The standard comment about Mr. Basinski’s work is that its evocation of decay grips your emotions and reduces you to jelly, though I don’t get that so much from Cascade.

You’ve heard these sounds before, and you’ve felt these feelings before. The added value here, if you want it, is the organization and rigor of the blankness.

On Midnight, everything’s come undone, often for the better. In a few places, it recalls “Tango in the Night,” Fleetwood Mac’s lustrous last (noteworthy) gasp from 1987. Ms. Potter doesn’t quite have the tragedy Stevie Nicks so effortlessly channels, but she nonetheless finds moody pockets for her voice while the band hones a chilly take on brisk rock.

On this EP, the duets are more balanced, be it “Hey There” or the rising hit “Back Up,” a back-and-forth with Big Sean.

The standard narrative is that a band’s second record reflects experience, wisdom or moderation, and High has a bit of that in a larger and more managed sound.

Repentless is comfortable, full of certainty, good enough.

Its sound runs slicker and punchier than Ms. Wright’s previous standard.

For most of Unbreakable, she plays big sister--someone who’s happily in love, willing to offer advice and wishing for a better world. It’s a benign role but a modest one, reinforced by the music.

The balance of good cheer and dark clouds is partly in the arrangements--V comprises exceedingly bright songs verging on true pop-punk. It’s probably the cleanest-sounding Wavves album to date.

Alex G’s narrators have often been traumatized, druggie, lovesick or inscrutable, and moving up the indie-rock circuit hasn’t made his new songs any more outgoing. Just the opposite: They are more cryptic and withdrawn.

Where Mr. Keith is truly gentle, though, is in detailing the faultlines of the heart. “Beautiful Stranger” is a sweaty song about rekindled passion, delivered with Teddy Pendergrass intensity.

The Game is literally inseparable from his influences. He doesn’t digest them as other rappers might; instead, he wears them like brands. He too is joined by oodles of guests, a striking show of support for a midcareer rapper who’s pugnacious to boot. Both Kanye West and Drake appear here, and in strong form.

Cold Beer Conversation is a bit looser than Mr. Strait’s last album, “Love Is Everything,” with convincing flashes of western swing (“It Takes All Kinds”). But the standouts here are the love songs.

The music isn’t anywhere near pop-radio gloss. As Mr. Toledo sings about alienation, frustration, suicidal despair and, in “Times to Die,” about theological disputes and getting his demos heard, he’s still every bit the lone outsider. He’s lucky that he exorcises his troubles in the studio--or maybe we are.

This is for completists.

The album, a love letter to his influences, is the gentlest of Mr. Church’s releases, the one that least wears his rowdy tendencies on its sleeve.

25 manages to sound all of a piece, even as the songs veer from phenomenal to tepid. In places, everything comes together.

The downside of the now-ness, the resistance against static definition, is lack of resolution. Mutant is hard to listen to, sometimes in a salutary way and sometimes not.

The lyrics often mention homecomings; the music is a warm bath.

Blissful even at its most bittersweet, it’s an album on which three songs make lyrical references to diamonds--as in, “We are diamonds”--and every surface contentedly gleams.... Mr. Martin, who has rediscovered the radiant properties of his voice, gilds a lot of lyrical treacle and borderline nonsense here.

Kannon is surprising in two ways. One is its brevity: just over half an hour. The other is its austerity, even for a fairly austere band. This music demands a lot. It’s hard to love, and hard to share.

Most of this album is an extension of DJ Khaled’s tenets of more and louder and still more. That extends to his guest list, as packed as ever.

It’s a more countrified album, with the two singers, partners by marriage, often harmonizing in a rough blend. Things work best when Ms. Williams takes the lead.

Panic! at the Disco has always favored a style both steroidal and slick, and Mr. Urie isn’t out to reinvent it here.

Tortoise is a band about the blurry middles, which is why “The Catastrophist,” at its best and most beautiful (in songs like “Hot Coffee,” “Tesseract” and its title track, switching among strains of cyborg pop and warm, heroic melodies) sounds like incidental music for films, or a record to play on a club sound system in between bands.

His agreeably slight new release, Summertime, is a songbook album, a stroll through some of George and Ira Gershwin’s best-loved songs.

She still favors too many Wayne Shorterish chord progressions to truly suit the easily impressed. It’s precisely when she stretches--as on “Rest in Pleasure,” which has a melody you wouldn’t wish on a less acrobatic singer--that Ms. Spalding seems most ingenuous and unbound.

Much of the music feels transitory, like smoke escaping. But “Notes on Water,” the last part of the suite, wants to stick around.

