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.

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.

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.

The entirety of Redemption sounds as morose as his parched rhymes, with an effective backdrop of bleak bass drones and minimal synth lines, but not as much when he attempts to slow down his delivery. Stick for his soul-bearing lessons, even if he treads on familiar and worn-down musical paths.

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.

ye doesn’t reward repeat listens. It gives its limited treasures upfront and it’s an album with precious little beneath the surface.

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.

On Hell-On, Case once again spins the roulette with a treasury of surprises, stimulating lessons that are complex, thoughtful and articulate.

There’s a disagreement about whether this should be classed as their fourth, fifth or sixth album, but there’s little doubt that Wide Awake! is up there with their very best.

It’s difficult not to see how this album, in an attempt to appeal to a much wider audience, won’t end up splitting their fanbase. It won’t alienate anyone who wants a fine pop album, but it may disappoint those who had come to expect something more interesting than that from the trio.

The Louder I Call... is another step forward for Wye Oak, a duo who still carry plenty of vision to inject some life into a form of indie rock that you don't hear that often anymore.

Nielson is comfortable enough in his own songwriting to settle into airtight grooves--with the assistance of the clattering, shifty drums from his brother--and allow them to simmer for a few golden moments. His guitar playing is sensational, and his use of warping effects to achieve the right mix of tightness and sensitivity gets better with each UMO record.

The album is extremely easy to listen to--so much so that it can veer slightly into monotonous territory--but it’s a soundscape that is impossible to dislike.

[Sadie Dupuis] leads from the front with an outrageous level of assuredness and a delightful penchant for a hook.

With such a wide-ranging collection of retro sounds blended into one record, the fact that the album’s near 45-minute runtime avoids any real stale moments is another triumph from Uchis.

Through her fictitious accounts, the band follows with a harmonious balance of dissonant transitions. Other times, their song structures are more conventional, even if they take on a few grinding solos and lush string accompaniments. It makes for a sometimes confounding if indecisive listen, but Quinlan's passionate eye for detail hasn't withered in the slightest.

It sometimes renders a bit slight and doesn't have quite the volume of her best material. But Grid of Points pulls you in all the same, and as it is with Harris's best work, she emanates a mysterious allure.

Already Forth Wanderers ooze the confidence and candidness to make themselves major players in their indie-pop sphere.

They rekindle some of that fiery passion with The Doomed, a stunning example of grand, orchestral rock with some majestic touches. But for every explosive, curtain-closing exit there's the lifeless anthem.

The performances are muscular and attention-grabbing, and the melodies built around her distress take new and zestful contours.

It's not the first time a band of this stature chooses to find their confidence by taking it slow. But neither is it too daring or too unhinged; in fact, sans the slower, more methodical tempos, many of the songs still fall under their common pairing of doo-wop chord progressions and piercing guitars. So much of your appreciation for Tranquility may depend on how much you can stomach Turner's interpretative dance.

It's when Bridges merges a pop-oriented approach over a modern R&B groove where his creative diffidence shows.

From the 19-song tracklist of short tunes to the complete disregard for standard song structures, Goat Girl’s self-titled is a punk album in demeanor, if not in style. The result makes for a far more fascinating record than initial singles would have led us to believe. In defying expectations, the band exceeds them.

It's the full-on pop record that Monáe had been hinting at for years, and though some of her stylistic choices may not age well--especially when she veers into trap territory - she approaches them with a kind of flighty confidence.

While one could say the majority of Hippo Lite’s material is experimental, Presley and Le Bon placed their most avant and uptempo vocal tracks toward the album’s latter half, a block of songs that sort of run together before its closer, the violin-driven You Could Be Better. Consequently, the sequencing feels rushed and impatient. By Contrast, Presley and Le Bon initially want to show you around, the light and airy Blue from the Dark opening the door, slowly introducing you to their muse. By the end, it’s difficult not to feel as though you’ve overstayed your welcome.

I Don’t Run never ventures too far away from convention, but it doesn’t need to. It’s that familiarity that allows them to ramp up the sentimentality without coming across as kitsch.

All Nerve is not in the same league as Last Splash, but it is an exhibition of a band with alarmingly strong musical chemistry making relevant music--and enjoying doing so--a quarter of a century on from their most notable landmark.

On Felt, Suuns are one step closer to creating a language they can call their own.

The album quickly loses itself into a tasteless, gimmicky wormhole of hideous sounds that grate the ears. Superorganism are onto something here, but as it stands, their erratically-paced scheme is a passable novelty.

Ultimately, New Material is another strong LP from a watertight band, and a great access point for a listener overwhelmed by the oppressive brutishness of their previous LPs.

