In 2016, “long live rock” is way too sweeping, among other things. So long live this. It’s just about right.

At eight songs in 34 minutes, it’s the band’s shortest, but it’s also perhaps the best distillation and presentation of their sound, coming off like a stranger, dreamier sister album to Shake My Head.

Throughout its brisk playtime, Overgrown Path evinces an airy touch with transitions, a knack for phrasing (the pauses and extra beats always find their right place), and an invidiously deft hand for crafting verses equal to their choruses.

The giant, immense void that swallows sound in Part 1 shows itself in Part 5 to be just another windmill, slain by Ambarchi’s guitar and studio magic.

Silver Mt. Zion (now a quintet) extract so much harried beauty and grace out of the world’s sorry predicament that it seems unbelievable that they wouldn’t be dispossessing themselves of something if all their/our problems were magically solved one day.

The caveat is that this is primarily dance music, and doesn't make for a super-compelling listen on a full attention basis.

An incredibly compelling collection of inventive folk-tinged melodies.

This is probably the best album we've seen in the new millennium from a mid-'90s techno producer.

All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone isn’t the band reinventing themselves. Instead, you’ll have to settle for Explosions in the Sky perfecting their craft, which is nice to hear regardless of genre.

Ed Askew will continue to write, observe, reflect, and create visions and words. This result is timeless enough to remain there if one wants it.

Number 1 Angel is a maybe mixtape, sorta free, but released by a voice that’s constantly solving life’s real problems with the imagined solutions of pop music.

While 936's perpetual schizophrenia is noteworthy, it's Peaking Lights' songwriting that elevates 936.

It’s great to have a thematically consistent and well-executed Thee Oh Sees album.

2011 has yielded precisely one TyM release worth your time, and this is it.

Ultimately, Sold Out is not doing what its title cheekily alludes to. Although it traverses a variety of genres outside of footwork’s typical territory, DJ Paypal never relents on the actual practice of the juke: the core sound of the beat, getting danced on.

The decaying aural ellipsis felt hanging in the aether marks the dusky road of the album’s fist half. This is dark stuff, darker than our main man Hart is known for.

Bill Orcutt is a mid-career eponymous release. This is a familiar signifier of artistic reinvention.

While the conceptual ambitions occasionally overstep the mark, they rarely get in the way of the cerebral and gluteal-vibratory enjoyment that is to be found. It's a work no less beneficial than entertaining.

Sigur Rós are still significant, but Takk sounds safe.

Arm’s Way is a detailed, richly-rewarding album. These are undeniably melodramatic AOR songs--but they’re nuanced in form, graced with melody, and any obvious tropes are usually subverted.

I've rarely heard an album that wields so many weapons--not effortlessly, but with such painstaking mastery that it's almost arduous not to be won over.

Their residency was capped by a performance of their new record, Exotic Creatures of the Deep. Their crowning achievement? There is certainly a case to be made for it.

Ditto and company take indie-rock in a direction many of its fans are not used to, in that the focus is mostly about the human voice and the way the musicians compliment the singer's attack.

Another album to blow up the cemetery to.

Tom Verlaine has delivered yet another beautiful creation to us.

Guitarist Cassie Ramone and bassist Katy Goodman haven’t tweaked much of their fast-paced and fuzz-caked formula this time around, but they’ve certainly refined the hell out of it. Never has the band sounded so imposing in a studio setting, reining their once-uncontainable feedback into a beefy wall of sound.

On Pop 2, Charli XCX returns for more profligacy, yet this time with a keener perspective recalibrated by the nuances of young adult maturity.

Where music fails to tell a story, Beam’s lyricism fills in the details.