You don’t get the sense that either over-rides the other in terms of input, and this project allows them to fully immerse themselves in the creation of sounds and musical structures that do not lean on the output of their other projects. There is a range of emotions and musical textures present on this album and it feels like quite a ride by the end.

Out And About strikes as a series of stories cut off halfway from their conclusion, leaving the rest to the listener to fill in. It’s probably the most generous way Lewsberg has applied their trademark pragmatism to their music. They’ve always had a unique gift for painting vivid scenery with even the simplest, most barren of means.

The whole EP feels weightless and aloft as if we have a clear view of the blinding blue gap between its heights and depths.

The album takes many of Malkmus' favorite indie and classic rock influences and creates something fresh and dazzling.

This set of songs, intimate and filled with lyrical and musical nuances that encourage repeated listening, is supremely rewarding. That resilient streak is sure to take Anjimile places.

CHAI see no line whatsoever between taking on whatever issues get to them and being able to completely bliss out, and it’s this very energy that continues to make them absolutely essential. WINK is simply the warmest, most open way they’ve chosen to engage in that battle yet.

This is them coming to grips with their heritage and their age, although it’s no swan song. But American Head does what its predecessors haven’t been able to do – it shows the Flaming Lips still know how to write thoughtful and sincere songs that also tap into the psychedelics their fans have come to expect.

Some might lament the lack of tension in this album, but when the music's this beautiful, who needs it?

It's said that Lamar's goal here was to prove himself capable of standing alone. Well, in certainly one of the greatest critical understatements written, he's done it.

It has the potential to sidle next to records like Movements and We Are Monster as a genre classic, but it's just as assured to find a broader audience as well.

Despite an array of musical styles, the songs all tend to plod along at the same tempo, which becomes a little frustrating in places. The portraits of sombre and solemn humanity painted on the best songs here are rich, whereas they fall into caricatures on the weaker tracks – although these are in the minority, to be fair. Even when the material is less than hoped for, his voice can still manage to grab you square in the heart.

UGLY is surely his most intense, unvarnished, unrelenting personal excavation

Such is Krug’s way with words: deliberately or not, he’s weaving a huge tapestry that makes the author clearer to us. Julia With Blue Jeans On is another section in it and is a damned beautiful, it not great one at that.

The album, true to its title, seems like a long and tortured joke with plenty of narrative that only the teller can fully grasp – at times the delivery is bravura and spellbinding, but too often it falls flat and loses momentum. There’s undeniably a great work of art in here among the clutter of scraps that McMahon has collected over the last few years.

Thursday continues a linear narrative that House of Balloons started and its far from an afterthought or epilogue.

It's not quite a masterpiece, but its successes are both grand and numerous enough to suggest that the next time Chromatics come around, they'll likely be delivering one.

It is true you can very easily lose orientation amidst the billowing clouds and beatless productions (which makes the title Atlas seem ironic) but that only compels you to venture further, to learn the album’s unseeable contours.

End of Everything is not an obviously uplifting album, but it is in many places breathtaking.

The terror and helplessness that define the song’s first half takes a revelatory turn in its final leg, as the demons respond again to her cries for freedom.

This is why Dye It Blonde is truly a success: the band have moved from the garage noise-rock sound to a much more atmospheric one wherein the noise is harnessed into multiple layers of melodic instrumentation.

Lucky Shiner has all the facets of something good. It breathes on its downbeats, sings rickety sampler loops, and, most enjoyably, it takes its time.

A Beginner’s Mind proves the two are not only capable of making beautiful music as a duo, but bodes well for their solo work to come — it’s yet another captivating plot point in their overarching narratives.

It promises even better material to come if he can blend the astounding songcraft from earlier efforts with the atmosphere of this album.

Oshin is undeniably a record tailored for driving around with some friends in the dead heat of summer, but the music also packs a range of raw emotions.

The Golden Age of Apocalypse is a great album that shows Bruner utilizing all of his bass wizardry.

