Held is as sputtering as it is spartan, and as such the perfect tome to the eternal wretchedness that surrounds human need.

As Hookworms gain more confidence and their heady rhythms are spread further afield, hopes remain that future material might be slightly less veiled.

Coming in at over an hour in length, the album drags at times and begins to wear near the last part of the tracklisting.

Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard it before... it’s taking drugs to make music to take drugs to, or something. But it’s still pretty damn fun, and Black Mountain do it with a higher idea-per-song ratio than most of their fellow fetishists.

As a full-album, Love is Hell is a lovely, drug-induced contrast to the balls-out rockers on Rock n Roll, but Pt 2 is significantly weaker on its own.

Easy Tiger’s not his best, but it’s got focus and a lot of heart.

Telepathe may not be superstars yet, but with Dance Mother--an album short in length but simmering over with ambition--they are certainly on the right track.

For all the admiration and absorption of realness, Take Her Up To Monto is wholly surreal, enjoyable nonetheless.

Say Yes to Love is a potently wrought 22 minutes of febrile noise-punk that contains enough in the way of hook and subtle invention amidst its familiar battery to stand up on its own feet.

Marion's guitar and synth bedroom pop project continues to be immediately enjoyable, simply because he never seems to be reaching for something that's outside of his grasp.

St. Elsewhere's triumphs are besmirched somewhat by its flubs.

While Nothing Bad has great, well-written, dynamic pop songs, the album suffers from length.

Mature Themes lives up to what's promised on the tin, but only relatively so.

It isn’t life-changing, genre-defining, seizure-inducing, or any other clever hyphenated compounds, but it is a thoroughly enjoyable, rewarding listen.

Outside tastes like having returned to my favorite bar to find they've redone the menu. Only this time, all the improvements are positive ones.

The only downfall to Sahara Hotnights evolutionary sound is its middle-of-the-road attributes.

COW makes no claims to reinvent the wheel. Yet its heightened attention to detail marks a new focus for the duo, who, with less tools than ever before, manage to find a sound that’s wistful, wide-eyed, and surprisingly full of sounds new to the act, if still par for the course within the wider realm of contemporary composition.

Lucky Shiner feels at once painfully intimate and intercontinentally expansive

Fair or not, An Imaginary Country can best be described as middling: competent, but certainly not what we all were hoping for from an artist whose work up to this point has been so unequivocally stirring.

Reiterating a few of the Tonebank-Rhythm-Ko-esque grooves that we’ve heard before, albeit with a darker, occasionally shoegazy approach this time.

Things immediately slow down on the second song and stay subdued throughout most of the album. Once I realized that the rest of the songs weren't going to be as blazing as "Seventeen Years," I was able to enjoy it much more.

As a retro endeavor, this atmosphere may be lauded for its chronicity, but it keeps Coastal Grooves from scaling the memorable heights of synthed-up crooners straddling the art/pop divide (the likes of Bryan Ferry or Donald Fagen).

Its library-lite funk may be full of syrupy drift, but the progressions are crafty enough to keep the listener from glazing over.

I Love You, It's Cool is an indication of the band's ability to actually live up to the hype and promises that have previously, sometimes carelessly, been thrown their way.

Hardly a return to form, Researching The Blues (complete with the burp at the end of "One of the Good Ones") is nevertheless a document of a band having a good time doing what they love. When the hooks are this strong, it's hard not to have a good time with them.

With its blend of classic Jurado themes and a new sonic palette, Saint Bartlett serves not just as an encapsulation of Jurado's career, but as a promising indicator of where he's headed.

Mozart’s Sister’s debut is a living monument to dead stasis.

This is a solid set of space rock that will melt plenty of faces, even though it doesn't seek nirvana in Six Organs of Admittance's usual ways.

Hot Chip sound like such a broad swath of pop music on this album that you can’t quite call them out for biting any single obnoxious influence too much, even when they do get so hyperactive it’s annoying.

With Little Honey Williams has once again assured her fanbase that she is incapable of releasing an album that is anything less than collection-worthy and wholly listenable.

Death Seat leaves nothing unsaid, and through this purge, Wooden Wand is absolved from past sins, ready to face a new life with a new resolve. The fiery mess of mangled metal and flesh looks much better from atop the cliff than from the wreckage.

For fans of some of Broderick’s earlier material, then, these qualities, combined with the relatively narrow range of instrumentation and short duration of the album, may prove somewhat limiting and not as immediately immersive as some of his best work.

This isn’t their first release, but it’s no doubt their best so far, a fully realized space of shimmering notes and subtle signs toward a masterful production and shared creative mindset of defying expectation.

The style is, in fact, so far from themselves and close to Smith that I'm going to assume this is a one-off mourning effort. If it is, it's worthwhile for anyone moved by Smith's death; but if they make another, it'd be extremely blasphemous.

Compared to the discourse and debate surrounding the new album, the music itself is somewhat of a non-event: two epic 20-minute-long LP sides, and a 7-inch of drone tracks.

