It creates an illusion of depth, and its intervention is interesting, rather than distracting. It thickens space and imagines worlds that once were.

While McEntire’s aimlessness feels honest and satisfying in its questing, it also makes for an album with plenty of movement but less, perhaps, in the way of progress.

Yes, Ambivalence Avenue is an album that defies expectations, and it is also Bibio’s most creative and penetrating release yet.

As each track unfurls, its glacial pace arrests the listener’s search for novelty, forcing attention to the profundities of the mix and the texture that the interlaced sounds create; and yet it also deepens the desire for what each step forward promises, the crisis that the procession patiently unveils.

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.

Where other reborn acts seem to revel in the sheer formal reconstruction and forget songwriting entirely, Costello gets it backwards and winds up with a listenable record as a result.

Semblance’s rigorous and inventive improvisations attempt to bring synth music up to date, despite the unavoidable cultural allusions that threaten to render it an ironic pastiche.

It's as stunning a debut as I've heard in a long time.

Theirs is an 18-year experiment in empathy, in putting themselves in the place of Others, in trawling through the muck of human experience to find sparks of connection and compassion. English Oceans isn’t the Truckers’ best record, it’s their only record.

Pierce sinks his heart into his music, and while that may not manifest in impassioned yelping or big rock riffs, the exquisiteness of his playing and songcraft make it apparent.

Mediation succeeds not only as a stunning instrumental performance, but as an hour of personal storytelling.

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.

It’s a record that vibes on mixture of psychedelic forgery and improvisational wholesomeness.

It’s impossible to fully return all the way home again, but You & Me is the next best thing.

Next Thing moves.

Collaboratively, then, You, Whom I Have Always Hated makes for a solid metal album, but the attribute that gives it an edge works also as a reminder as to just how imaginative this collaboration could be the next time around.

It does justice to the musical traditions it invokes, integrating them into dynamic, scrupulously constructed rampages that escalate at just the right moments and explode at just the right moments.

Despite not being my personal favorite, the album may in fact be Gira’s most poignant statement to date, one that succinctly encapsulates Angels of Lights’ every driving thrust since "New Mother."

As usual, it’s best listened to when you’re in your feelings, and since good news is in short supply, that might be often enough for her gauzy vision of love to feel like a balm, the more wide-eyed the songs the better.

While many of the album’s stronger tracks are also its most spacey and elusive, the sequencing emphasizes just how important the clicking, EDM drums are to the project’s core.

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.

2008 requires more focus and more grace. Modern Guilt delivers both.

Obstinate, prickly, and elusive as ever, Crystal Castles seem poised for more of the reckless aggression they've become known for.

The Year of Magical Drinking strikes me as an album with something interesting to say, a quality only increased by knowing where Flournoy is coming from.

It’s impossible to predict which of today’s hit songs will become tomorrow’s classics, but at least Mandatory Fun, Weird Al’s 14th studio album, delivers on the laughs.

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

Though C'mon Miracle doesn't have the truly standout songs that made Advisory Committee so great, it is still a consistent piece of work that delivers on quality songwriting and musicianship throughout.