No doubt that momentum they’ve built up will take them to plenty of new places when they can get back to playing live next year; they set out to capture that feeling on record this time around, and they’ve succeeded, with an album that makes Hope Downs feel like a warmup. After all this travelling, they’ve finally arrived.

Though lacking in musical revelations, there are more than a few moments on the album that highlight her sharp instincts as a songwriter. There is a catharsis to Someone New that’s palpable, and if Deland harnesses that going forward, things can only get brighter from here.

While Mannequin Pussy may not have necessarily progressed hugely, they have found thrilling new ways to implement the sounds that made Patience such a success. Most excitingly, the little glimpses of new ideas and chemistry suggest it’s just a stepping stone to what’s next.

The Nearer the Fountain, The More Pure the Stream Flows is perhaps the deepest inquiry into the artist – but again, we don’t really know if what we are seeing in the mirror is real.

This is a worthy comeback for the singer that is fun, catchy, bright and ultimately another addition to the canon of necessary, escapist music we need to forget the world’s impending descent into madness.

The record often flows nearly-imperceptibly from track to track, creating a sort of ecosystem all its own, which harkens to its deep ambient undercurrents. But, hanging together as it does, like a morning mist, YIAN is a bit of a soggy, homogenous listen.

Nothing Is Wrong sees the band not only avoiding the often-discussed sophomore slump, and rising to the challenge and delivering a far more accomplished record than their first; one that should make the band into one of the biggest and most respected in the current americana/folk rock community.

Iceage mine the clangorous middle ground between traditional punk structures and the often sterile world of Joy Division-indebted post-punk, but they transcend both of those genres, just by meaning what they say.

Rolling Golden Holy exudes a communal, back-to-basics charm. The threesome operate within an eternal country-folk formula of less-is-more that fosters a sense of instant familiarity.

Marissa Nadler is the sort of folk album that you'll be returning to simply because it is so varied.

Goodbye Bread may not change the face of music, cause, y'know, it's only rock 'n roll. But it's damn hard not to like it.

Clocking in at a hair over half an hour in length, Driver is similarly brief in nature as the albums which preceded it, but it stands apart from Adult Mom’s first two records in that it’s a more polished, bigger and brighter collection of songs, in spite of how its lyrical content may seem.

We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic delivers on the promise of Foxygen's previous material in almost every way possible, offering up full and complete songs filled with bright instrumentation and enough surprising songwriting turns to get lost in, but there's also a strong personality at its core bursting with a vibrancy that carries these songs beyond their specific musical waypoints and influences into a uniquely modern setting.

Yellow River Blue is a truly intoxicating experience, akin to a spellbinding late night story told by a stranger. As outsiders, we may not have the context, but we know more than enough to realize we’re witnessing something intimate and special. This is easy listening fit for deep reflection.

It manages to sound familiar while sounding entirely new, all the while making it clear that this is a sound only Lambchop could create.

What Silberman’s managed to accomplish with Green to Gold is admirable. Instead of quitting music he’s pushed forward and accepted his limitations in pursuit of his passion.

Although sonically the production can feel repetitive – especially towards the album’s middle – what ultimately anchors this project is the lyricism. He manages to explore his experience as a gay man and all its accompanying troubles and triumphs, yet also frame them in the universal understandings of heartbreak and alienation.

Overall, it seems that Motorists are the most compelling when infusing elements of krautrock and motorik into their work.

Their punk spirit is still there, but has been buried a little under the weight of heartfelt emotion, bolstered instrumentation and sugary harmonies – all of which work beautifully for these songs. Camp Cope have made an album for themselves, to bring some unity through honesty and self-expression. They can certainly be proud of that.

Van Etten gives us what is, quite possibly, her strongest album yet. And that sense of breakthrough, of sheer lift, is prevalent right from the start. ... There’s a powerful sincerity and confidence to her vocals throughout the record, as she weaves and bobs around her deceptively simple and emotive melodies, often hitting notes that sounds for a millisecond like they won’t quite work, and then suddenly, they do, as on the final heavenly note of “Darkness Fades”.