The atmosphere of this music is lighter and less haunted than some of Mr. Hecker’s past work; some parts of the new album, like “Music of the Air,” can be thrilling in its evocation of a seamless connection between the physical and the synthetic. It also, sometimes, seems more impersonal, as if the ideas have the edge over their physical manifestation.

It’s a move away from crowd-pleasing ditties, a valiant turn inward and, at times--in “Gale Song,” “In the Light” and “Angela”--the songs reach a distillation of yearning and solitude. But over the course of an entire album, a glint of the Lumineers’ old whimsy would have helped.

Her outrageous self-possession plays out more vibrantly on some of these tracks, like “Big Talk,” which puts her up against the rapper Rick Ross, and “Riot,” which has a klaxon-like hook handled by Nina Sky. There’s no end to Ms. Banks’s swagger, though her toughest moments veer toward the style of a hometown rival, Nicki Minaj.

The album has a few missteps, like the goopy arrangement on the ballad “Sueños” and some hokey lyrics. But what comes through nearly every song is a sense of camaraderie and joyful relief: no more kowtowing to radio and countless ways to jam.

Between the giant, smiley singalongs, there’s a little more darkness than the band’s sound suggests. The verses grapple with impulses toward destruction and self-destruction. “If I weren’t so selfish/I could hear your calls for help,” Mr. Ward sings in “I Still Make Her Cry.” But it’s rarely long before another huge chorus arrives to banish all misgivings.

Overall, Views contains Drake’s most straightforward lyrics, and his emotional excavations aren’t as striking as they were a few years ago, when they had the sting of the new to them.

[Will] may be Ms. Barwick’s most conventionally light, soothing record, and is sometimes a little inert as a result.

Even though structurally Strange Little Birds evokes the band’s early work, it’s clear there’s mellowness afoot.

The record feels short, which might be a good thing: She leaves you guessing what she’s up to.

More often than not, Mr. Marley lives up to the ambition that his last name demands of him. With any luck, his next album will have fewer guests and more of the introspection and steadfastness he reveals in “It’s Alright,” a hymnlike ballad that he sings on his own.

Rae Sremmurd is particularly well-suited to the carnival sounds of its debut, but in many places here feels as if it’s getting squelched.

On some level his songs are all age-old tales, but put together in his own exacting way, which makes them new.

The results are, in many places, as ethereally and lustrously beautiful as the best Bon Iver material but more removed. ... Because this album travels in so many directions, there are places where Mr. Vernon sounds unanchored, and where his reluctance gives way to lack of commitment. His naïveté has always been carefully studied, but sometimes here, especially in the middle of the album, it feels just vague.

13 has enough ominous tension to justify numerical superstitions. In fact, you could do worse than to make this album a cornerstone of your Halloween soundtrack this year.

The new songs--is most diverse set to date, and mostly rigorously executed and fun--show Mr. Mars to be interested in different musical eras, different production approaches and different singing voices without veering into chaos. Mostly his songs are like cotton candy: sweet, sticky, structurally impressive but not especially deep.

Some of the most exciting songs on Starboy are the least expected. ... But brevity is almost too central here: Some songs (“Love to Lay,” “Nothing Without You”) have barely any verses at all, largely relying on pre-choruses and choruses.

The electronic musician who calls himself Burial deals in blurry, melancholy, ominous implications. His first release since 2013 is a pair of tracks that are never far from dissolving into entropy.

A csometimes fascinating collection of alternate-universe hip-hop and pop from a sui generis character.

A batteries-fully-charged assault on the pop charts from a performer skilled in musical osmosis.

Playboi Carti’s self-titled major-label debut album, which was released in April, is erratic, sometimes transfixingly so.

Sometimes great, sometimes foggy album, which is almost bold in its resistance to contemporary pop music aesthetics.

Only one song quietly stands out from the album’s flow: “Hard to Say Goodbye.” ... Mister Mellow is by no means the aural tranquilizer that its lyrics and packaging pretend to call for. The songs, for all their pretty, prismatic intricacies, are remote and forlorn.

Mr. Grohl and Foo Fighters wear their influences so openly--Pink Floyd in “Concrete and Gold,” Led Zeppelin in “Make It Right,” the Beatles all over the album--that they still come across as earnest, proficient journeymen, disciples rather than trailblazers.

It is also Ms. Swift chasing that good feeling, pushing back against a decade of following her own instincts. And it works. Reputation is fundamentally unlike any of her other albums in that it takes into account — prioritizes, actually — the tempo and tone of her competition. Reputation is a public renegotiation, engaging pop music on its terms, not hers.

Throughout this album, there are melodies, chord changes, lyrical images and structural tricks that feel indebted to Ms. Swift’s first three albums. Even the way Ms. Ballerini lingers over certain vowels suggests the shadow of Ms. Swift. In order to fully come into her own, though, Ms. Ballerini needs to shake free of that as effectively as she brushes off country music’s simpleton men.

