Rock” succeeds in its mission. Hit the road, roll down the windows, and play it loud.

That's the trick which keeps ANIMA from losing itself in the beat-heavy, extroverted exterior. The Thom Yorke of 2019 has a newfound openness which endears him to us in a way the famously reticent singer never has in twenty-plus years.

The negative bits that afflict the songwriters individually--clunky lyrics, a tendency to trend towards clutter, influences taking up whole damn sleeves--certainly remain here, but somehow, together, the couple’s issues never overwhelm, never distract from the Raconteurs’ thesis statement of just making great, concise rock songs.

Even with its glaring issues, Rise shows a lot of promise for Hollywood Vampires. If the band should ever choose to proceed further, an exclusive focus on original material seems like the best way to go, given that this is where Rise displays its, and the band’s, strongest attributes.

III is a masterpiece of modern indie folk. Bad Books have in every way lived up to the potential of a so-called “supergroup”, combining the best aspects of Andy Hull’s and Kevin Devine’s artistry, with help in no small part from Robert McDowell’s atmospheric guitar wizardry. The songs themselves are rich, lush, and flourishing – yet totally simplistic.

Even with an eight-year gap between, it's easy to think of Final Transmission as a sister album to White Silence. The facts of each album's creation are remarkably similar, down to being nine-song hitters largely recorded in practice spaces rather than a recording studio proper. The difference, of course, is that Final Transmission is short and raw by necessity rather than choice.

Silversun Pickups’ fifth full-length sees the band craft another very enjoyable alt-rock album, but it’s one that is full of holes. For every catchy melody, they seem to abandon their creative spirit. When they aspire for the stars artistically, they can’t seem to locate their tune sense.

Regardless of its intention, whether vapid or passive-aggresively referrential, SHE IS COMING is really, really fun. It bounces from eye-roll-inducing to warmly dazzling without asking whether or not it should.

Jambinai have crafted a beast of an album with the perfect length to maintain its punch. Besides this, there are many idiosyncratic elements here which are hard to forget and easy to recognize once listened to. Though their music isn’t for everyone, once you get to the gist of it, it’s very rewarding.

This album is the first work by Kishi Bashi that feels like a mission, and it’s that same sense of purpose that drives Omoiyari to be the most beautiful and impactful piece of his catalogue.

It’s not a reversal of normal Flying Lotus material. We’re still dealing with confusion exemplified as a messy but ultimately rewarding tracklist, fear exemplified as music that is just off enough that it could feel terrifying, depression exemplified as little quirks and late starts scattered like jacks and marbles. The difference is that, for once, he’s not trying to fight it all off.

Dedicated is good, but it doesn’t whirl with the same destructive force; in that sense, it is Carly Rae’s first genuine failure in a decade.

Injury Reserve is as cohesive a hip-hop album as one can hope. This is thanks, in large part, to Parker’s ever-so-versatile production, though also, I think, Groggs’ and, in particular, Ritchie’s growing scepticism with modern hip-hop culture, and a heightened awareness of its pretensions.

IGOR is not by any means Tyler's best work, and at times deliberately plays against his strengths in order to keep the listener off-guard--this pays dividends in the stunning "I THINK" and "A BOY IS A GUN", less so on the repetitive and cloying "RUNNING OUT OF TIME" and "ARE WE STILL FRIENDS？". What it is, though, is a form of ragged beat-tape minimalist that Tyler wears extremely well.

Ultimately, A Fine Mess is a subpar offering that sounds like you’d imagine it to: a handful of B-sides with varying degrees of enjoyment, made worse by a myriad of problems. Devoted fans should find a meagre portion of redemption here, but to the casual listener this will bring little enjoyment to the table.

The pacing of the album is a little more sluggish than normal. It’s clear it was a conscious effort to savour this intergalactic soundscape and add more detail, but it’s aftereffects certainly carry over excess baggage. It’s not a bad album by any means and if you like his work, this will deliver in all the ways you’d expect, but in that regard that’s half the problem.

A record imbued with the distance between people and places, the impermanence of stories and emotions, and one that finds it ever so hard to stay in one place for too long. ... It’s a damn fine National album.

This is a fantastic return that shows the artistic thrust we’ve come to expect from the band, but it’s done in a way that sheds their controversial desires for good, honest songwriting. It’s probably the most vastly experimental offering to date, next to Rosenrot, but it makes sure to add a trove of tasteful elements from previous sounds while it’s doing it.

Afflicted in the end with a touch of offputting sameyness, LEGACY! LEGACY! nonetheless has remarkable staying power and a gracious ambition to in some small way materially improve the world of which it is an image. Aesthetic or not, that's worth something.