Sure, with Cloudland Canyon stringently adhering to their newfound formula and retaining a similar pace throughout, Fin Eaves doesn't lend itself to any startles or immediately striking moments. But their renewed approach allows for the full realization of the album's flavor: grandiose, ambitious, and almost painfully beautiful.

Blouse may have inadvertently produced one of the most notable, truly unencumbered reflexive turns on the genre (and almost necessarily by extension, its subculture) in recent memory.

There are a few scorching solos throughout, but most of Ensemble Pearl witnesses the musicians paying more attention to atmosphere than technicality.

Just know that Architecture in Helsinki have enough energy to continue cranking out these adrenaline and saccharine cocktails until you do.

Less Than Human is the sound of James Murphy transforming the songs of a guy who has spent a nauseating amount of time fiddling about with Kraftwerk-y synths into an album as enjoyable at home as it is on the dancefloor.

It’s a soothing cushion of chaos, like a bloody valentine, a buzzing saw, and an amazing star exploding into particle dust.

Ask The Night is a dose of a kind of southern comfort that my doctor might actually approve of.

It's an agreeable listening experience with moments of catchiness and beauty throughout, and hints of an evolutionary path that leave future expectations open-ended.

By the force of their musicianship on Rivers, however, Wildbirds & Peacedrums manage to own that risk as one of their greatest assets.

Drained from the melodic juices of previous works, Cosmos is left to bubble atop of a seething pan of sharp shards of metal, to be later buttered with a mechanical hum.

Yet as much joy as you can hear in Hercules and Love Affair, it’s impossible to separate the melancholy from the mix.

So, caveat auditor: this album is deep and often rich, but it definitely wants, even requires, you to pay attention.

None of these songs is an inferior version of other songs on the album; each dangles from its own distinct nostalgic thread.

Whether sublime or quizzical, the work of David Daniell, Doug McCombs, and their like-minded collaborators has resulted in a pair of fascinating albums.

Antisocialites may not be a manifest step forward for Alvvays. Quieter than its predecessor on many of the songs, the album sacrifices immediacy for Rankin’s occasionally mawkish but otherwise astute poetics. But the tradeoff is worth it.

With Tapestry of Webs, Past Lives prove how musicians spawned from relatively constrictive sonic bloodlines, like hardcore, can eventually produce something that's different, yet equally penetrating.

Paperwork is a definite step forward, and though it’s possible that those who loved volcano! before might find this more "conventional" album less exciting, I’d be surprised if anyone called it less rewarding.

Its best songs are the ones that maintain the spark of originality that has always threaded through LCD Soundsystem’s work,.

The result is a mix that is less concept-driven and less unified under a singular identity than previous releases.

Dedicated isn’t a perfect album--it’s overlong and occasionally concedes too much to chart tastes to be interesting. But by the time Jepsen takes a bow following bonus track “Party For One,” you’re reminded once again of her generosity, of all the space she’s cleared for strength and weakness, for personal epiphanies and communal release.

While it may lack the freshness and shock-of-the-new presented by their previous full-lengths, Key Markets marks the next logical step for the band; the sound of Sleaford Mods’ ultimate rejection.

The biggest pleasant surprise here, though, is the vocals.

Cold Hot Plumbs cobbles the weird mechanical detritus from last year’s dank and gloomy Hubba Bubba into something capable of using its spindly appendages to pry open your eyelids and shine shafts of colorful light directly through to your brain’s misfiring synapses. Sometimes it even goes down smooth and sweet (you’ll develop any complications with time).

So, while this compilation retrospective may be aimed at completists, there is plenty going on here to satisfy even the most casual listener.

Certainly, Tomboy, recorded in a dark basement in sun-soaked Lisbon, delivers its fair share of primal pleasures and sacred ecstasies.

Like blues, the disco formula works--it’s both beautiful and timeless (well, timeless since the late 70s). But it doesn’t always feel as fresh as it once did--paradoxically, given the heavy-lidded sensibility the music embodies.

It's more pleasant than arresting.

While this release is ruminative in nature, the temperament isn’t far removed from the classic record with which this release shares a striking visual resemblance.

Although it lacks the conceptual cohesion and embroidered orchestration of their last three albums and has a few weak tracks, Animal Joy adds sentiment to intellect, an undefined rebellion to Shearwater's heady songwriting and thereby challenges that duality.

Internal Logic is a well-constructed album, more punk than post-, stronger in its ideas, and a welcome departure from so-called "love" songs prevalent in modern bands inspired by the early 60s. It's a strong statement from the band and a treat for those who revel in such influences.

McCombs doesn’t want to be known any better than he already is, but here, for once, he shows that he understands everyone else a far lot better than he has to date.

Every song is serrated with pixel edges, and Alice Glass’ sometimes morose, sometimes lilting like a Valley girl vocals vibrate with such catchy and violent gloom that it’d send any human/marmoset/sentient being into an epileptic dance session.

