Under the Pale Moon carries an enormous amount of emotional and existential weight, yet it doesn't sound like the process of acting on impulses. If anything, it exhibits the fine essence of song craft, containing each song's individual mood against different echoes of similar themes in songs both before and after.

The Bones of What You Believe is one of the most unabashedly sincere works of indie pop.

What places Ropechain, Grampall’s second release for Sufjan Stevens’ Asthmatic Kitty label, above its emotionally vacant peers is a willingness to trade drugged-out euphoric rambling with tangible anxiety.

Yesterday and Today, the sophomore effort from The Field (nee Axel Willner), can be easily understood as part of the tradition of moody follow-ups a la In Utero: a pairing of a signature sound with willful experimentalism.

It remains first and foremost a very fun album.

His delivery is low, wounded, yearning; despite the rockist structures, the keyboards and drum machines rattle in a pale imitation of the grandeur he’s seeking, like the last scene of Aguirre.

Perhaps these songs take on a more chaotic, messier, and a little dirtier appearance than they might have in another possible incarnation, but they’re still clearly of the same extraction as what came before.

Snaith covers a lot of bases on The Milk of Human Kindness and somehow it all works.

The spacious long-form approach on these eight tracks really showcase Schott’s insistent, tactile, and conversation-with-yourself lonesome performance style. It’s great loner music, for those who own this about themselves but are ever casting a tentative eye toward the throng.

McCombs is making music as if his soul depended on it. I'd listen to the sound of that struggle any day.

Bringing bouts of surf twang, no-wave tangles, and chopped-up power chords, the record blurs boundaries of genre, its eighth notes alternately swung and then made straight again. The band (Todd May, Ben Lamb, Jay Gasper, George Hondroulis, Andy Harrison) shines across the changes in support of Loveless’s powerful voice.

Ciara is the singer’s most realized full-length to date and one of this year’s most thrilling pop moments.

Fall Be Kind is yet another reason why Animal Collective TOTALLY TRANSCEND any notion of hipster hype-ism, another feather in a crowded cap. God bless these guys.

The songs are lovely and placid enough to soothe the stressed and unnerved listener, but evocative enough to instill a disconcertingly curious sensation that lingers in a blissfully unfettered fashion.

There’s so much sweet in the bitter here that one might be inclined to think that this is music anyone could get into. But these are songs for Low fans.

In other words, without being a mere sonic record of actual Is-ness (a field recording), A flame my love, a frequency relays an Is-ness. This is both mono no aware, the sadness of things, but also their joy, and beyond either, the experience of Being.

All self-examination aside, there's a lot of substance here. Vocally, he has rarely been more on point, and the instrumental ensemble is sound and uniquely Rubiesian.

At least Sleep are honest about their decision and are committed to seeing it through to its heavy, bong-rippin’ end. And by that standard, they’ve created another masterpiece.

With Sarah Davachi’s baroque venture on Pale Bloom into the sensuous folds of light blooming into light, one can hear unfolding this always light and lightness.

Sic Alps are clearly both miles ahead of and miles away from their peers. Napa Asylum only further proves this.

From the get-go, from the very first tremblings of Chris Abrahams’s piano and the hullabaloo of Tony Buck’s drums, the album engineers an atmosphere of beguiling insecurity and enigmatic possibility.

For about an hour, if you can allow Fuck Buttons to control your responses, to embrace the clusterfuck of noise and emotion, then Tarot Sport might be one of the strongest albums of this year.

Instantly enjoyable.

Tidings then, is a journey down a strip of tape from one reel to the other. Yes, it’s a little warped and damaged, but that’s what gives it its character; the insane parts make the most sense of all.

For those familiar with the music of Clogs, Lantern won't sound like much of a departure, but a definite improvement. The nuance of piano, the swelling strings that exercise restraint, the welling and wheeze of a crescendo – it all delivers.

Russell has talked about how he enjoys the constraints of old equipment and recording in humble environments, but on Armed Courage, the effect couldn’t appear further from restriction, as it forges the very motifs that set their sound free.

At points, listening to Bécs is to hear gauze become gossamer, and feel it too.

Both her songs and her subject matter hold back from shocking the listener by virtue of their content, and yet they make a startling impact--creating a headspace that leads to nowhere in the same moment that it paves the way to salvation.