Alternately affectionate, suspenseful, weird, and poignant, TPTGATKOMDM is a journey, but it's brought to you by straight-up good songs.

While Everybody Can't Go won't surprise anyone who has been following Benny, it does live up to his standards, and confirms his status as a major player in the rap industry.

King Perry doesn't rank among the pioneering artist's classics, but it's an enjoyable late-period effort that reminds listeners of his adventurous spirit and inimitable character.

Vera Sola's blurring of past and present sounds especially apt to the early 2020s here, but more often, Peacemaker's dreamlike world has a timeless appeal that fans of Calexico, Timber Timbre, and Marissa Nadler will love.

These songs are ten of his better solo offerings, and they further refine his particular brand of hazy, half-awake beauty.

The main directive of the album is paisley jangle, as with standout tracks like the enthusiastically poppy "Gone" or the fiendishly catchy "Goodbye," but the Umbrellas stretch their sound in all directions as Fairweather Friend plays out, calling on various corners of indie pop history yet translating it all into their own songwriting language.

Along the way, despite some familiar musical touchpoints, she establishes a personality that's all her own.

On his third studio album American Dream, rap superstar 21 Savage delivers a set of the kind of stone-faced trap he's known for glossed over with another layer of big-budget production to keep him in the charts.

While just about everything here is darkly anxious yet engaging, highlights include the line “Life’s just time chasing your mind with the body you get" (from "In the Red") and the bouncy, utterly infectious "Big Air," which, in keeping with the rest of the album, adds injury to elation: "I got big air/Flew and landed strange."

The result is that Sadness Sets me Free is both uplifting and comforting at once. It's also just different enough from most of his other work that it feels fresh and exciting, providing more evidence that Rhys is one of the most interesting and satisfying singer/songwriters of any era.

A careful listen reveals he's not shy about constructing a pousse café of six-string textures, but he's smart enough to know when to reign himself in, and most of the time Three Bells sound admirably open and dynamic, leaving just enough daylight between the overdubs to allow each to have some personality of its own.

Thirstier's anthems of devotion might be more immediately gratifying, but the eloquent expressions of love's uncomfortable and uncertain parts that fill What an Enormous Room are a testament to Torres' insatiable need to seek out emotional truths.

The resulting songs easily clear the bar for earnest expressions of affection, going into awkward, getting-to-know-you encounters, breakups, fears, and those small, secret moments when one's love grows stronger.

People Who Aren't There Anymore is another refinement rather than a reinvention or bold step forward. It feels slightly less glossy than some of their other 4AD releases, coming a little closer to the lo-fi textures of earlier albums, but from the perspective of artists who have been working hard for nearly two decades.

The Smile take more risks with this follow-up, resulting in a gorgeous, sometimes difficult trip into the unknown that, if only briefly, can make you forget about their main gig.

The album isn't designed for short attention spans or playlists but as a holistic experience that rewards committed listening with a mind-blowing sonic saga that rages, challenges, and changes more times than can be counted.

Fans may be relieved to learn that while Broom did ratchet up the intensity of their sound a notch in the studio, together they keep things raw, frank, fun, and friskily psychedelic on the resulting The Joy of Sects.

With a sharp ear for hooks, quirky phrasing tendencies, and visceral, spontaneous-sounding accompaniment, ultimately making Melt the Honey play out something like a guilty pleasure.

She grafts and threads striated post-bop harmony, edgeless dissonance, and kinetic drama simultaneously, then blurs the edges expressionistically in crafting a detailed, multivalent, resonant, deeply satisfying whole from seemingly disparate individual elements.

With a little editing, Insano could have been one of Kid Cudi's strongest releases to date. Instead, listeners are given an uneven playlist of great highs and should-have-been B-sides that, in the very least, deliver the expected vocal melodics, haunting vibes, tongue-twisting bars, and "tortured" emotions that Cudi has mastered over the years.

Sadness lurks upon the edges of the record, as does rage, but Little Rope ultimately feels cathartic: by processing Brownstein's loss and dwelling upon their shared bonds, Sleater-Kinney once again feels united and purposeful.

Saviors sounds cleaner, stronger, and purposeful, all due to the still-sharp pop instincts of Bille Joe Armstrong. Age may dampen Green Day's roar, but it has also heightened their songcraft, and that's reason enough to give Saviors time to let its hooks sink in.

Russell's story would be compelling enough on its own, but she also happens to be an engaging and unpredictable artist able to translate her vision effectively. The Returner is a very confident second record.

Lovegaze demonstrates Hunter's range from soundscape weaver to art-pop maverick, and her music is never less than bewildering.

Maybe Hackman just needed a little break before delivering her most compelling album to date.

Ryder-Jones still favors tranquil ballads and laid-back pop songs more than anything else, but the intimate, detailed arrangements and overall sonic scope of Iechyd Da are transformative.

On Orquídeas, Uchis remains true to herself by restlessly expanding her music's stylistic reach, embracing the past as instructor to the present. It is as aesthetically appealing as it is musically adventurous.

It sees her collaborate with German producer DJ Koze on a measured and balanced collection that takes in deep house, art pop, disco, and soul.