The band fills U.F.O.F. with a rich tapestry of textural tones, almost to the point of oversaturation. It's so embedded in their songs that they somehow get lost in their creation, filled with awe and wonder (and some healthy pretension).

It's a familiar, though still firm, return.

Woods uses the strength of her vibrant band to mask her reedy vocals, a minor drawback in an otherwise enlightening offering that positions her as one of neo-soul's essential new voices.

There's also a strong pop influence, an element that can interfere with Young Enough's otherwise snappy sequencing—both Capacity and Chatroom incorporate an electro-pop bounce that, though competent, feel more suited for an entirely new project. Still, Hendricks' love-stricken admissions never go unnoticed.

It’s hard to deny that this record is driven by texture and aura, rather than directly relatable content and meaning. But if you’re like me and can totally get with some heady sonics, this one’s a gem.

Abstractions give way to specifics, and the result is a cascade of feelings, ideas, and images overlapping and enhancing each other in the listener's mind.

In Western Stars, the old adage about finding meaning through the journey couldn't feel truer. And that's an idea that Springsteen can relate to—leaving a little bit of yourself in a landscape that feels immortal.

The soft-loud-soft dynamics she shuffles throughout provide a welcome songwriting variety, even if the softer side she tries to reason with doesn't convey as much excitement.

The band brings a vigorous energy to their quirky sentiments as they walk through their surroundings, instilling a comical bent at any opportunity. Even if they know that the farther they go, the better it is to stop for a second and just be in the moment.

With The Best of Luck Club, Lahey has surpassed the achievement of her fantastic debut, changing things up enough musically to keep it fresh, but without losing any of the wit or songwriting prowess that made her one of the best young artists working today.

It would be rash to immediately start writing The National’s obituary, but this really does sounds like the band is preparing to wind down, for a period at least. It seems like we’re really no closer to answering that first question. Where do The National go from here? It could be a while before we find out.

The end result is the kind of unique album that only results from someone who has spent a career staying true to themselves, playing every instrument, writing every song, adopting a singular fashion stance, and even opening their own record label. This album is a reflection of that growth, and hopefully a promise for more of the same.

They're smart, clueless, and ready to take the festival circuit by storm.

It serves as the nuanced companion to the disquieting narrative of Rooms of the House.

On the whole, it's a smart and satisfying record. If she can achieve such mass appeal on an independent release, it will be fascinating to see where she goes if she agrees to sign with a label. Hopefully it won't trip up her laser focus on what matters: herself.

Not Waving But Drowning showcases why Carner is heralded as one of British hip-hop’s biggest talents, but this isn’t quite the revelation his debut was. That being said, any album that includes an interlude dedicated to England winning a World Cup penalty shootout will always go down well.

Calling Life Metal a great metal/rock/guitar album, ultimately, is a disservice: This is a sonic meditation channeled through humbuckers and hearts.

Recorded at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studio, High Anxiety will encourage your neck to snap, Weil’s over-the-top vocal delivery combined with the band’s refreshing lack of constraint apparently “too heavy metal” as spoken aloud during the altered soundbyte that follows Riding the Universe.

No amount of musical pedigree can save her commonplace lyrical sentiments, though, which are too noticeable to ignore. Which, to a degree, slightly misstep a personal journey where she takes account of a bevy of life experiences with genuine autonomy.

It's Real is a traditional rock record through and through. But like that secondhand vinyl sitting on your shelf that never got reissued, it contains deep, thick grooves that always sound fresh regardless of its dwindling shelf life.

There's a marked inconsistency in her voice—something lilting, sometimes guttural--navigating her usual distress with a presence that is as hammy as it is heartfelt.

Father of the Bride does succeed in a musical sense-it could've done without the sparse synth ballad 2012 or the bastardized bossa nova of Spring Snow, to give a few examples, but most of these instrumental curios reaffirm Koening's reflective, and possibly solitary, approach to get back into the flow of writing music.

While his music has reached new heights of production and depth, his penmanship remains pedestrian.

Though Darnielle skillfully furthers his compositional approach in In League with Dragons, there are times where his unbounded, bookish wit gets the best of him.

Finn is operating at a whole new level of finesse here, and gifts us something truly beautiful.

Coming across as a familiar yet fresh sound, like a reconciliation of a past lover, Ventura’s soulful presence was crafted by time. Memorable and intimate from the start, Ventura completes Oxnard, as Malibu did to Venice; tying up all loose ends and graciously ready for the next chapter.