Del Rey’s longest album to date by some distance – and not without the occasionally questionable choice. But the best moments, which abound, solidify Del Rey as one of the all-time greats.

They write very strong songs, but aural satiation sinks in over Bones‘ 48 minute runtime.

There’s no point on Atlas Vending that feels wasted, no meandering or time-sucks; it’s just pure adrenaline rock expertly produced and delivered piping hot.

It not so much a record that juxtaposes itself, but rather one that sways between the two sides of whatever spectrum you put it in.

Translate is a wonderful album from a special artist. Evocative, cinematic and visceral, the body of work is testament to the evolution of Luke Abbott and his desire to challenge himself with each new release.

It’s an evocative thrill ride and a captivating rumination on mortality that also asks questions of life afterwards. It isn’t an easy listen but it’ll soon become something you’re drawn towards time and time again.

Yes, it’s a more mature album than those initial shots that audiences lost their minds and virginities to from 2004 to 2007. But it’s also a rich, passionate and clever album that, even if it ends up being underrated, deserves full attention and praise.

It’s noteworthy that this latest record is on par with those two [Soundtracks for the Blind and The Seer] in quality, because it marks his largest leap forward in a long time. By imagining a future without himself, Michel Gira has opened up an eternity of possibilities. He’s let the light shine in – and that is deeply moving. He’s found peace.

Rentals is uniformly great, and each track boasts its share of both gorgeous instrumentation and lines that are alternately poetic and prosaic.

A tangled and glorious mess of aggressive glitches and clipped synths and stuttering beats and hints, shadows, and fragments of tunefulness.

Their identity is hard to peg, and its just this that allows the music to completely possess the forefront, that makes it such an engaging, entertaining, and, perhaps most significantly, fascinating listen.

Songs seems to be the culmination of what The Telescopes have strived for over the last decade, and is an album that’s more truly shoegaze than the genre has seen in years.

It's a refinement of what he accomplished with Sugar, and is arguably the most consistently engaging album he's made since Copper Blue.

Sweep It Into Space has all the ingredients for a pleasant listen, while doing little to separate itself from the rest of their discography.

There’s no sense of wallowing in misery here. She makes no effort to hide the ugliness of what we can be but also draws attention to the light we hold within.

There is an efficiency to this album as a whole, a clear sense of purpose and direction which cannot be claimed for many of their albums, which tend to wander in a beautiful haze for however long it takes.

Leaving Atlanta is far from a perfect record - there is not anything approaching 'classic status' on it – but it is a very fine one, and certainly one of the best we will see in its genre this year.

Subtle complexity may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but that is yet another aspect of her music that is so impressive: unless paid close attention to, it will not appear to be all that complex. It will go down very smoothly regardless of the kind of lenses one views it through.

Narrative beauty and endless energy is abound, but you're going to have to play make believe to find out.

With Care, CLAMM continue to reconfigure their sources and refine their methods, offering their take on the current age, fractured as it is by pandemics, climate change, acute financial instabilities, and the rise of the autocratic impulse. They bemoan the human tragedy, but in so doing, experience a fleeting high.

In any case, Leave Home is no doubt one of the most gut-punched and brain-addled rock rock records to arrive in quite some time.

Thoroughly enjoyable from front to back, Heaven oozes confidence and polish.

The material here is as strong as we've come to expect from this band, but its pleasures aren't nearly as surface-level as even Kid A's. The best way to judge The King of Limbs in the long run may simply be to hope someone spurs Radiohead on in this direction.

Arabia Mountain is energetic, fun, loose, and immediate. Everything the Black Lips should be.

The majority of Playing Robots Into Heaven is still very good, but the album is missing the skyscraping highs of past tracks like “The Wilhelm Scream” or “Retrograde”, and its cohesiveness is hampered by a few lesser songs that have slipped past the slackened quality control department.

It's the best album of its kind to come out this year and, perhaps even more significantly, Segall's best work to date.