The themes still surround the passing of his wife Geneviève Elverum, but he allows some room to contemplate on what it means to begin to move forward. As opposed to the stiflingly spare Crow, Now Only is fairly more detailed, where he seeks for some equilibrium by revisiting the sullen drones of his past work.

If Moaning could unshackle their melodic sound and avoid building their walls of sound so high on their second record, they will be another certified gem in the Sub Pop crown.

Boarding House Reach isn’t the easiest of listens, and at times sounds like an over-excited White has just pressed 'record' and let his absurdity run amok. However, its strong moments just about outnumber the less appealing ones, and White’s own creative juices are still being harvested in abundance.

Packed with a surfeit of nimble guitar lines, they draw their forces together into an expertly crafted portrayal of raw anguish that surpasses any nostalgic commemoration. These mature punks sweat out their energy with vigorous and eloquent playing, and in doing so, also show their younger peers how it's done.

The first two tracks (two of the three singles from the album) are irritatingly underwhelming, and only Carrion (the third of the aforementioned singles) conveys any of the urgency and compactness required to really grab a listeners' attention.

She does blur the country influences to the point where they're almost unrecognizable, which does broaden her audience even if it diminishes crucial aspects of her personality. But as Golden Hour quietly unfurls, it makes Musgraves's intent all the more potent.

Even if 12 has its share of flaws, Sloan still manage to write one of their most proficient set of songs since 2008's faintly more exploratory Parallel Play.

What Freedom reveals is McMahon's ever-evolving tapestry, as it affectionally chronicles the human condition with candor and open-hearted curiosity.

Even if Sunflower Bean know how to carry a tune, a good portion of their songwriting choices can come across as clumsy. But even if they don't exert their confidence to their fullest extent, their themes on emotional and financial uncertainty find a place within the discontent of their generation.

The result is not a loss of the uncompromising minimalism or dry wit, but a more dense brand of the edgy, psychedelic punk only noticeable in its absence from the duo’s previous work as The Lovely Eggs when listened to alongside This Is Eggland.

Silver Dollar Moment, is a consistently charming affair, veering on the right side of both nostalgic requiescence and syrupy saccharine sweet.

Superchunk do come back full circle with a timeless, uniform body of work, though it also takes them back a few years after their late-career breakthroughs Majesty Shredding and I Hate Music.

It also formalizes some of the sensual spontaneity of Woman, as he puts forth a lavish, spotless output that also suffers from some seriously tasteless lyrical choices. On Blood, Rhye's fixation with style does get the best of him.

The album is strong but is a marked change in direction, nonetheless.

MGMT always excel when they don't try too hard, and on Little Dark Age, they admirably leverage irony with lighthearted merriment.

FRIGS half-convincingly communicate their agitation over piercing shards of noise. The band are at their best when the rhythm section takes charge.

Craft is an artist who values songcraft intensely, structuring his stanzas carefully but with an exuberant self-assuredness. The result of his work in the case of Full Circle Nightmare is a precession of songs that wear out their welcome in a brisk fashion.

Quit the Curse is consistently hooky and elegant, and though it slumps with a few lax, jangly rhythms, it’s nothing less than a pleasant stay to her sighing thoughts and apprehensions.

It shows a refreshed band, back on the chase to find new ways of songwriting, with strong melodies and intriguing lyrics remaining a constant. I’ll Be Your Girl is the start of this new chapter, and it’s a wonderful place for them to begin again.

Yo La Tengo wants us to absorb their calm serenity, and that it's okay to sit down and distance ourselves from the negativity we encounter from time to time.

Violence may make you roll your eyes as much as tap your feet, but when everything comes together, Editors manage to sound like a genuinely exciting prospect for the first time in years.

It’s as though Dacus’s best parts have been filtered through a focus group--just imagine what it could have been with the patina scraped off.

The intensity of the music and interplay between the trio remains firmly intact and stronger than ever.

Cocoa Sugar is an invigorating listen from beginning to end, and it's hard to imagine any other band making a musical work of art that's as visceral this year.

It is impassioned and political, but most of the album is more life-affirming than alienating. These are songs about solidarity and overcoming adversity, either through specifically female friendship or finding that strength introspectively.

As cumbersome as this album can be, its unapologetic excesses baked into its track length and Haino’s sometimes grating vocal, the zero-constraint approach at the core of this mutually beneficial creative merger is compelling.

What’s most startling about Clean is how Allison manages her emotions with compassion and a great sense of composure.

As activist hashtags #MeToo and #TimesUp bear weight and stage heavy resistance against a significant and still increasing population of men with power, Remy’s words prop up the cause, not quite providing the movement its anthem(s), but certainly offering its reason(s) why.

