While Anoyo's showcase of Hecker's ambient textures, paired with Gagaku, is organic and interesting, it feels like a retread of ideas or an assemblage of scraps from the recording of Konoyo.

Everything Else Has Gone Wrong is about getting through troubling times with grand gestures, projecting those emotions in the most outward way possible. And, coming back from that absence, demonstrating their steady growth as musicians with a joyful disposition that is contagious.

Sadly, the difference here in 2019 is that reaching the end of This Is Not a Safe Place—listening to the whole album—is not as rewarding as it needed to be.

There is nothing abrasive about Strange Weekend, nothing risky, nothing unique; there is instead just a shortage of "Wow!"

The shrill production manned by Ben Hillier over-amplifies the percussion and bass textures, making the entire project muddy in a way that can’t be intentional. While the joy occasionally breaks through (the glitchy From the Mouth is a blast), Melt Yourself Down kneecap themselves repeatedly on 100% Yes.

He is starting to concern me though, since this is the third album in a row that has left me wallowing in mild to severe disappointment.

Brilliant Sanity is occasionally brilliant, but it could greatly benefit if it let go some of its sanity.

This third effort is trying too hard to innovate by, once again in Editors fashion, obviously borrowing from somewhere else.

While standards are generally high on the record's first half, it feels like three EPs have been welded together to form Melt.

I'm going to give this bonus points for the admirable trait of messing with our heads and not apologizing for it. But in the end, the quirky ideas are found lacking and sheer bizarreness only gets you so far.

It's an in-the-moment album that's best when it's in the moment.

There is a laudably uncompromising quality to the album which I admire. But by the time I get to album finale Brunswick Sludge I find myself getting a little bored with it all. There's only so much wacky noise experimentation I can take in one go.

What we find with Tough Love is an album just as conceptually focused as Devotion, yet too willing to waste Ware’s sophisticated emotionality on tracks with no depth or purpose to them.

There certainly isn't a lack of beautifully crafted, well produced music on this release, but if you're looking for a full plate of pop-inspired power ballads, stick to the last two discs.

White Hot Moon doesn’t really vary much from their last full-length Feast of Love, though it does showcase a still-promising band that’s one step closer to finding their true identity.

The difficulty here is that each volume is a separate entry, the band’s maiden two-album release a mere showcase of multiple outlets as opposed to something consistent or whole, making what should be a milestone for the band more of a missed opportunity. With that said, listen to it, anyway. There’s still at least one very good album here.

When it’s all said and done, it’s a bit of a blur, but in the same way that looking back on a good evening might be when you wake up for work a day or two later. You’re glad it happened, but it might not stick with you.

As promising as its initial concentration of songs foretells, The Century Of Self suffers from careless sequencing, its tempos haphazardly spooned together and flung like high school portions of mashed potatoes and gravy, slopped into sections of the tray with no real purpose or benefit.

The rousing, yet equally understated the book on how to change part II brings closure with a welcome luster, though it's not enough to salvage the album's soporific middle half.

As it is, Big Black Delta offers more than its fair share of thrills, but there’s the sense it could be so much better if Bates didn’t feel the need to draw the line quite so clearly between his various projects.

It's a fine record on its own terms, but the it's just not possible to circumvent the expectations that come with his dayjob.

There are some truly great moments here where the band crash around making glorious, daft, noisy pop music, but they stand at a stark counterpoint with the cloying experimental tendencies Barnes forces through.

Dehd are mighty expressive even if their songs are fairly one-note. With the personality thing down pat, imagine what they'll achieve when they continue to expand their scope.

Where ["The Bliss"] bubbled and spat like hot fat, its meticulous construction overflowing with polyrhythms, Black Noise seems disjointed and overlong even though it runs for roughly the same duration.

Burst Apart is a passable follow-up to an incredible record, but that's all it is. Passable.

Berdan does tap into a powerful subject matter--an exercise in looking at the past to improve his moral character--except that he juxtaposes it with stifling, and undercooked, sheets of noise. It's a step back for a duo who were inching closer toward their definitive statement.

100 Lovers has a fair few highlights, but as a whole it's merely another example of Devotchka still not managing to successfully capture the exuberance of their live show on record.

It all sounds very immaturely polished.