You can hear the impact of the pandemic in this latest album from No Age, not in the recording, which sounds as assured as ever, but in the bouts of introspection, the intervals of lyricism, the sweet haze and jangle of home-cooked rock. Spunt and Randall went inward, not out into the world, to find a different way to sound.

The tunes tend to unfold at mid-tempo and with the logic of a short story as, once more, Jones composes and performs, with seeming effortlessness, a set of memorable melodies that reward repeated listening.

Despite its uneven presentation, Someday is Today is a beautiful, evocative record, whose charms invite and reward repeat listens.

These songs are direct, sometimes stripped down, but the components are robust, clear and smartly mixed. They sound like Osees.

As ever, he refuses to offer any easy answers, leaving the listener beguiled.

Success is a fine example of Oneida’s willingness to fly in the face of fashion and once again reinvent themselves.

Even the soccer dads and middle-management types might find themselves nodding along to lyrics like, “It’s losers all the way down, stay undefeated.” That’s from the album’s flat-out banger, “Wage Wars, Get Rich, Die Handsome,” a sing-along celebration of nihilism that pounds and punches and exults in itself.

Though the album is closed out well enough by the droning “Atomkerne,” it’s “Be a Pattern for the World” that leaves a lasting impression.

Every sound is thrown like a punch, rocking you back with sheer bludgeoning impact. The sound is instantly familiar, though surprisingly hard to pin down with punk antecedents.

It’s an eccentric mechanical universe that Kamikaze Palm Tree has constructed and well worth visiting.

Everything Was Beautiful isn’t some showy highlight reel, though; it’s an example of how keenly Pierce has honed his inner space rock and how much room it still has left to soar.

Kode9 fans will enjoy club ready tracks like “Uncoil” and “Lagrange Point” and as with his previous work, the mastery of dynamics and the production values are to rights but there’s a sense the music cannot carry the weight of its associations alone.

The music sometimes meanders as perspectives shift and but Barbieri’s juxtapositions of church and club in which transcendence through music can be both a public and intensely personal experience is never less than transporting.

The interaction between machines and the power and tone of branch’s trumpet is the core here and the duo play off each other with unerring control and infectious joy.

Such clear chemistry and inspired interplay will hopefully lead to future releases in the same vein. Anyone with a penchant for classic-sounding ambient electronica with a kosmische bent will find plenty to nod along to here.

A graceful, thoughtful, utterly modest triumph, wrapping its twisty modal melodies in layers of fuzz and convening a junk shop orchestra of synths, drums, keyboards and, occasionally, harpsichord to fill out their fragile contours. Like all good pop, the songs have an emotional ambiguity.

Arkhon is a distinctive and consistently winning album. It is a departure, but one that still manages to be an addition to Danilova’s catalogue that complements her other releases. Some of the best singles of 2022 reside here.

If the Sadies had set out to make a final statement—and let’s be clear, they did not—they could hardly have done better than Colder Streams, a swirling, trippy summation of their journey so far. ... The whole album is great.

It’s remarkable, throughout, how well Purim has held up, as a singer, as a jazz composer and band leader and as an artist. You wouldn’t know, from listening, whether she was 80 or 60 or 20. The songs are vital, pulsing with bright energy, imbued with a lifetime’s skill but effervescent. Not many women got to play as pivotal a role in jazz as Purim did. This retrospective makes the case for her importance without getting bogged down in it.

A colorful, evocative dream-pop record.

Classic Objects demonstrates Hval’s capacity for musical growth and lyrical introspection. It is her best work thus far.

It’s a lengthy, reflective and beautiful record that mostly steers away from the more rock-oriented sound of Shearwater’s last two releases.

Succinct. ... While Madness begins in a state of chaos, it reaches an uneasy resolution over its half-hour runtime, exploring some emotionally resonant territory along the way.

The result is an intriguing set of tracks which sound, one hand, very much in line with Matmos’ percolating, abstract grooves, but also very different. ... With “Flight to Sodom / Lot do Salo,” the album moves into even more riveting abstractions, a sampled voice pulsing like a drum as rich textures of synth swirl around it. Here too, denatured vocals surge and fade in a not-quite-human choir sound. The second side turns more ominous and atmospheric.

Whatever a given listener’s quibbles or preferences around the two versions of the album, there’s another thing that points to a core truth about Terror Twilight: both versions still ultimately sound pretty damn good.

Ultimately, whether The Smile spells the end of Radiohead feels beside the point when the music that Yorke and Greenwood are making at this stage in their career is this damned good.

Listen to the second album next to the first, and it’s like when the eye doctor finds the right lens strength and all the letters become legible.

You could spend a lot of time thinking about why these songs and what Terry and McGhee meant in their own time and what they mean now, but the songs are pure visceral experiences that you feel in your gut and your heart.