II follows its predecessor’s footsteps to the T, acting less as an evolution and more as a sharp, acute continuation of what made that album such a force to be reckoned with.

Their idea of a party anthem may be quick to please, but their unpretentious honesty and just sheer enjoyment makes a lasting impression.

Her wordplay ducks and weaves among the braided guitar melodies and idiosyncratic rhythm section with a razor-sharp cutting edge, with varying levels of daintiness, allowing the dangerously catchy melodies and thicker-bodied hooks to amass into a fantastically fluid LP.

Look past the pastel surface-level familiarity of Escape From Evil and you’ll find that no matter what tool-kit a band is equipped with, superb songwriting and refined attention to detail and aesthetics always prevail.

Hand. Cannot. Erase. is an incredible addition to Wilson's body of work. Drawing from the simple and the complicated, progressive and pop, light and darkness, it proves that no force can erase his talent and standing as one of the best and most underrated musicians of today.

Untethered Moon is truly the work of a veteran musician who continues to tweak the same kind of song with the adventurousness of a curious young man.

When he does adapt a more modern trap-orientated sound on the final two tracks it doesn’t really work, and this brings down the EP as an entire listen. Crown thrives when he stays close to his classic sound and the flourishes he adds, which today's stripped and skeletal approach to beatmaking actively avoid.

All in all, this isn't a bad direction to go after fifteen studio albums and countless other releases (600 songs!) into a career, as Darnielle again proves that his excessive specificity as a storyteller doesn't mean he can't tell us something about our own lives.

Most of Short Movie lingers over energetic yet contemplative sounds, which Marling then pairs with her voice, an instrument as soothing as it is commanding, and every lyric is delivered with a kind of conversational cadence that hints at a slight curl in the corners of Marling’s lips.

What For? is an ultimately perplexing collection of songs--a mishmash of Bundick’s best and worst musical ideas, but nevertheless a glimpse into an artist who is unafraid to shift into new sonic territory.

The spontaneity they carve sounds scattershot at times, sometimes veering into ludicrous artiness for no reason whatsoever, the dragged-out seven minute instrumental Victoria a fitting example, though they always consolidate their full efforts in a way that’s fun and endlessly listenable.

For whatever faults lie within the grooves of Hexadic, the cards were at least interestingly dealt.

Deeper plunges headlong into its nightmarish source material with feverish petulance, insisting on the authenticity of its own sorrow.

It’s precisely those confrontational lyrics that make To Pimp A Butterfly an unforgettable album.

While Fantasy Empire is definitely still more of a tweak than a departure, when you’re still producing albums as monstrously savage and bewildering as this over 15 years into your career, those tweaks can still sound pretty damn significant on their own terms.

Kintsugi is unfortunately as bland as they come, and no good amount of mourning, sonorous guitars can excuse the fact it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find a relatable common ground in Gibbard’s repressed impulses.

The storytelling in Carrie & Lowell is as vivid as its always been, only that the focus is his.

While not everything here is awful, the good is often streaked throughout each song like marbled fat in a rubber steak.

Although Sometimes I Sit and Think is musically straightforward, Barnett doesn’t need anything more to tell great stories.

With such masterful creativity and an ability to connect with listeners emotionally, no matter what language they are singing in, Ibeyi may have already released the debut album of the year.

There are times in which The Ark Work sounds aimless in spite of its slight technical achievements, yielding a sensory overload of strobing compositions channeled with unrestrained imagination.

You, Whom I Have Always Hated is a beautifully punishing listen.

All We Are has potential, but it's squandered on their debut in an attempt to make a spacey, moody soundtrack.

The result is the sun-drenched sister of an opiate-subverted Sonic Nurse, the musical equivalent of Coleridge in the afterglow of an acid trip.

It sounds like this would all blow over like a weird, twitchy blur, but Quarterbacks’ hooks and songwriting chops are so incredibly tight and catchy that each moment feels like its own accomplished statement, despite typically only having a few seconds to prove this.

The “that's life” solemnity that throbs in Vestiges quickly fizzles into a series of narrative incoherent niceties, and becomes a far more rewarding listen when lyrical fragments are taken out of context.

Restarter is still quite a strong sludge-metal album that can stand strong with many of their peers, but it’s sad to see them sacrifice much of what made them stand out so strongly from them in the process to merely become one of them.

Somehow, because Uptown Funk is so, so good, Uptown Special is even more disappointing.