Her complete dominance over the sonic space of her debut reinforces Broke With Expensive Taste as a product singularly of her vision.

Like John Hughes crossed with David Lynch crossed with John Waters. Pom Pom recalls similar vibes in bursts, and at its best conjures even more striking colors and passages.

Seeds isn’t TV on the Radio’s strongest album, but it is a radiant reboot, a move forward and a reason to move.

The Inevitable End closes Röyksopp’s career with neither a bang nor a whimper.

Punk is alive, but it just needs a second to squeeze drops of Visine into its eyes before it can bust out ferocious riffs and sing about nothing, or stick it to the status quo but maintain Austin, Texas levels of weirdness.

Despite consisting of well-crafted, thoughtful songs, the emotional gutpunch that is to be expected from a Grouper album never quite arrives over multiple listens.

Bundick’s inspirations run rampant across the back half of Michael.

RTJ2 isn’t quite the game-changer The Money Store was, but it makes no attempt to hide its desire to knock its progenitors out cold and scamper off with the crown.

1989 isn’t a “crossover” success. It’s the album every subsequent blockbuster must now reckon with.

You’re Dead! is a near-flawless examination of death as narrated by a virtuosic musician who has been exposed to a little too much of it.

A misstep, to be sure, but even more troubling is that Foxygen have distended from tight, trim retro-pop to unkempt, unfocused conceptual goo in less than two years.

Taiga is better-produced and differently arranged than 2010’s “Poor Animal,” but it’s no more or less “pop.”

Plowing Into the Field of Love is a great record which only has one song on it that really sounds like the Gun Club, or like anything you would want to play over the trailer of The Hateful Eight.

In finding their way back to what works, it too often sounds rehashed to make it a true return to form the band has been yearning to find.

It’s one of Snaith’s least cohesive and affecting full-lengths, even as it provides us with some of his strongest individual tracks to date.

Though at times a little errant and borderline-satirical, A New Testament succeeds because it showcases backward-facing storytelling and incontrovertibly catchy vintage American music.

It takes him--and the listener--way out of the comfort zone, a shift that suits his tendencies wonderfully.

Given a dearth of hooks, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes demands a decent set of headphones to appreciate its foremost asset, technical construction.... Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes disappoints most when it approximates ordinary song structures.

Favorite records tend to draw us back in again and again because they offer a specific, familiar feeling, yet it remains difficult to rate, categorize or even define an album as restlessly mutable as ­Mr Twin Sister.

Alt-J remain impossible to put a pin in, which makes This Is All Yours almost as frustrating as it is absorbing.

Richard D. James has successfully crafted one of the most stunning records of his career, and he did so by exercising a deft amount of self-control.

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.

Here, Sampha sounds comfortable and confident, showcasing his vocal prowess rather than merely living with it.

When every song is short and recorded in the same minimalistic style, it often feels like just when you’re starting to get into a song, you’re immediately whisked away to another idea, to another moment that should have been spent finishing that first thought that now will never be finished.

This is no disaster, nor is it a masterpiece. Songs of Innocence is a competent U2 album, always a good thing.

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

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

Banks’ debut, sometimes promising and even wonderful, could have been revelatory.