As a whole, Reefer has proven its capacity for producing sunshine hits, but only time will tell if it will be able to push itself past the spaced-out beaches of Maui and towards more diverse soundscapes.

If nothing else, Astronomy For Dogs should be heralded as a step in the right direction after six long years of wandering.

The Walkmen are that rare band that can stretch into all manner of different shapes and retain their oneness with the rock gods, and they've held onto the zeal that made them stand out like a diamond among the other jeweled NYC bands with impeccable resumes in the early aughts.

Its framework and color scheme may possibly end up as just a passing diversion for Halo, but it will still remain a captious rendering of where her craft and human-craft could one day go.

While it’s not as compelling as Endless Summer, it’s the closest Fennesz has come to returning to that plateau.

Despite the janky piano, dissonant woodwind arrangements, and Angil’s sometimes abrasive vocal delivery, it all works well. You haven’t heard this album before, and that is very refreshing.

Cantu-Ledesma’s ensemble (that’s 11 in total, including greats like Mary Lattimore, JAB, and Roger Tellier Craig) achieve an elegant cascade here that’s more stoicism than stupor and more calm than stagnancy.

For those smitten with the notion of the dark, mysterious West and its expanding, crushing, absorbing, destructive, albeit beautiful tendencies, there's much to enjoy on Ancestral Star.

Come With Me If You Want to Live never relents under the weight of its side-project status, nor does it pale significantly in comparison to more “serious” metal acts, nor is it in any way a piss-take.

It’s a fun ride, to be sure, but once the high wears off and all that’s left is the darkness, you can catch a faint glimpse of oblivion. Hopefully we get to peek deeper into the chasm the next time around.

We get tiny tastes of levity, but scarcely the sort of wit we’re used to.

Ghostory is well on par with the strident ephemera to which followers of this project have become accustomed.

Whereas The Fiery Furnaces used to suffer from a lack of restraint, they suffer here from having too much.

From a group as self-satisfied as Oneida, there is a pervasive feeling that, having completed such a grand statement, they will feel consummated and move on in accordance with whatever insatiable rock 'n' roll muse they have been following all these years.

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.

The concept understood, no longer intriguing, no longer as unique as it's presented, runs out of interpretations on the final induction of every theory and concept highlighted.

To the band’s credit, the album does warm-up to the listener with consecutive listens, but Blitzen Trapper will have to play some reputable live shows in order to distinguish themselves from the indie rock masses.

This is not going to appeal to a wide swath of people, but DJs who take advantage of the late hours of a petering-out dance party to play dubstep and spacey ambient techno will surely appreciate the vibe here.

The intensity of their work comes from a great deal of poise and restraint, but as is the case with Deep Politics, this tact can also come across as strangely normative.

Although the music doesn’t always conjure it, there’s power in the album’s consciousness.

While Nguyen continues to write upbeat songs about passion gone awry and her band continues to do its part in complementing them, Know Better Learn Faster just doesn’t quite reach the bar she set for herself last time out.

Is Frauhaus! a groundbreaking musical statement? Absolutely not. Is it in the spirit of great, similarly-minded albums from contemporaries past and present? Resoundingly, yes.

Like the craft of the best tracks here, the album itself describes a smooth and clearly bookended parabola, an unexpectedly rainbow bridge, but one that, unlike the most well-known of these, is a pleasure, not a revelation.

In the absence, though, of the gritty murk of TRST and the intimations of a world of malformed sonic objects outside the techno-primitive beat, there’s a quality of the streamlined on Joyland that calls out for irritation.

It’s an honest delivery, but they are essentially preaching to the choir.

Some tracks are stunning, others pass by unnoticed. The fact that we have them is beautiful enough. The chaos swallows you up.

For now, Flood Network shows the growing pains of acclaim, responding with a thoughtful ebb, a skim across the sand before the flood.

Poppy and breezy to the point of being nauseating.