Their song-oriented approach recharacterizes a project that was once known for their simple, garage revivalism. Wand now rise above that notion--it's a refreshing move that makes it even harder to pin down their artistic evolution.

Despite Mering's sonic flights of fancy, Titanic Rising is a lean, 40-minute recording that carefully considers her performative sentiments with fine craftsmanship. No emotions go astray.

Matmos successfully craft an environment both musical and tactile, some of the elements stretched to such extremes and arranged so well that they sound convincingly like instruments.

On Inside of Rose, the duo chisel their rimy, amorphous arrangements into a finely pointed portrait of emotional disintegration.

This Is How You Smile feels like an exercise in restraint but not in a dull suffocating kind of way. What makes it work is how even as he continues embracing more conventional instruments and structures, Lange still leaves room for himself to tinker and experiment at the same time. For music so understated and gentle, it's almost startling just how powerful it's capable of being.

Feels' seething frustrations thrash with a clearer focus and no shortage of attitude.

Songs like All Blacked Out and Chemical Freeze are suffused with melancholic ambiance, where descending minor chords provide a fullness to their otherwise spare arrangements.

She provokes an emotional groundswell in the quietest of moods, one acoustic song at a time. But the knotty, country rock groove of both Head Alone and You Were Right show that she can also shake off those doldrums. Maybe not as much as we’d like, but as she repeatedly denotes in Crushing, healing is an everyday process.

Fullbrook mottles sonic accouterments throughout with graceful finesse, though sometimes at the expense of songs that dissolve into a foggy blur.

Foals create a testament to their longevity but also consider where this new era is going to take them. Is this Foals’ first front-to-back essential record? Not quite, but with Pt.2 around the corner, it’s surely just a matter of time.

What makes Beware the Dogs such a fun and engaging listen is how Donnelly expresses her opinions with such imperfect candor. There's not a second where you doubt that she's not amusing herself, relishing the creative side in her intimate space with her tongue firmly in cheek.

SASAMI is a promising debut by an artist who’s been part of the scene for years but has now started down a path on her own. With a gift for confessional lyrics, a dusky, atmospheric touch and an outside-the-box mindset, Ashworth has more than proven that this is the time for her to step into the spotlight.

She’s made an album for embracing yourself, your past and whatever lies ahead, and having fun while doing so. Her music doesn’t sound like the future. Even better, it sounds like the present.

The "effluxion" between records has taught Lerner to evolve while sticking to what he knows best, and though some of his approaches don't work, they also push him to find the subtleties within his richer compositions.

Though evocative as they may be, those who are familiar with his discography can occasionally feel an unexplainable sense of deja vu.

It’s the first time he’s willingly given up a little of his signature panache in order to achieve a more palatable sound. Still, Blake’s ability to both appease and innovate makes for an always transfixing, if occasionally frustrating, album experience.

Perhaps what makes this record so impressive is how, despite the elaborate layering of elements, it never feels muddied or overwrought. It knows exactly when to peel each layer back to isolate every drum kick and synth chord, like a miraculous sonic onion, so that every element is exposed.

The songwriting does suffer as a result of their walloping, impatient joy, but as Spielbergs prove, some instant gratification is always called for.

Whereas Pratt once settled on a colder and more reserved state, Quiet Signs manages to present a more empathetic side of her that was once concealed. It's still quaint by comparison, though, a delicately-crafted acoustic set that offers insight into her deepest fears and truths without letting us encroach into her private space.

Overall, Amo is a strident record, difficult to categorize and, in a good way, uniquely spliced and sequenced with little fear of crossing boundaries--but part of mastering this dark art is knowing when to put the paintbrush down.

It’s her grandest and greatest evolution yet.

Tonal changes aside, those worried if Deerhunter have stepped away from their feverish art rock needn't worry. Futurism is one of their most sparkling tracks to date, as it enjoys one of those chromatic guitar riffs (accomplished with the assistance of White Fence's Tim Presley) they've been writing since their Microcastle days.

The Unseen in Between should be the album where he steps out from the shadow of his contemporaries and establishes him as one of the most reliable singer-songwriters of his generation. His heart is in tune with that of a wanderer but his songwriting is firmly in place, ready to come out of obscurity.

