In every other sense it’s another impeccably measured step forward.

It's a record played in the red, and it's not afraid to have a good time there.

This teetering restraint masks the true weirdness of Space Is Only Noise. I could understand someone finding the intensely self-contained Space a bit claustrophobic, but the album is most rewarding when you just grab a seat at the table.

We’re used to breakup albums that assume you just want to crawl into a hole and die, but I Never Learn is for the times when heartbreak is so life-affirming that you want to share the feeling with the world.

Whether bellowed by Philip Cope or sung with witchy intensity by Laura Pleasants, just about every song has a chorus that immediately stamps itself on your brain. In that sense, Spiral Shadow is damn near a pop album.

Their peppy, gleeful, headstrong guitar pop sounds a hell of a lot like yesteryear's Britpop.

It continues Björk's run of releases that sound nothing like their predecessors, yet is, as ever, particular to her.

While you could put on I Don’t Live Here Anymore and take comfort knowing that the War on Drugs have Beach House’d their way to another terrific record by simply refining what works, there are a few songs that test the borders of the band’s classic little world.

It's easy to imagine Go Tell Fire to the Mountain giving disaffected listeners the promise of an entry to something beyond themselves in a way that James Blake or Bon Iver can't. Maybe you've grown past that sort of thing, but what about a record of exhilarating expanse and passion that sounds like indie rock and yet feels way bigger? Well, Go Tell Fire to the Mountain is that too.

The Songs of Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach sounds like a heartfelt eulogy to an artist who helped pop fans find great beauty and even greater solace in all those lonely, uncertain moments.

Even longtime fans may find themselves thunderstruck by some of the turns she takes here. But the record also confirms the essence of her creative identity; it’s shot through with sounds and concepts that have defined her work over the years, just presented in a way we’ve never heard them before. ... No Home Record offers something radically new and, in places, almost shockingly contemporary.

SMD's excellent debut album as a stand-alone group, Attack Decay Sustain Release, is for dancing, not moshing.

The nine songs here follow their own innate paths, often beginning with a simple acoustic arrangement before blossoming into vivid daydreams.

Clean is that much-cooler indie record Taylor once sung of. Below the surface, its spark gleams like a secret.

It’s substantive enough to warrant its extended genesis and boost Sleep’s legacy, not just reaffirm it.

Despite all the collaborations on So Much Fun, the album is about Young Thug. He might not mystify as he did in the early stages of his career, when he was stumbling into new flows and deliveries at an inhuman pace, but now he’s able to wield the madness with ease, satisfying in many modes.

The lack of surtext makes Menneskekollektivet as conceptually rich as anything Hval has ever done. It is a statement about the beauty of slowing down, of not worrying about what you say and instead focusing on how you feel.

The subject matter subverts her inherent sensuousness, but this is still Charlotte Gainsbourg singing-- at times, she can't help sounding like the cooing French goddess her father helped popularize. It's dead sexy, reborn.

On Jennifer B, plot twists play out like a delicious art school scandal. Just when you think these orchestra enfant terribles will stick to their notation books, Jockstrap scurry to the bridge and chuck every page into the Thames.

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots is a bold and inventive work, brimming with ideas and sublime moments of brilliance. But it's also unfocused and top-heavy.

As important questions about music's worth in the age of free continue to swirl around him, Sufjan's still combating instant-gratification culture the best way he knows how.

The Book of David is a pleasure-first listening experience, and Quik deploys each of his tricks with a showman's flair.

Afrique Victime is the fullest portrait of Moctar’s gifts that he has offered yet.

Quit +/or Fight may lack the immediate melodic punch of the band's debut-- it forsakes pristine strums for skewering electric guitar and scrappier arrangements-- but what the record sacrifices in warmth, it makes up for in atmospherics.

The rhythms are stately and unsyncopated. The arrangements are lushly orchestral. The songs are mostly around six minutes long, proceeding at the unhurried pace of guided meditations. And, perhaps owing to the sense of communion-via-solitude espoused in the first track, the lyrics are concerned with “we” nearly as often as they are with “I”.

Forget the details: The sheer comfort of this stuff can charm just about anyone, from the rock bar to the office to your grandma's house.

Soft and subtle, Superwolf is the kind of record that unwinds slowly, and is best enjoyed over multiple listens and, unsurprisingly, many glasses of wine.

Her voice is a tender muscle; her songs have a sinewy twist, and her loud-quiet guitar can flood in as unexpectedly as cheeks flushing at the wrong moment. What’s remarkable about PAINLESS is how she whittles almost everything down—the near-monomaniacal emotional range, the abrupt, broken language, her palette reduced to smoke and ash and nerves—and makes even more of an impact.