Now we have Street Punk, less than 30 minutes of raw, hasty, goof-garage, with not so much as a coy wink.

This is the first Fuck Buttons album that feels like post-invasion music. Victory lingers, but it also stings.

It’s an album for a seductive but thoughtful loft party.

Home Life follows Andrew Cedermark’s displacement in this world, searching for answers as he rides a train with no set destination in sight; and along the way he was able to create a rollicking, bemused album that highlights his skills as a lyricist, allowing us to join in on the journey.

It’s a darker, angrier album and it shows that the duo is adventurous, but the experiments don’t quite cohere.

It’s exciting to listen to an artist just go for it, and that’s obviously what Me Moan is: an attempt to synthesize genres of music that don’t quite belong together.

The album has an easy-going pace to it, opening up a little more with each graceful transition and quiet revelation.

Aside from pushy cuts like “95 ‘Til Infinity” and “Amethyst Rockstar,” there are moments when some of the songs on Summer Knights are so uniform that they end up feeling like one exhaustive freestyle with much ado about nothing. But whenever Joey’s delivery gets a little stagnant, he’ll quickly fill a track with a winning bit of introspection and his signature throwback ‘90s flow comes to rescue.

Major Arcana sounds like a girl’s (or dude’s) animated beer-soaked bar vent and its crafty delivery makes it entertaining, therapeutic, and universal.

Killer Mike gets the most quotable lines, turning simple statements into punchlines and investing each syllable with a sense of rhythmic possibility; you’re never sure exactly which word in a given line he might decide to pluck like a stray beard hair.... Despite abandoning some of the more layered and mannered production flourishes of his solo work, El-P still packs these songs with stray details--the roar of a tiger, those gorgeous organs, the squeal of a dolphin--that can be jarring on first listen but gradually reveal themselves to be essential.

Of the two rappers here, Killer Mike gets the most quotable lines, turning simple statements into punchlines and investing each syllable with a sense of rhythmic possibility.... Despite abandoning some of the more layered and mannered production flourishes of his solo work, El-P still packs these songs with stray details--the roar of a tiger, those gorgeous organs, the squeal of a dolphin--that can be jarring on first listen but gradually reveal themselves to be essential.

This may not be as exciting as people expected, but it’s detailed, coherent, and worth a spin.

In addition to sharpening the lyrical content, Soft Will has some of the group’s complex and multifaceted bits of rock assemblage. There’s a confidence and control to the playing on this album.

Lightning Dust finally sound like what the scientific matter of something called “lightning dust” should sound like: a lull after a thunder clap, a sharp beam of light, something that sprinkles down after the heated rush, something organically beautiful. And in its beauty, it hurts.

In his honest debut Id, Chris Laufman, the mind behind the joyous noise-pop project Wise Blood, nobly outlines the neurotic impulses of those of us who don’t have a seat at Miley Cyrus’s lunch table.

Although GB City was powerful in its own way, the self-titled displays an impressive attention to detail that helps bring out some of the sound that was lacking in the group’s early work.

With Love is by no means a terrible album, but the bar that Dedication set was in no way reached. It’s worth giving a listen, but be prepared to edit it into a condensed and sensical format.

It doesn’t push boundaries in the same way that Feel It Break busted up notions of genres, but its smooth production stabilizes the lyrics’ emotional bombast.

Sweet and thoughtful but not without edge, Lemuria knowingly toys with us on The Distance Is So Big, reveling in the loops of the lyrics and the strength of their unique saccharine force.

It’s clear from even the most half-hearted listen that Spectrals have found their niche space on Sob Story.

Half Of Where You Live sidesteps the dreaded sophomore slump by staying true to the impulse that guided Gold Panda’s initial recordings: honesty.

There’s no twist ending here--just another excellent Boards Of Canada album.

Sunbather is every bit as explosive and engaging as any metal album you’re likely to hear all year.

Nothing on Settle is left wanting. Disclosure’s debut full-length, after a series of tight and well-curated EPs, has high points as high as any record this year.

The record is engineered so that he never has to. Listen past the last track and be introduced to Acid Rap all over again as a voice promises on loop that it’ll be “Even better than the last time.”

As always, the darkness is cut with moments of mirth, even though no one will mistake this for a dance party soundtrack.

Despite these retro touches, there’s something modern about the album’s ability to shrug off heartbreak, to grab victory from the jaws of defeat and then kick defeat in the jaw for being such a dick.

Everything feels full and complete, with each song taking a life of it’s own, while still contributing equally as much to the larger concept.