Its energized cheeriness eventually proves itself at once disarming and salutary.

Through this the mesmerizing plan of the album becomes, at last, apparent. The issue of making sense becomes a far-off one.

Maybe much will be made of their newplayful trifling with those muchmaligned indiedancetronica influences, but I don’think this is the mereaesthetic synthwave chill,man plasticity of the endlessly reproducible shoppingmall sunset.

From the simplicity in songs like "Lightning Thunderbolt" to the momentary pause before the tempo jump of "The Rule of the Game," the lyrical content of the album depends on the musicality, which itself attests for the album's strongest moments.

For those with autumn coursing through their veins, they’d do well to assuage their summer by keeping Dirty Beaches’ Drifters/Love is The Devil coursing through their headphones.

The result is an absolute monster of a closing track that caps a seductively repeatable album, which speaks miles to the effort on Holy Fuck's strongest album to date.

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.

These songs are alive, but there are too many cooks, and they clutter things with all their different ideas and approaches. Madlib's instrumental interludes are weird and compelling, which is no surprise, but because of the multitude of voices, his influence is more subdued than usual.

By no means is The North Borders sterile, but there isn’t a notably invigorating spark either--at least not of an obtuse or intense gesture.

They have taken on a wider range of styles and adapted them to their strict sound, but it still sounds like Tunng, which is never a bad thing.

It’s Hard For Me to Say I’m Sorry feels brief, too, but it’s still highly allusive and transportive, dense and beautiful, like a field recording without a field.

The breadth of sounds covered will scan as inconsistency to all but the most pious Uzi devotees, but it’s hard to imagine anything else serving as a more comprehensive document of rap in 2017.

Katy Goodman seems to be changing, developing, maturing (whatever you want to call it) as an artist at her own pace, and however slowly or carefully that may be, we’re all the more fortunate for it.

Eno’s continuation of his flag-bearing series is about as ignorable as it has always been with waning levels on the side of interest.

While still struggling a bit to overcome their influences, still sound no less than incredible and compelling on their debut.

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

Neither a remix nor a remodel, even less a tribute to an inspiration, these songs sound the same yearning breathed in different breaths.

Yet another charming balance of winsome melody, subtle studio twinkle, frolicking rock, and tinges of country meshed against traditional song structures.

On Weird Sister, Joanna Gruesome exotic blooms--forget the Ys and wherefores, and cue some!

This is an album less about immediacy and more about subtlety. It’s not rocking in any traditional sense, but it reveals itself gradually, building in complexity with each turn.

Koushik effortlessly summons the hazy feel of running around stoned at noon on a summer day in hot pursuit of a grape soda or some other ridiculous craving to be satiated.

Its idiosyncratic animus is something to behold, and even if you don’t like it, both the digital age and Burnett himself can reassure you with the verse, “Don’t worry; in a few, you’ll all be somewhere else.”

It is no accident; Jaga Jazzist is trying to blow your mind. It is supposed to feel like a masterpiece.

If one didn't care for White Hills before, this won't change a mind. Of their recorded material, however, White Hills' latest is perhaps their best; short of an in-person experience of the band's eardrum-shattering performances

Their meh generation, “shouting lager lager” take on four-on-the-floor energy is starting to wear a bit thin.

Absolutely the least offensive record you will probably not hear this year.

There are enough genre-hopping and synergistic, trans-genre partnerships present on the tracklist that Long. Live. A$AP, its commercial bets hedged, feels not unlike a myriad of other major-label rap disappointments from nearly any other era of rap.

This is a much better effort than anything they've done in quite some time.