On this album, it feels like she had been groping for some sense of direction after an exhaustive smackdown. And she decidedly chose the feminine end of her musical ying-yang, opting for quiet, confounding introspection.

If there’s anything missing from Goddess, it’s something that could set Banks apart from the lanscape of beats + vocals that’s so saturated today.

The new record finds singer Paul Banks and company reorganizing old reliable, post-Joy Division moves to deliver a fresher (more cheerful even?) atmospheric post-punk plate.

While Mean Love is his most experimental album to date, it’s also his most precise.

Luckily, Picture You Staring does deliver on the promise of its lead single.

Every move on the album is intentional and nothing is unchartered territory for Zammuto.

This album’s most striking moments often come when Mascis commits unreservedly to the ballads.

The best tracks, like Burn Out The Bruise and Wire Frame Mattress, possess the lyrical degradation and sludgy rhythms of the early grunge ethos, if being tossed around with the surfing-a-graveyard sounds of L.A. antecedents from right before grunge, notably the Flesheaters and the Gun Club.

After The End is a damn good pop album, and it’s not concerned with where it fits in the world.

The songs are catchy and celebratory in every way we could hope, and what’s more, this album itself is a cause for celebration.

This time around, the specifics are there. And though each isolated moment may not be immediately relatable, they create a universal portrait of our struggle with the loss of youth and the arduous task of soldiering forward while a part of us grasps for those milestones of the past.

Bahamas Is Afie is an album that draws very specific parameters for itself and makes a point of staying well inside them. Bahamas never over-plays or over-shares, hence the resulting album is one that rewards repeated listens.

Decimation Blues has undeniably strong songs on the more experimental end of the spectrum and undeniably strong songs on the folky end of the spectrum. However, their placement together on one album (alongside a number of less successful songs) results in an extremely uneven listening experience.

Despite V’s evidence of growth and energy throughout the first half of the album, excitement drains during the latter half. Kastlander’s vocals are still emotionally pinpricking on each song, consistently dwelling on the subject matter of relationship/post-relationship difficulties on tracks like Full and Be Here Now. Eventually though, just like hearing a friend complain about their ex for three months straight after the split, it gets tiresome.

While the songs on Lights Out would certainly suit a fine live atmosphere, their simplicity, repetition and generic nature create a rather weak album that fails to hold its own in today’s complicated indie rock landscape.

There’s no attempt to make any songs appropriate for looped listens or party playlists, and yet it’s precisely because of this that Experiments In Time sounds like it could’ve only come from Willis Earl Beal, and Willis Earl Beal alone.

LP1 takes the humid isolation of Twigs’ EP1 and EP2 and twists it into ten tracks of relationship Hail Marys. But there’s a subdued sense of strength running under Barnett’s pleas that translates into a dark confidence, and in that tension is where LP1 finds its best moments.

Rosebuds have a smooth, beyond approachable, ear-massaging loveliness, this time honed with a production clarity of near Steely Dan-like proportions, if on an indie level. Instrumentation remains fairly minimal, delicately played and mixed to perfection.

This doesn’t feel like yet more easy-trash, pool party punk (though it is that, and good at it), but something that has a preternatural songwriting zing and energy not predicated on just the fumbling charm of a stained ’80s metal t-shirt and Ronettes knowledge, but actual, like charm.

A solid road map of new found diversity and eclecticism is laid out throughout a large chunk of They Want My Soul, and despite the inevitable growing pains, Spoon really does seem poised to continue rising from the ashes of their near disappearance.

It’s good right away, but it doesn’t make sense until later. Gist Is might take patience, but it pays off.

Lese Majesty is a seriously weird album, but it succeeds in calling the genre’s current established order to question and challenging what it means for something to be considered a hip hop record, all while remaining sonically pleasing enough to keep the listener engaged with the ambitious message that Shabazz Palaces is adamant at getting across.

While each song on the album seems to tell a different story, together they tell one: Some things may have changed in that six-year interim, but those changes have only worked in Lewis’s favor.

Ab-Soul puts out a solid release here, helped along by some big name features and big performances from his TDE labelmates, but at times These Days feels too generic or just flat out stale, ultimately failing to carry the Black Hippy torch in the ways that good kid m.A.A.d city and Oxymoron did for the crew.

This is a strong indie rock release that further establishes PS I Love You’s sound, improving upon it but not really do much to shift it. Maybe that’s a good thing though, because this album is a great listen.

Overall though, there’s more comfort than debauchery on Alvvays.

Conversations is an album that will sink you into some kind of woozy hypnotic stupor, not pull you out of one.

It’s equally as innovative as it is mundane, equally as ambitious as it is safe, and equally as fun as it is tedious. Well, the last one isn’t quite true, this album is a ton of fun.