Just about every song on Marble Skies is successful. The unfortunate outlier is ‘Surface to Air,’ which features Slow Club’s Rebecca Taylor on lead vocals. The second track on the album, it’s a full-length number that feels like an interlude that outstayed its welcome.

At their peak, and not infrequently on Snares Like a Haircut they’re within touching distance, No Age are one of the most thrilling rock bands on this planet.

There are tracks on here that will undoubtedly go down in the pantheon of great Ty Segall songs and be taken out on stage to thrill and delight. The rest can be quickly and easily enjoyed, then entirely forgotten about--which doesn’t really matter, since we’re probably only a year or so away from yet another Ty Segall album.

Passover may be an album of grieving, but it is not beholden to the process. While many albums of loss are as hard to hear as they are beautiful, Shields has opted for a somewhat more welcoming approach.

Rarely has an emcee arrived to the hip-hop scene in such a controlled and specific manner. Perico sounds better with each release, building off of his past flaws, topping whatever he had in mind only months prior.

Tune-Yards latest is a record dominated by the society it both critiques and is a part of.

You can’t listen to the music found here without dancing, which is a blessing and a curse. It’s fun at first, but eventually you’ll need a breather.

The production is tidy but one note, the instrumentation resolutely professional. The vocalist has a few touchstones and reverently shifts from one to another without exactly lighting any fires of his own. Back in 1992 they would call this alternative rock.

The House has moments where it seems like Maine might have said everything he’s capable of saying with Porches. However, there are enough positives, particularly around the end, to feel like he’s not bled his creativity dry.

Often the vocal melodies religiously, and simplistically, follow the melody of the lead instrument, leading to a lack of interesting melodic counterpoint and contrast, and, in almost all cases, they’re the kind of Sesame Street sing-songy melodies that no one over the age of five would unironically enjoy.

It just sounds like a bunch of young men looking to blow off steam, and that is what makes it such an enjoyable romp.

Cabello is finding her footing, and with more swings than misses here, the album signals a hopeful future for a fledgling pop giant.

Lex is well-mannered, fun experimentalism with a winning spirit. If it doesn't break any tonal boundaries, it firmly establishes its composers' place at least in sight of the bleeding edge. And it opens the door to all manner of discoveries.

It never reaches for more, and to bludgeon it for achieving its minor ambitions is bizarre practice. It may not leap, but it never stumbles. Calm down, sit back and vibe.

As a collective package, POST- is incredibly accomplished. You’ll relate--hard--you’ll be shook, you’ll feel attacked, because this record underlines in red marker some uncomfortable truths which are articulated uproariously. POST- has set an extraordinarily high bar for the rest of punk in 2018 to clear.

Rainbow Mirror is immersive, exhausting, and decidedly flawed. However, the strengths are more than enough to carry it forward, and the flaws are just a reminder that Fernow is at his best when he’s not holding back.

Despite the underlying melancholy throughout, Bonny Doon is by no means a downer of an album, and it’s due to the winning and classic songwriting tropes Bonny Doon have adhered to.

This is Brockhampton at their funkiest and most playful, but it’s also Brockhampton at their finest.

With the exception of the chart beckoning 'Out of My head' with Tove Lo, every track here has the structure of subverted pop destined for the decades beyond.

Some may miss the more rock-influenced days of the group's debut, but Pharrell's more recent taste rules here. It's for the better. NO_ONE EVER REALLY DIES plays like an album length party, with no groove that won't make you want to get off the couch and dance.

Revival is so uninspired and lost that picking it apart is a hopeless affair.

It’s palatable, well-performed, but rarely involving. It’s a shame that the most exciting thing about a collaboration between Charles Hayward and Thurston Moore is that it’s a collaboration between Charles Hayward and Thurston Moore.

While Double or Nothing isn't entirely a miss, it certainly represents a downwards move for Metro Boomin. It makes sense that he'd seek bigger names to experiment with, but the choice of Big Sean was Hallmark safe.

They’ve dredged up their youthful feelings and animated them in both honest and affectionate tones, and it makes You Might Be Smiling Now… a joyous rummage through swathes of bleary nostalgia.

As a continuation of U2’s work at this point in their career, Songs of Experience is a decent addition to their legacy that longtime fans should be generally pleased by. However, it still suffers from the same issues that have made U2 so polarizing in recent years, and is unlikely to change anyone’s mind about the band one way or another.

When all is said and done, Soul of a Woman cements itself as a fitting send-off for a woman who flat-out owned the stage and spearheaded a scene, transcending the notions of “neo” and “revival” to make music that was impassioned and pure. Sharon Jones lives on every time you press play.

Rest is her gateway out from the darkness, a way of coping with her fragilities, a processor of emotions, her loss, and also her most personal work to date, simply, where Charlotte is finally able to be Charlotte.

With this captivating sequel, The Body & Full of Hell have given us something striking that could only have been realized with each other.