Where the first half of the album is strong but routine, the back half finds mixed but more interesting results.

It’s all bolder, fuller, and, well, better.

The main two highlights are the strutting “Mandy Cream” and the bass-heavy closer “The Magazine,” with rapid-fire handclaps coming in during the choruses and a sustained falsetto melody recalling Yes’ “We Have Heaven.”

The record is a bit too downtempo to be ideal party music, but it’ll make a killer soundtrack for your walk home from the party.

Despite the growth it signifies for Mount, and the candor with which he delivers it, Love Letters is so lightly sketched that it never fully engages on a gut level.

As it turns out, the Philly collective clean up quite nicely, and Sea When Absent is an involving, wonderfully creative mess.

What we have instead is a brooding, oddly sequenced, and scattered collection that defies easy categorization.

Ultimately El Pintor feels a like a blast of icy fresh air after a sticky, sweltering summer’s day.

It’s an album that gives as much as it gains, both in trap-flow intensity and emotional catharsis.

This album succeeds in ways You’re A Woman never could have, and for that, it requires commendation.

Shadows is no lark: it’s a gentle and undulating return to Dylan’s salad days.

Tremors manages the feat of being both invigorating and mellow, and no matter how many layers of sound in which the songs find themselves wrapped up, electronic or otherwise, they remain painstakingly personal and human.

As it stands, it’s a moderate success following her appearance on Disclosure’s Caracal and Samsung commercials.

Are You Serious isn’t perfect by any stretch, but on this record, Andrew Bird has compiled 11 good songs. Every track is well-produced. Every track has competent lyrics. Every track is melodically solid. Every track exhibits Bird’s impressive performing abilities (the things he does with a violin are incredible). Every track is individually memorable.

A widely varied and ultimately satisfying record.

In Roses is almost as delicate, but is a pleasant step up from its predecessor thanks to wormier melodies and heightened chemistry between co-vocalists Christopher Barnes and Ieva Berberian.

Three is perhaps Phantogram’s most incisive record yet, sustaining a very solid and concrete idea of what kind of pop it wants to promote.

Dark Sky Paradise lacks cohesion as an album, but on a track-by-track basis, it positions Big Sean as a wonderfully versatile rapper whose personality and style hold together even as he adapts to a range of contexts.

It’s not so much a new sound as it is a more robust, balanced sound--a beautiful chair perfectly placed in an already beautiful room.

It is certainly a solid and promising debut from a richly talented MC with the potential to help others with his music in the same manner his forebears inspired him.

They didn’t just retain relevance; they released the best album of their entire career.

Hesitation Marks proves greatness remains within Trent Reznor’s grasp.

This is the third Pains record in a row that has enough memorable songs to play almost like a career-spanning Best Of collection.

Critically, this may not move many needles. But to casual listeners, Wild Beasts are on a mission to refine their own definition. This is must-witness music at its very finest.

It’s more ambitious than her last one; better too. But I simply don’t think the formulaic songwriting is worthy of praise, nor the very notion of being more ambitious. Nor do I think the anti-septic production of the second half to be the best fit for her sound

Drunk continues Thundercat’s slow ascent; his most ambitious work yet, one that wants you take it as a whole so you can experience getting drunk alongside Thundercat and stumble through the streets at 3 AM.

An unexpectedly weird, inventive and invigorating album that sounds absolutely nothing like The Strokes, and for that reason alone you should be really excited, and maybe even a little hopeful, to give this record a spin.

Jesso doesn’t have a perfect voice, but his flaws are less derailments and more idiosyncrasies. These pockmarks, along with strong and engaging composition, are what give personality to a record that could been another bland adult contemporary release destined for the sale bin.