With an immediate appeal and an evocative and nervous twitch throughout, Mating Surfaces maintains a gratifying pace, balancing energy and peculiarity throughout its 29-minute runtime. ... They manage to be playful without being poppy, succeeding in this case where a lot of modern punk rock fails.

Shauf and his troupe handle their debut project with an exceptional level of attention and care that points to its potential longevity.

It's also as if Gainsborough is processing his overwhelming emotions in real life, and though his erratic compositions are sometimes too slapdash to bear, his refusal to ever settle is commendable.

On Negative Capability, she captures John Keats's timeless view on artistic beauty with genuine conviction.

With a combination of new and old faces, the new iteration of Art Brut is rhythmically tighter and more robust, less ramshackle, as Argos embraces middle-aged malaise with his charmingly lyrical bluster.

It's far-reaching in scope but it's also conceptually uniform, a beautiful mess of an album from a band who is inching their way towards the imperial phase of their career.

Tropical Fuck Storm (also driven by ex-Drones bassist Fiona Kitschin, drummer Lauren Hammel and guitarist/keyboardist Erica Dunn) is less Gang Of Four than they are The Pop Group, a similar level of poetic critique and takedowns packaged and delivered with unsettling and risky discord, a veritable junkyard sculpture thoughtfully constructed from punk scraps, crusty psychedelia and a rhythmic articulation of ideas bred from the spoken word.

For existing fans of the group, it should come as a rewarding and affirming release; for those of us new to the group, it should act as a little reminder that there are plenty of ways to tell a story through music.

Conley's diaristic accounts are clumsily direct at times, but in doing so, we also gain insight into his spiritual awakening.

Fall into the Sun embraces a sparkling, melodic mid-tempo sound that is strung together with careful consideration. It's uniformly straightforward, sometimes to a fault, but the trio's learned experiences elevate these songs from fading into the background.

The mixtape-like sequencing of Saturn occasionally minimizes her ability to write hit after hit--there's hardly a dud here--even if she just misses the mark at producing a more involving mood piece.

A raw, yet purposeful execution that never spoils his clear-headed grasp.

What's most impressive is how Lenker stands apart from both modern singer-songwriter tropes and the cult psych-folk canon, creating a haunting mood that touches upon both sides with her own unique touch.

All these songs stand out for their craftsmanship and collaboration, not only between three artists but also three friends.

Despite Holter's all-around meticulousness, Aviary never comes across as careful or rigorous. She engages in artful replication, seeking to understand those voices she successfully reconstructs with a feeling of apprehension and anticipation. And in the process, leaving her own imprint for others to also discover in centuries to come.

Just this performance of Jubilee Street is worth the price of this EP. While on record, the song simmers to a boil, live, it explodes. Cave sings like a man possessed as the band rips through the tune behind him. Both From Her to Eternity and The Mercy Seat hit as forcefully as they did when first released.

Magus captures well the force of its players throughout its near 90-minute runtime, the culmination of which occurs in the album’s final track, Supremacy.

Across Head Cage’s 12 tracks (yes, 12, not 25), Pig Destroyer focus not on being the fastest, loudest, craziest band on Earth, but on simply doing it better. They still do all of the aforementioned better than anyone else (Dark Train, Trap Door Man), but more often than not, they take that intensity and lock it into steadier groves, shifting moods and hookier riffs.

Dance is best enjoyed when you accept its familiar pleasures--it bursts with pure deliverance, coming from a band that refuses to hang in life support.

Haines dwells in some synth-driven soul-searching that should’ve been cast aside for a different project. Still, the slick, forceful Art of Doubt accurately identifies where their true strengths lie.

Nadler is technically less alone, accompanied by a reliable cast of characters, but their inclusion is a virtue considering a simpler layout might've given the album a more distancing effect. It takes some time to absorb, but once it does the emotion it conveys is stunning.

With producer Andrew Schneider tweaking the knobs, his experience producing Unsane certainly applying here, KEN mode elevates their sonic outcry, hitting levels of discomfort with the subtly seasick Learning To Be Too Cold, thrash-bred Not Soulmates, and the manic combination of sounds in Fractures In Adults.

European Heartbreak is charming, clever and quietly confident. If the world really is about to fall apart, then Amber Arcades has produced something that is more than a worthwhile distraction.

