While the album itself bleeds originality, the solos themselves are almost interchangeable, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

This is music that moves the body along with the spirit, a damn fine step in the right direction.

Rapor is an absorbing and accomplished 80’s sheened synth-pop EP infused with heartache and imagination.

While the rest of Outside may not deliver in such a manner [as “A Forest at Night”], it still showcases one of North America’s more unique and talented producers on his own terms.

Guilt Trips is legit--an EDM record that’s smart, tasteful and fun. Maybe nothing new, but pretty damn good.

Poliça flirt with greatness often enough to make Shulamith more than worth your time, but it’s not as brave as we’d like it to be.

Where Fade Away really falls flat is how it lethargically, circularly insists upon the hopelessness of Consentino’s problems without elaboration. Instead, it fumbles for anecdotes that undersell what should be highly relatable emotions.

Prism does have two bright moments of success when everything comes together and we get a glimpse of the better-written album that could have been. First is opener “Roar.”... Meanwhile, on the mostly lackluster Side B, there’s another empowerment anthem, “Love Me,” that’s the polar opposite of “Roar” in nearly every other way.

But for the most part, Magpie provides us with another bundle of easygoing tunes from a band that seems to have a limitless supply.

What it really lacks then is quality control and what it requires is a good deal of patience but, despite the occasions when it falters, elsewhere it’s consistently good, and sporadically brilliant.

For anyone who can appreciate emotional breadth that music is capable of conveying, make Wild Light a part of your life. It may be the best instrumental album you hear this year.

As with The King of the Limbs, Beautiful Rewind is always keeping us at arm’s length, coldly allowing us to admire the craft without letting us in on the secret. It can make for a lonely listen.

Sure, the lyrics are sometimes a little silly, and the musical hooks are sometimes a trifle too easy. But even at its worst, this is fun stuff.

Static lacks variety. It’s just a short-fused, gloomy rehash, and what little has been changed isn’t really an improvement.

One thing you should never underestimate, though, is the power of a good story, and Danny Brown has a wealth of them, which makes Old not just the best hip-hop album of the year--but a major factor in every discussion of album of the year.

If another goal of art could be said to remove humanity, if only for a moment, from the physical world by using the tools of the very same physical world, Interiors has followed all the rules of architecture to make a building that floats.

My Name Is My Name is as strong a “debut” full length as anyone could hope to produce, and reminds the world why it fell in love with this coke-rap wizard more than ten years ago.

What the band still manages to do so well is use aural snippets from a range of contrasting but conventional sources, weave them together and still sound like no one else out there.

While of Montreal aren’t exactly strutting 2007-style again, their tweaked, re-energized sound has them strutting nonetheless. And that’s what they do best.

Largely embarrassing, Bangerz is the most fun when it’s so ridiculous that criticism seems futile.

Psychic’s gloriously protracted exhales leave you no choice but to slow down and move at its pace.

More than ever, Willner’s own soul is put on display through his repurposing of sound, and what results is both synthetic and organic, both detailed and blurry, further cementing The Field’s reputation in the electronic ether.

It simultaneously respects and warps electronic machines, making for an ideal entry point into the disparate segments of digital life: the horrifying as well as the beautiful.

Grab a latte and strap on your headphones, lovebirds--it’s about to get soft rock up in here.

Not quite the panacea that will usher in world peace, Days Are Gone is still a remarkable effort.

While it’s no masterpiece, Pure Heroine is unique and engaging enough to keep the conversation going.

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.

Punitive, scientifically exacting, and obstinately anti-melodic, Factory Floor is a bizarre, kinetic manifesto that rewards your attention while it screams at you to move your body.