Are Euphoria dreams dreams that weld themselves to clusters of thought-clouds. A kind of hieroglyphic retracing, keen in this summer air, surfaces, lulled in by the world.

As social commentary, it feels ineffectual and dated, its tone resembling someone’s morally mediocre guy friend who is eager to reconcile his own shortcomings by engaging a willing interlocutor. As music, though, the album glistens. Unfortunately, these two registers can’t be unwound, and so the listener is left liking the music despite, not for, its paratextual inflations.

Unfortunately, instead of rebuilding a sound structure (double meaning intended) with those scattered shards that Deerhoof has violently shaved off over its career, with La Isla Bonita, they’ve traced a nominal new work from a picture that never existed in such an ostensibly neatly composed way. Without that compositional tension hanging in its margins though, La Isla Bonita’s expressions, however inciting, remain just out of grasping reach, like an island mirage.

This isn’t an album that I foresee myself returning to very often, but under the right set of circumstances--such as the live performance that I attended last December--these are songs that contain the potential to deliver an unforgettable, emotionally cathartic experience.

This is the sound you need to get for right now, and it’s built to last well past that.

Itâ??s the hyper-distinguishable leap from idiosyncratic-but-lovable to just-plain-lovable that makes Bromst--and Danny Boy himself--of increased import.

It’s a hazy journey, encompassing loss, disconnection, and disappointment, buoyed up by hard-hitting production and Mykki’s unrelenting desire for pleasure and connection.

There’s nothing wrong with Atomic. If you like this sort of thing, you’ll probably think it’s as good as Mogwai’s other work; if you’re aware of their career trajectory, it will mean something specific in that respect, too. The problems come down to communicating the weightlessness of the invisible imaginary figures that dance across your mind’s eye when you’re listening to it.

The organic lushness should please indie-pop fans reluctant to embrace synth music, while the emphasis on sound instead of structure holds appeal for fans of loop music who’ve grown bored of its now-familiar tropes.

There will be about 20 songs, and there will be about 30 minutes’ worth of myriad emotions that you’ll have to re-spin back four times or more to hear all that was sung-and-said.

Eight of the twelve tracks here surpass a four-minute run time and few would sound as good on a dancefloor as they do on a laptop. So to ask the audience to remain patient for the record’s 55 minutes proves a tall order, especially for music as subdued as this. Still, Weatherall demonstrates an indisputable talent for compiling and arranging a diverse array of sounds into one cohesive song on Family Portrait.

In the moment of listening itself, the lo-fi complexities, interactions, and repetitions create a revelation

This is mood music, flecked with beauty and riven with hurt, a compelling, complex work that extends itself outwards, generously inviting the listener to share in its triumphs and disappointments.

In 37 minutes, there isn't a single moment when the music really hits with conviction.

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.

They may have traded in a certain sort of urgency and sprawl, but there's a certitude to the whole affair that makes the album go down easy.

While Castlemania lacks the punchy, propulsive crowd-pleasers ("I Was Denied," "Block of Ice") that have lately been the band's stock and trade, the record glows with the unhinged, live-in-studio quality that translates so well to an Oh Sees live show.

The best parts of Iron & Wine songs are almost always the bridges between chorus and verse or the outros, the spaces void of singing where Beam adds subtle riffs on top of the normal progression... They are the sharpest hooks, and, unfortunately, Calexico pretty much cuts out the effect of these bridges on In the Reins, replacing them with dull saxophones, harmonicas, trumpets, and ill-defined electric guitar parts.

Unfortunately, the focal point of the album is not on the music, but instead on Slug's lyrics, which have matured at a much slower pace than Ant's slick production.

It ensnares the listening consciousness, simultaneously revealing the trap and pacifying the listener.

Whole sections that might feel accomplished if taken as isolated pieces feel misplaced in the economy of these side-long tracks.

Live, Hunx are utter trashy goodness, a trip to Dreamland, but recorded here, there’s a fine line they wobble back and forth on, like the tyres of a dodgy fixie, where the humor can wear thin and wear out its welcome.

The overriding element of Natural is the band’s sense of experimentation, merging punk with semi-transcendentalist folk.

All heavy-handed metaphysics aside, RP Boo proves on Legacy that he is truly a deft master of the drum machine, inspired by the potential in pure sound.

Fantastic Planet is an achievement in advancing that voice to a clear-eyed place, where wonder and apprehension can peacefully coexist.

This new approach is graceful but weary, with mixed results throughout.

The morbid motivation behind it all looms like that skull, never far from the festivities, even if Gliss Riffer doesn’t always reproduce its glow.

This is a supergroup, and part of the fun lies in the interplay between musicians, especially Cartwright and Hames. In the classic tradition of the "answer song," the two singers take turns poking holes in each other's vows and proclamations, comically deflating their assigned roles in the pop tradition.