Here the material has the swagger and toughness of loud, sloppy rock.

Even Youngster’s more modest near-ballads, like 'My Year in Lists,' preserve the band’s boisterous style through outlandish lyrics (“You said, ‘Send me stationery to make me horny’/So I always write you letters in multi-colors”) and ecstatic delivery, making twee fare like long-distance relationships or working in a bookstore seem like serious pop paydirt.

Fire from the Sky fully returns the band to what made Shadows Fall so appealing in the first place--without taking a step backward.

This is accessible music pushed to the very edge of accessibility, far away from the safety of the band's song-oriented efforts "At War with the Mystics" and "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots."

It takes a liner note and lyric look-along to absorb the full dose, but "Marvin" clicks immediately. Same goes for the thoughtfully morbid "Border Crossing" and "Kitchen Sink," on which Dolan throws everything from introspection to a wee bit of bounce.

There's some obligatory Velvet Underground deference, like the jumpy "Hey Jane," but for the most part the new disc is more in line with the soaring sing-a-long brilliance of "So Long You Pretty Things" and the simplistic "Too Late."

For the most part an exercise in Prince-like electro-funk, full of squelchy keyboard fuzz and chicken-scratch guitar noise and absurdly complicated falsetto harmonies.

It's exactly the kind of album one imagines Bird could whip up on a lazy Sunday afternoon after a cat-nap.

Ay Ay Ay, the second full-length effort from Chilean-born, German-raised Matias Aguayo (who now splits time between Buenos Aires and Paris) is, in source and spirit, one of the most human dance-pop records of the year.

It's heartbreakingly gorgeous, and if it's sometimes easy to miss the club-kid joie de vivre Antony brought to last year's brilliant Hercules and Love Affair album, well, that disc didn't have this one's lush Nico Muhly string arrangements.

Mirror Traffic is the first time he's tried to make a Jicks-as-band record digestible.

Gorilla Manor is listenable and inoffensive, but it doesn't express a single aforementioned component of its genre with any gusto.

After years of being the untrained savage in the china shop of modern metal, HOF may find themselves owning the store with this accomplished thrash platter.

Johnny Jewel's trademark retro-futuro-electro production sound underpins this 16-track set with a dreamy, after-the-afterparty atmosphere that feels like it could go on all night long.

Dye It Blonde slows down a tad, too often eschewing bright, spot-on hooks in favor of washed-out '60s texture. But when they get it, they really get it.

Loaded with the sort of multi-tiered melodies you find in the early work of XTC.

Fans of old-time music, that vague notion of a genre called Americana, and bedrock artists like Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard should find Dirt Farmer, Helm’s first solo disc in 25 years, appropriately haunting.

It's all a lot to wrap your head around, and depending on your mindset, you could either follow the sound collage down the rabbit hole or simply ride the surface-level groove.

At times, the album draws more from drum and bass than from UK funky or any other bass music du jour.

Indeed, although she's best known for those late-'70s Hotel Chelsea/CBGB-era fringe-punk albums, Outside Society illuminates some of Smith's underrated pop-minded phases.

Smith seems to struggle with whether he wants to write emotional pop songs or dark experimental soundscapes, but the push and pull between the two sentiments is ultimately gorgeous.

All in all, not bad for the inevitably disappointing follow-up to the greatest rap disc ever made.

Though the Random Axe effort is relatively high-profile, these three conjure one another's grimiest gusto.

Almost dreamlike in his flow, Thundercat totes us along by way of his agile bass-neck work, sly Rhodes riffs, and vocals that sound filtered through daisies and sunshine.

The songs justify further replay and analysis just because the group knows how to deliver consistently smart, compelling imagery.

The lyrics resonate hard, though, felt most strongly when Rønnenfelt sings with broad expressive shouts.

Praise & Blame casts away the extraneous baggage that has weighed down many of Jones's previous recordings and puts the focus squarely on the voice.

Transference, the Austin band's seventh full-length, will serve as another whittling down of the singular aesthetic that has made them one of the most engaging American bands of the past decade.