There are very few metaphors for the limitlessness of human creativity and ingenuity as powerful as that provided by space, and now by Public Service Broadcasting.

Taken as a piece, Somewhere Else can’t live up to those giddy heights, but its sweetness is still to be savored.

YG’s songs about women are just clumsy from a basic storytelling standpoint, rehashing the same clichés that you’d find on a Hotep Facebook group. It stunts the flow of 4REAL 4REAL. ... But while he oftentimes plays the role of hyper-masculine rapper, he also defines his anxiety in deeply traumatic and thorough ways. He has a knack for boisterous exuberance, stressing the finer things while being relatable to regular people on every block in every town.

Talk Normal invoke the bare and abstract, not the fully rendered or figured, and it feels like they are making not only the kind of music we never thought we'd be missing out on, but also the kind that would be hard to live without.

It doesn’t require the patience or emotional/intellectual involvement that albums I typically listen to require. The cool thing, though, is that it does have quite a bit of redeeming value.

The album pursues a house sound consistent with 2011's Ital's Theme.

This recording renders music back into its essence, that language that, instead of communicating meanings, is, as Adorno has it, the human attempt, doomed as ever, to name the Name, which has been dispersed.

Prolific folks like Presley tend to forget the presentation of an album, and Cyclops Reap seems like a step in that direction: not just a collection of songs, but a collection of songs that work well together.

The result is an album that feels more like a compilation than a true collaboration.

With The Trip, she's split the difference, crafting a modestly arranged work that showcases a variety of strengths we already knew she had.

It’s a thoroughly digestible record, then, freed from the downstroke neuroses that basically defined Hot Snakes or the labyrinthine catharsiscore mounted and milked by Jehu.

There's a sort of imposed solipsism here, when tones sometimes seem to have different throb rates depending on the listener's caffeine intake. But Morgan himself is absolutely aware of, and screwing around with, conventions, assumptions, and expectations.

The production on each song is a little too repetitive.

The righteous Southern revival swagger of these electrified riffs collect over Jago’s drums to rain down the real rawk people have mistakenly praised Kings Of Leon for providing, absolutely destroying them at their own game.

This album does nothing to disrupt their two-decade streak of psychedelic, cosmic, post-rock transcendence.

Tonight’s Music celebrates the space between the excessive and the unfinished, refusing us resolution, promising us a little everything.

Why Bother? may not have quite the same sonic guitar depth as Gimme Trouble, but the mechanical, industrial-punk synth work, inching closer to perfection with each release, does an admirable job of filling in the aural gaps.

Autechre present a uniquely realistic vision of our present-future: always problematic, limited by human nature and other complications, yet driven forward by incredible optimism, perpetually fixing itself and, adapting to new contexts, engaged in a constant state of becoming.

The fact that Best Troubador manages to outright milk unqualified whimsy from the life and music of one of country’s most rugged, ambivalent heroes--well, it’s really something.

That Toro Y Moi's new record Underneath the Pine is distinctly a product of his songwriting, without sounding exactly like his 2010 debut, suggests that chillwave may still have some legs to it after all.

The only drawback is Hutch Harris' vocals.

If the album feels too familiar sometimes, it shouldn’t really throw you off much.

Dee's lyrics consistently reveal a formidable intelligence and a deep and deeply-felt cultural repertoire.

The live shows Body/Head have done in the interim, where much of the material comprising The Switch sprang from, seems to’ve helped them nail down a more cohesive approach. It’s still wide open, drifting music, but with a relative brevity that helps it lodge more with the listener as an album.

While Smile may be inarguably more accessible than their previous releases, it still has enough cloaked treasures to keep the diehards interested.

The impressions made are that the sublime, the relinquishing of the self can only come with work and time. “-” seems to come from a similar place as The King of Limbs’ latter tracks, which speaks to the notion of human fallibility and fragility, helping make News From Nowhere a decidedly beautiful album.

Not as sprawling a set of riches as "Never Hear the End of It," this new album is more in the pop juggernaut category, where each song pulls the listener along in head-bobbing succession--but there’s no less dynamism for that.

The Sea and Cake continue to be champions for the weary and resolute alike, being both the soothing reassurance of beauty and the wistful resolve that the most dogged absolute is the very impermanence of everything. It’s a deceptively tricky feat and one that they continue to thrive on.

This is no walk in the park, it has to be said, but Wolf is going to be remembered as the record that sees Tyler deploying his tact as an astute beat-maker and a producer more than allowing his reputation as a Satan-worshiping neo-fascist to swell any further. Musically, it’s a step in the right direction.

Although still a strong album, YACHT would do well to better marry its aesthetic with the famous DFA beat factory, instead of giving it such clearly separate airtime.

It all hits you at 78-rpm, and that these guys have the dexterity to recall the unadorned energy of 1977 punk is their greatest asset.