Even though there are only three tracks here, and a total of approximately 12 minutes of music, Lout represents some of The Horrors’ most expressive, uninhibited, and memorable work – a potential indicator of what might be an entirely new trajectory for this band, including, perhaps, their best creations yet.

Overall, it’s a wild, violent, voracious record, and one of the group’s best.

Every track on The Universal Want has a warmth to it that is absent on most reunion albums.

Where I was expecting a great album, I've instead encountered one that's merely very good.

Despite the clear motives with the themes in the album, the instrumentation fluctuates in a chaotic manner that makes it very confusing to listen to at times.

He [Chasney] may have made a misstep by not allowing the album to have that singularly defining moment but after his last few records, Ascent is a step up in terms of direction and execution.

This is a damn good 10 track record, boasting noteworthy turns by its guests and laudable production, but for how long will it spin until the next one comes around? Curren$y has finally found the following he deserves; one can only hope he preserves his moment, rather than squander it.

There is so much to both genuinely appreciate and enjoy on Swing Lo Magellan that it makes you wonder why these have to sometimes be exclusive ways to experience an album.

The first half of SHYGA! contains most of the sharper hits, while the guitars on the second half are allowed to roam looser and longer.

Yet another impressive and experimental addition to Dawn’s discography, Second Line proves that this prolific artist is not running out of steam or fresh ideas any time soon.

Brazen and charming, it’s the album of this summer.

VOID is a twisting chimera of a record as it skips through post-metal on “I Cannot”, to post-rock on “Not Today, Old Friend”, to math rock on “We’re Small Enough”, while never once feeling like anything other than a KEN mode record.

Yes, this will drive some away, and allow critics to easily point to its messiness (as if NFR wasn’t all over the place aesthetically – something Antonoff’s production homogeneity cleverly disguised – same with Lust for Life, or the underrated Born to Die), but it is also rewarding and surprising.

Hand Habits’ music is the kind where there are no certainties; it’s all searching with the occasional discovery, but the detail of the journey is the beauty.

RocketNumberNine should be commended for the killer tracks that they’ve managed to pack into MeYouWeYou.

More variety would help his cause, but Holiday is a graceful, emotionally affluent debut.

Suuns are a great band that just get a little too bogged down by their own lofty ambitions. As such, The Witness is a serviceable post-punk album, one that ends up as an interesting listen but with little to pull us back to it.

The character of each new Low album is always a mystery until you hear it, so speculating on whether they’re likely to continue working in this manner is pointless at this juncture, but it’s good to know that ten albums in Low still have the ability to put together a stirring collection of songs.

Sun’s Signature is a wonderful record whose core themes of hope, splendour and faith in nature are something we could all do with right about now.

Though it’s hardly labyrinthine--these songs proceed in pretty much a linear fashion–Slow Focus immerses the listener in an aural landscape that offers so much to explore.

Devoid of meaty pop nuggets, Mythopoetics sounds like an unstable wormhole that travels from 2020’s critically-lauded The Caretaker to wherever the heck the Half Waif project lands next.

One thing that can’t be denied is that it opens up more with each listen, and if this isn’t a reason to keep returning to it again and again, then I don’t know what would be.

Foxing are aware they’re alienating some fans, but that makes it the kind of evolution one should admire and value. And with Murphy’s melancholic poetry persisting as the band’s heavy heart and soul, the genre’s most polarizing band, whether you like it or not, has reached yet another new level of boldness and grandeur.

Electronic Dream concludes like it was only meant to be heard once and then remembered in scraps like its namesake, but, thankfully, its starts over as readily as it ends.

There is nothing out and out original on Viscerals, and in many ways that is the appeal. If you like down tuned sludge/doom then you’ll find plenty here to get your teeth into.

Wicked City proves that Jockstrap have no shortage of creativity, as these five tracks have more than enough ideas to fill a whole album. So, it’ll be fascinating to see how they do approach a full-length, which hopefully isn’t too far away.

As fleeting an experience as this is, it’s still emotionally moving and deeply affecting. Within its ambition, and for those who are open to its fainting beauty, it contains entire worlds.