Like their past work, subpar filler holds the album back. It’s worth joining them for the climb, just know that it’s going to be an uneven ascent.

Her sound is a junksale of clutter and certified gems. I can feel you… is her most sonically sharp weapon to date, and full of plenty to get excited about if you rifle through it.

But outside of their reminiscences about troubled adolescence, which sometimes provide a gratingly innocent tone, How Could it Be Any Different? is otherwise brimful with lighthearted, yet meaningful songs that could actually make a difference.

Repetition is considered their weakest strength, which isn't true at all--they introduce shrill synth textures and dub elements with a good understanding of technique. It does add the slightest variation to their acerbic post-punk, all rendered with a cheerful stance even if there’s an apparent loss of rage. Still, this party feels less exciting than the night before.

Their attempts at country-folk are less remarkable, causing This is Glue to droop towards its middle half, but Salad Boys do pick themselves up with aplomb rather than surrender to their sullen demeanor.

There have always been shadows cast from the overriding ebullience of Lennox’s work as Panda Bear, but with A Day With the Homies, the shadows are confined by a skyscraping sun, where elastic psychedelic bungees in and out of the surf and basks in its feverish gleam.

Their call-and-response breakdowns are still as impassioned as ever on tracks like Drippy and Cruise Control, where they place the hooks and melodies right on the surface. The use of ambiance over their riotous songs isn’t just an asset, it’s also the essence of No Age.

The nostalgia lacks anything close to the authenticity that Thunder, Lightning, Strike achieved, and the sound of the 2018 version of The Go! Team struggles to get anywhere far from persistent annoyance.

Ruins is an affecting, comforting listen, but not one that will imprint itself too vividly in the memory.

Ultimately, Marble Skies is a hopscotch of metamorphosizing sounds that can be rewarding for the most part, but only if you can muster the energy to make it so.

There’s more of an improvisational focus to a lot of Thread, where they take on themes such as immigration policy and ecological concerns with their usual storytelling flair. It does have a familiar, intuitive touch; this is Calexico, after all. But the duo never does things with little effort or care.

Palm do stand out from their contemporaries on Rock Island, especially since they equally embrace and rile against indie rock as a conservative movement. Their nonconformist aesthetic is imbued with an independent spirit, even if the sources they pull from prevents them from really taking off.

Microshift clearly demonstrates that Hookworms are operating on a new level.

With Furman already establishing a consistent sound over his previous records, it was perhaps expected of him to cover some well-worn ground again here. Instead, and appropriately, Transangelic Exodus is an album that constantly takes left turns and refuses to slow. It turns out that with the right driver, there are plenty of miles left on the old road yet

With Open Here, Field Music sound like they’re not only investing in their stability but in their future as well.

Wrong Creatures is an impeccably produced record that will undoubtedly appeal to any devout Black Rebel Motorcycle Club listener. Every charging, hard rock guitar and squelching feedback strikes with a sharpness that does not come at the price of distortion. Still, the marked contrasts in Creatures give the impression that Black Rebel Motorcycle Club were aiming for a sweeping, meticulously-layered force of Be Here Now-like proportions.

They’re playing the blues, man, and obviously, nobody does that anymore. And really, even on a good half of From the Fires, the fast-tracked major label signees don’t even try to really emulate their esteemed deities’ dangerous sexuality and, instead, bafflingly resort to half-assed emotional platitudes.

Their blueprint is a simple one, and QTY pull it off by being airtight from beginning to end, while the production work of Suede guitarist Bernard Butler seasons the deliciously retro sound perfectly

The record manages to sound venturous and recklessly current. Iqbal’s use of chiming guitars, serendipitous synths and scurrying beats results in a record that is opulent in its warmth and sparklingly neat.

Simply put, Post Self is another stunning addition to Godflesh’s uncompromising thirty-year run.

Entrancing in its stillness, Phantom Brickworks solidifies Bibio as an artist of remarkable versatility.

They embrace what they do best: creating music that balances this personal and political darkness with joy. In their strongest outing since All That You Can’t Leave Behind, the four-piece writes both sweeping anthems as well as some of the most effortless songs of their career.

Utopia does function as a companion piece to Vulnicura, if only because it doesn’t require much effort to separate them as contrary forces.

The electronic work is fantastic throughout Plunge, never adhering to presets and making full use of every beat, burst and throb. When coupled with Dreijer’s slick, razor-sharp vocal you have a monster of a record that gets more impressive with every listen.

Much of the album’s electro-lite flavoring does provide some hummable moments, but as the cringingly tricked out Mexican Fender and stomping chants of La Mancha Screwjob suggest, they’re most likely to suffer a slow and gradual death at your local Forever 21.

Nothing Valley is an intense, hugely engaging listen.