As it is, Joy As An Act Of Resistance is shot through with stand-out moments, a great offering that you suspect will well and truly bring the house down when the band hits the road.

Negro Swan is another sure-footed step forward. It’s rare that an artist can operate within the pop template, collaborate with household names and still produce work that can be considered as significantly culturally important, but that’s what Hynes manages.

Stylistically eclectic, or maybe even chaotic, Obey is a sublime release, its melancholic moments offered grace and any ounce of frenzy more subtle than overt.

Joyce Manor takes another assured step which reinforces their viewpoints, not their maturity, with finesse, and those who still think otherwise haven't been paying enough attention.

Twisted Crystal is not pastiche, but it’s a stylistic reminder that music can be exciting, that pop music can be thoughtful and creatively liberating, and that being “catchy” isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For them, this magic is easy.

There's a seamless fluidity to how they're dependent on each others' input, and their contributions seem to suit their interests. It's an unerringly sincere look into a trio who are moving into adulthood, one stumble at a time.

Rainier Fog has enough highs mind to comfortably recommend as a must-listen--a lot of this material is what Chains do best.

What's fascinating about their return in album form, Sixth House, is how they manage to pick themselves quite faithfully from their teetering anthemic force.

Almost presents touching, and often forthright, chronicles of the messy scenarios we stumble into which defy easy explanations.

Marauder is a solid record with several decent tracks that will make it a welcome addition to the group's discography.

For her, it’s filtered through the attitude of the cowboy, her power coming through in her music and her words. Under these guises, she finds layers of emotional truth that are messy, confusing and often conflicting, but no less honest because of that.

It makes a complicated formula sound so effortlessly simple. And that's not something you can do with little effort or care.

Many of TRU's brightest moments come from welcoming aural pleasures--the arpeggiated transitions suspended amid a patient and corrosive crawl (Spright), the call-and-response punk energy but with a kinder release (Stick). Hartlett emotes with a shrug rather than a shriek, which allows the band members to bring on a fusion of careening song structures that depend on his muted, yet expressive voice.

His newfound knack for experimentation does take Deafman Stare into some uncharted territory, but as the classic shuffle of 22 Days attests, his tangential compositions wouldn't resonate as proficiently if they also didn't capture the majesty of his nimble performances.

If Any Day has that low-stakes feel, their flow just as effortless, it's because they're still keen to deliver a sort of refined muzak on steroids that never ages.

A little complexity never hurt anyone, and in Mourn's case, it's beginning to take them in new and interesting directions.

What makes all this work, however, is Iceage’s commitment to darkness. Their signature, dirgey melancholia broods through standouts like Catch It and the title track, reminding listeners that while Iceage are willing to embrace pop, they’ll never do it with a smile.

Iit’s hard to deny that the blistering riffs of A Stare Bound in Stone, Daggers of Black Haze and it’s ass-kicking title track demonstrate a pitch-perfect excellence in death metal you only get from seasoned pros in the genre.

At times, the band's genre-bending excursions sometimes result in slightly deformed arrangements that are impressive in scope but not in efficiency. But that shouldn't deter one from Deafheaven's wondrous and impressionistic creation. It is, like most of their polarizing body of work, equal parts off-putting and fiercely inclusive.

By stripping everything back, it often ends up just being a distillation of their sound. The songs are familiar but frustratingly lack any colour or character.

While he denies us simple solutions, he uses this album to open sounds and atmospheres stranger and more daring than he’s used before. Rather than looking for answers, maybe the questions are what truly matter.

The music is at turns bewildering, cathartic and questioning throughout; there is no separation. An exceptional record from one of the music world's brightest talents.

Lush marks the arrival of an immensely talented singer-songwriter who also still has much room to grow. It may not live up to those more exuberant expectations of an instant classic, but it’s still an admirable, skillful piece of music that leaves me excited for what comes next. In this case, Jordan hasn’t finished the race. She’s just arrived at the starting line.

Even with the songwriting differences, Hope Downs sounds like a unified partnership between five musicians who've known each other for most of their lives.

Flasher may have the attitude of their eighties DC counterparts, but they ultimately channel their thinking person's punk aesthetic by attempting to rewrite its traditions altogether.

Age Of is an excellent and frequently rewarding album; where one might expect a musical cul-de-sac, there is a 180-degree turn that somehow always feels appropriate, a testament to two years of songcraft that have clearly paid dividends.