It’s difficult to imagine the record being more fully-realized and immersive than it is, and it stands as a towering achievement in Toral’s formidable body of work.

White, who is deeply respected by his peers, makes some clever moves on All Hits: Memories which clear the way. The first move is to turn toward free jazz, where solo percussion is a bit more familiar than in indie rock. Without doubt he has the chops, too, shifting between groovy phrases and episodes that expand and branch rhizomatically.

The music, befitting the subject matter, is at turns somber and hopeful, developing slowly and deliberately and captivating from start to finish.

Drahla clearly knows their progenitors, but one needn’t focus on this legacy when listening to angeltape. It is a singular document by a distinctive and up-and-coming group.

Much like BC,NR’s magnificent Ants From Up There, the album feels like several potential closers have been strung together during the album’s final stretch, which could have been trimmed a little to maximize the impact of what’s left. Nevertheless, this is an extremely colorful, fun and addictive record that showcases the enviable talents of a young band with a bright future.

In short, the observations are sharp and the music cranks. Twenty-first century Brooklyn doesn’t sound like much fun, but Bodega does.

It still squalls and surges and executes little folk-infused turns of melody, it still uses words with a scalpel to precise and premeditated effect, and it still sounds great.

The second half of Marciology especially drags on. It’s not songs but huge chunks of poetry piled up, heavy on wordplay, with rhyming done nicely, almost perfectly. But not many of the tracks work as songs at all. Mediocre verses from guests only makes the material more sluggish.

The sound blooms; Tiger’s Blood is the most polished of Crutchfield’s albums to date.

The very real pleasure of this collection of songs comes in how the love of tradition collides with raucous rule-breaking energy. You’ve got your outlaw country, sure, but did any of those guys write a song called “Motherfucker” and carry it off? Shook does. Not every song stomps. Some are plaintive and yearning, like the lovely “Jane Doe,” others full of anthemic slow-rocking swirl like “Nightingale.” But all insist on direct emotional engagement and brutal honesty and acceptance of a very specific point of view.

There isn’t a singular, clear message of hope on The Great Bailout, but in documenting the rage and despair built into life under such a ugly and evil system, Moor Mother has provided something just as valuable — if not more so— in understanding the struggles of the present day.

While Lenker included a couple of songs on abysskiss that were later reworked as full-band songs on the masterful U.F.O.F. (“Terminal Paradise” and “From”), here the acoustic version sounds like a step backward and doesn’t feel like it belongs, especially given this album’s 45-minute runtime. Nonetheless, there’s plenty of gorgeous material here, offering further evidence of Lenker’s subtle and surprising songwriting.

True to its title, Playing Favorites is still, despite the varied palette, obviously a Sheer Mag album and not without its share of more or less straightforward, beat-up-leather-jacket rockers. More or less, because even these often push the band’s sonic parameters.

She returns with a more personal album, the tragically influenced yet unbowed Untame the Tiger.

For an artist working with such a recognizable palette, Sadier manages to keep painting in bold and striking colors. In terms of the production, this is decidedly Sadier’s best-sounding solo album to date.

This is a powerful piece of work, as serious about the trippy silliness as about the pitch and heave of amp overload. Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom, like its title, is several things at once. It rocks like a hurricane, dreams like a lotus eater.

Y’Y has its lovely moments, but it wallows sometimes in woo-woo-y mysticism. It’s a bit soft and cushiony, hard edges sanded down to harmless auras.

For all the sturm und drang on Half Divorced, the component parts of each song are well-differentiated and clean. You get a clear sense of both the individual performances and their interaction.

Friko’s songs are real, true and felt. Songs like “Where We Been” and “Crashing Through” build from small beginnings, voice, guitar, piano into huge anthemic refrains and breakdowns.

Recorded mostly solo, with Segall on guitar and drums, it pushes classic guitar rock into complicated corners, with choral motets sidling up to blistering guitar solos, noodle electric keyboard textures glittering atop blasts of pared down percussion.

Most importantly, Imitation of War feels more like an evolved, full-band recording, rather than a solo, singer-songwriter record embellished by the contributions of other musicians. Though Cohen strips back to just voice and her formidable guitar chops on songs such as “Under Gates of Cobalt Blue” and “Olympia,” it’s the full-band songs that really shine.

“Nonaah” is the perfect vehicle for the trio of Vijay Iyer, Linda May Han Oh and Tyshawn Sorey and a stunningly vibrant distillation of what sets the group, and this album, apart from so many others. .... There is no one composing with Iyer’s blend of sonority sequences, those harmonic exhortations and rebuttals that slide in and out of focus with the veteran’s complete grasp and easy grace.

Listening to Souvenir, I can’t help but think of Stuck, the Chicago post-punk-into-no-wave outfits that sometimes refers to itself as “evil Omni.” .... Comparing the two, you might begin to wonder if there’s anything solid behind Omni’s detached cleverness, it’s super clean, super manicured attack. Maybe regular Omni could benefit from a touch of evil.

The narrator’s desire for transformation reveals a hopeful, but tenuous ending to an emotionally fraught and musically ironclad journey. One wishes more concept albums were so authentic.

From free jazz to contemporary modern ensemble music, Halvorson has made thoughtful arrangements for Amaryllis. It’s great to hear her rock out too, playing with an abandon that has been simmering all along.

Harm’s Way is sharper and more exhilarating than its predecessor; it’s the same aesthetic but more clearly, exuberantly realized.

While it’s unmistakably a Mascis solo album, What Do We Do Now just stands apart from anything he’s done to date.

The Umbrellas have always offered bashed up, joyriding sweetness, but here they reach at—and intermittently attain—a Spector-esque wall of rock ‘n roll sound. Even better, that larger scale doesn’t undermine the vulnerability of their songs, but instead amplifies and clarifies it.