Less socially conscious and significantly less dynamic than its peers (e.g. Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, Donny Hathaway’s Everything Is Everything), Arthur Alexander doesn’t rise to their level of greatness. Nevertheless, a handful of very good performances, a half dozen excellent extra songs and above all, the strength of Alexander’s writing make this reissue an instructive reminder of the man’s terrific talent.

Spooky Action, the bulk of which was written and recorded in Loewenstein’s home studio in the fall and winter of 2016, arrives some 15 years after his solo debut, At Sixes and Sevens, and offers glimmers of his various musical sensibilities.

There’s plenty of violent syncopation and propeller double kick on ...Of The Dark Light, but it’s the meaty, crawling half time grooves that really make the album crushing.

At 72 minutes, the album’s 16 tracks feel bloated and sluggish at times and the hip-hop contributions by A$AP Rocky and Playboi Carti are ill-conceived; reminiscent of Christina Aguilera’s tribute to a Marilyn Monroe poster, Back to Basics. But despite a handful of missteps, Del Rey continues to reinvent and redefine herself in new and captivating ways, and Lust For Life is just one more step in that profound and lovely evolution.

Foster’s dismal allusions to The Great Gatsby and Daniel Johnston are clever, yet it strays from the collective sanguinity of the rest of the album. Despite those handful of flaws, Sacred Hearts Club is an enjoyable listen.

A Black Mile To The Surface does not disappoint. It may not be a no-hitter (nothing here is as immediately visceral as, say, “Shake It Off” or as instantly gorgeous as “Simple Math,” perhaps), but the band still looks and sounds strong.

Put together in one tidy and creepy package, Paranormal does the near-impossible: offering something of worth for fans of his ‘70s output, those folks that clued in once Alice popped up in Wayne’s World and those newly minted fans who were welcomed to his nightmare on his recent run of tour dates. There’s almost no other rockers of Alice’s vintage that could pull of such a feat.

Change is good and expected from new, learning artists, but lacking a distinguishable characteristic to cling to makes the trajectory for a band like Childhood hazier than the kaleidoscopic jams they started out with.

In and of itself Truth Liberty & Soul is a fantastic performance. But better still, it provides a counterintuitively good look at what was special about Jaco.

Despite suffering from a steady ebb and flow of musical contributors over the course of their collective career, the music still taps into a cinematic style, turning songs such as “1998” and “All the Hail Marys” into narratives full of arched drama and concerted deliberation.

Soft Sounds is full of pretty interludes of ambient noise, mixed with shoegaze and electropop touches.

It’s psychedelic in a chthonic way and sounds as though it was recorded live in an underground cavern. It’s easily their most minimalist recording, a carefully monochrome study in sludgy drones.

Overflowing with a confidently relaxed cool and an absolute lack of pretense or veneer, Lo Tom’s debut somehow feels both enthusiastically self-assured and deceptively effortless.

Both installments of Quazarz attest to Shabazz Palaces’ inventiveness and imagination, and reveal new layers upon each listen. After all, creative thinkers like Butler and Maraire often do feel like aliens stuck on earth.

Both installments of Quazarz attest to Shabazz Palaces’ inventiveness and imagination, and reveal new layers upon each listen. After all, creative thinkers like Butler and Maraire often do feel like aliens stuck on earth.

With Need To Feel Your Love, the band broadens its horizons without losing what made ‘em so promising in the first place. That’s always a tricky line to walk, and Sheer Mag does it with gritty grace.

Something’s Changing is a culmination of much-welcomed growth for Rose.

There’s a disturbing core of darkness in each song that makes the album come to life, expressing hidden feelings the listener might not want to uncover.

The extra material here from those same home sessions finds the group working through early versions of tunes that would find full flower on later releases. ... Those tracks do, like the other “session highlights” and studio tapes, flesh out the story of the Beach Boys’ year, but they were rightfully left off Wild Honey.

Public Service Broadcasting put that political and economic disconnect into sharp relief, placing human lives and industrial mining on a broad spectrum that let both sides be heard.

On Something To Tell You, HAIM tend not to over complicate things with their West Coast pop: something that mostly plays to their advantage, but at times leaves them playing it safe.

Subtlety is practically extinct. As a result, The Queen of Hearts demands a patient listen and a willing ear. Happily, this clear appreciation for folk nobility reaps its rewards.

Stables’ impressive singing and highly mulled-over songwriting ensure that her creativity remains front-and-center, no matter who’s in the room with her. That said, her work is so intricate that some listeners might not find Moonshine Freeze under their skin all that quickly.

TLC doesn’t take any creative risks and, in doing so, ends up lukewarm and average.

The first nine tracks of the record, referred to as Death, are solid, listenable, weirdo rock that fans, or anyone who appreciates creative music could enjoy. ... Two minutes into “Cradboa Negro,” the last track of the Death portion of the record, it all starts going south. The subsequent 14 tracks of Love, aside from some funny song titles like “Chicken Butt” and “The Asshole Bastard,” are utter baloney.

Ultimately Chiccarelli deserves credit for reigning in Broken Social Scene’s disparate elements. If he doesn’t always streamline the sound, he does manage to make it appear more contained and cohesive.

Even if the tracks sometimes come off as a parade of pop stars whose music has little to do with one another, Harris still manages to create a cohesive fusion that transcends genre. After all, at the end of the day, pop isn’t supposed to be that deep.

Even if the Beyoncé-Jay Z marital saga falls short of being a feminist revelation, there are plenty of instances where Jay Z pushes mainstream hip-hop narratives forward: For instance, he sweetly celebrates his mother, an out lesbian, on “Smile.” And while other rappers boast about fast money, he discusses the importance of investing in order to create lasting wealth for generations to come.