It’s the duo’s most sinister and fascinating collection of songs, enrapturing the listener with dystopian soundscapes and frustrating arrangements.

Emotion is so good, it’s formed sky-high expectations out of thin air.

Untitled Unmastered provides a spectacular contrast of sounds gallivanting under the same roof.

This is an excellent and refreshingly tense album.

Sonically, his oeuvre has bridged the divide between barren and lush. Lyrically, he has perfected the motif of narcotized horror.... This is the real deal.

The album is monumental in every sense of the word, a visceral testament to the abilities of an incredible group of musicians, each member contributing equally to its breathtaking chiaroscuro.

[A] strange, frequently beautiful, and unabashedly indulgent album.

It might take you a couple of spins to fully appreciate Boo Boo. At times, it’s very slow-moving, and some of Bear’s experiments don’t land. ... Don’t let the more experimental qualities keep you from listening to the record, though.

The Magic Whip continues along the weird and winding path first trod by Blur’s two previous, and most complex, LPs. More often than not, the album meanders, usually for the better.

Ratchet isn’t an unqualified triumph. But the album doesn’t have to be perfect to be a success. Its highs are high enough that its lows can be forgiven, or forgotten entirely.

They may be a conflicted bunch, but boy, do they ever make a magnificent racket.

It feels like a natural evolution of what Coltrane was doing, anyway.

Deep in the Iris is more concentrated than anything Braids have released to date. If its runtime is more approachable, the songs themselves are also more intense.

By Death Grips’ standards, the first disc is significantly less dynamic than the second.... Jenny Death represents another step forward for Death Grips, a group that seems to have walked over the horizon and out of sight albums ago.

Fanned by an intelligent approach to production, Disclosure’s fire has started to burn, and is destined to whip itself into an inferno this year.

Sure, there may be a shorter classic buried somewhere within the project’s 145+ minutes. Alas, this mythical album merely exists in my mind. 2 of 2, however, comes tantalizingly close to that ideal on its own.

If a person asks how to get into Slowdive, the correct answer is still to start with Souvlaki but Slowdive wouldn’t be a bad second choice.

Stuff Like That There is Yo La Tengo’s gentlest album by far. It’s also their least eclectic, which is to say their most samey-sounding. Summer Sun wasn’t dynamically varied either, but it had color and texture--pools of it! Stuff Like That There is just as consistent, but not nearly as rich.

Food is consistently satisfying and often fabulous.

Olympia inhabits a strange realm of saturnine electronica meant for cathartic swaying rather than choreographed movement.

For Sigur Rós, Kveikur is their most gloves-off release to date and they land the punch.

Bronson still creates a respectable hip-hop trilogy (not many of those), and gives us his most worthwhile long-player since 2012’s Rare Chandeliers.

What makes Cerulean Salt so enjoyable and so endlessly relistenable is that some of her snapshots likely resemble ones from your own lost photo albums.

Flawless transitions are endemic to the record, and necessary in order to cram this many ideas into an attention-deficit 32 minutes.

Too little is far better than too much as dozens of overstuffed double albums have taught fans of each decade. Every song here is a hit and Antisocialites is brilliant.

Marshall’s lyrics are desolate and vehement, but McDonald does a solid job of ensuring that the instrumentation acts as a foil to the bleakness when necessary, providing a counter-redeeming edge to the desolation.

Make no mistake--this is an album that’s challenging and demands attention, but if you can stay focused, you’ll be richly rewarded.

The result is a record that’s concerned about faith, death, and the metaphysical. It’s heady stuff but grounded with vignettes of everyday activities--a beautiful, comforting second work from the singer.