Fuse picks up right where Temperamental stopped, as if they’re hitting play on a cassette they’ve kept on pause for 24 years. But they keep it fresh, using the latest digital effects to warp, filter, mutate Thorn’s voice into a deeper, more dolorous instrument. That suits the adult tone of the songs.

The group blasts 10 hardcore, groove-metal, and metalcore tracks in under 30 minutes, but Jesus Piece avoid the repetitive and rough aspects of their debut by growing exponentially as musicians, focusing their songwriting, and becoming more capable of translating the energy of their live show into nuanced studio performances.

While FACE does at times dwell on the existential what-ifs that plague twentysomething men who have the world’s gaze turned squarely toward them, for the most part it’s a compelling showcase of the silky-voiced singer-dancer’s pop strengths.

The Eighties and Nineties hip-hop-beat references on the album open up a world of opportunity for the group: They’re clearly having the most fun lyrically as they update the past.

There’s a Flannery O’Connor story collection worth of Southern fucked-up-ness going on here. But Wednesday are just as interested in sucking you in with a walloping guitar banger as they are in freaking you out with their snapshots from the ruralburban coming-of-age abyss. These songs are so catchy you almost don’t notice the body count.

Metallica have always been masters of corpulent, groove-heavy riffs and labyrinthine song structures, but now, with more than 40 years of experience, they play with more purpose than in their speed-demon days.

Give her credit for trying to turn her growing pains into prickly, sometimes enjoyable art, even if the Pieces don’t always match the overall effort.

[Love From The Other Side] kicks off a four-song punch of the band’s finest pop writing in ages. ... Some of the other reaches toward pop don’t work as effectively. ... As always, Fall Out Boy’s riskier feats are some of the strongest.

On their ninth album, the sense of crisis in Newman’s songwriting is reflected in a more subdued musical tone as well, making for an LP that delivers its vivid emotional payoff in subtle gestures.

Like deciphering an ancient cassette tape, distorted right up to the point of destruction, Scaring the Hoes is, in fact, a little scary. And that's what makes it so compelling. The chaos makes way for clarity.

Across 19 tracks, the metamorphosis isn’t exactly comprehensive: about a third of the songs here sound submerged in the fog of his early records, and another third are too sketch-like to land as well as the best songs do.

All over The Record, they keep recombining their individual styles into a different kind of chemistry for each song. That’s why they transcend any kind of “supergroup” cliché. After all, supergroups are a dime a dozen compared to actual great bands. And boygenius leave no doubt about where they stand.

Sonically, Ocean Blvd plays out like an elevated take on what she accomplished on Born to Die: the type of anachronistic fusion of Sixties beat poetry, Seventies FM piano pop and more current rap and dance music production that only Del Rey can pull off.

On Love in Exile, they’re confident enough in their abilities to merge and meld into something simpler but no less impressive. No definitions required.

Surprisingly, it finds him mellowed out, focused, with a newfound interest in subtlety and even subtext. ... Ben is handily his best album. It’s a midcareer downshift from an artist who desperately needed it.

It is another Don Toliver album, recommended if you like the other Don Toliver albums. The opener sets the temperature, and it is perfectly temperate, full of springy trap drums, pointillist guitars, and a whole host of Dons Toliver, alternately spectral and keening, dissolving in and out of focus. ... At this point, it’s worth considering his superficiality more of a feature than a bug.

Acknowledging mortality defines much of Memento Mori, but it never feels heavy handed or even all that sullen. Some of the tracks even sound upbeat. ... As always with Depeche Mode, everything counts in large amounts, and on Memonto Mori, the stakes feel bigger than ever.

10,000 Gecs ultimately rises and falls on songcraft. “Doritos & Fritos” is a burst of surrealism and dance-punk angularity that lyrically pairs “eating burritos” with “Danny DeVito.” But “Hollywood Baby” feels too literal in its rebel-girl sentiment, even as the duo mock the idea of celebrity. Still, punters will find plenty of fun singalong chants to repeat when 100 Gecs hit the festival circuit.

Overall Gumbo is another strong offering from an artist who has mastered his craft, and is just fine sticking with it.

On Songs of Surrender, he reminds you these are sturdy songs that can be rethought without any sonic window dressing.

Cyrus excels most when she’s employing her voice to super-sell big ballads, and Endless Summer Vacation is no exception.

This LP is a testament to her place as one of Latin music’s true originals.

This megadose of Wallen doesn’t only ensure that One Thing at a Time will be lodged at the top of the charts for a while — alongside Dangerous, which is currently at Number Five on the Billboard 200 — it also reveals his preferred musical and lyrical tropes, as well as his fondness for simple, slippery vocal melodies that easily stick in listeners’ brains.

Uchis’ 360-degree view of love and versatile voice make Red Moon in Venus a wholly satisfying examination of emotionalism in its many forms — romantic, carnal, self-preserving.

Delivered from DeMent, whose voice has never sounded more curious and committed (listen to her phrasing in the last verse of “Warriors of Love”), these messages of spirit-rising and movement-building feel less like MSNBC screeds than warm invitations toward a righteous calling.

It’s the easiest-going and most purely pleasurable Gorillaz album since their opening one-two punch, 20-some years ago. Guests feel purposeful, filtered into the indie-funk melange with ease.

As with Recess, Skrillex has wrangled a constellation of guest stars for Quest for Fire; the way they move in and out of each song enhances the album’s grab-bag feel.

Over Trustfall’s 13 tracks, Pink whirls through a wide range of musical styles—beat-forward electro on the title track, roller-rink-ready disco-funk on the Max Martin and Shellback-assisted “Never Gonna Not Dance Again,” spiky pop-punk on the middle-finger-flinging “Hate Me.”