There are occasional intrusions of other ideas, like the agonized rock on “Over Now,” and when far more formalist artists like Nicki Minaj or G-Eazy arrive, they sound like teachers trying to enforce order in detention. But in total, Beerbongs & Bentleys is admirably committed to form, one long song of the decontextualized now.

[Swae Lee's] “Swaecation” is the most liquid, the most soft-focus of the three. (The duo album is a close second.) At times verges on the quiet-storm R&B of the early 1980s, though he is far more flexible with tempos than Post Malone, and sometimes veers toward ecstatic 1980s synth-pop. By contrast, Slim Jxmmi’s solo album, “Jxmtro,” is a more conventional contemporary hip-hop album, buoyant and loose. Sr3mm is long, but listening to it in one sitting, on its own, from top to bottom, is not how it’s truly designed to be engaged with.

Daytona may stand alone in this moment--particularly in contrast to the woozy, blown-out rap albums dominating the charts because of the primacy of streaming--but it isn’t as effective as “My Name Is My Name,” Pusha-T’s 2013 full-length solo debut album. Daytona is terser, leaving only nits to pick; say, that the second and third verses of “Come Back Baby” lack the fire and wit of the rest of the album.

While Mr. West’s previous releases have made musical leaps, Ye often comes across as a recap.

Scorpion is something safer and less ambitious, largely a reprocessing of old Drake ideas and moods. It is the first Drake album that’s not a definitive stylistic breakthrough, not a world-tour victory lap, not an embrace of new grievances. It is, largely, a reminder of Drakes past, and perhaps also an attempt at maintaining stability in the face of profound emotional disruption.

Each track is in constant flux: unstable within, permeable from all directions, buffeted and trying to cope. As are we all. Somehow, there’s comfort in that discomfort.

On this album, the naturalism of Swamp Dogg’s lifelong soul and funk all but disappears. But in its way, Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune is completely true to everyday 21st-century experience: ubiquitous and intrusive technology, splintered attention spans, mediated presences and onslaughts of random information. And yet, somewhere within all the digital commotion, there’s still a human being in search of love.

This set of modestly scaled blues remakings of classics finds dignity in the downtrodden.

Some songs here are made with the pop songwriter-producer Jack Antonoff, but while they’re pensive and expand Abstract’s range, they don’t always suit his natural density, making the album less centered than his excellent 2016 release “American Boyfriend: A Suburban Love Story.”

Though the mood of Igor is generally consistent, its songs are irregularly shaped, united by Tyler’s by-now signature keyboards, which are warm but a little sweet, and dance gingerly. As Tyler has gotten older--he’s 28 now--he’s become more willing to engage with emotions.

A more engaged and vivid album than “Ye,” from last year, though nowhere as robust as “The Life of Pablo” from 2016, it is bare-bones and curiously effective, emotionally forceful and structurally scant.

On “Marigold,” Pinegrove is a more temperate band than it has been, and also a crisper and less complicated one, a musical direction it had already been moving in on its last album.

On “Changes,” he finally stakes his claim, honing a vocal approach that’s soothing, tender although maybe slightly tentative, a middle ground between comfort and reluctance. It is an effective album, and also a deliberately unflashy one — Bieber is consistent and confident, and also not drawing too much attention to himself.

As a whole, the strong but not particularly unruly “7” is less sure-footed than “Love Yourself: Tear,” the group’s last full-length, from 2018, and the first K-pop album to debut atop the Billboard album chart.

Early James is 26, but his music has much older underpinnings, glancing back to the 1970s, the 1960s and before.

It’s not the early, edgy Strokes, but what they’ve grown up into. Maybe the Strokes won’t make new friends with this album, but old friends can get closer.

A largely effective album-length odds-and-ends collection but not, you know, an album — may be more valuable as data than as songs.

The arrangements on “MTV Unplugged” are occasionally overstuffed with stately “Eleanor Rigby” strings, but I prefer them to much of the studio material, since they’re airy enough to allow the unvarnished snarl of Gallagher’s voice to come through loud and clear. ... The crowd, and the record, comes alive most when Gallagher indulges in some old Oasis classics.

Found sounds and out-of-context conversations are the band’s signatures. ... Sometimes it works (the sudden intrusion of bagpipes on “Persona Non Grata”); sometimes it’s all a bit too much and the songs feel excessively crowded. But many of the most powerful moments on this record are uncharacteristically straightforward.

The sonic details of “Evermore” are radiant and meticulous; the songwriting is poised and careful. It’s an album to respect. But with all its constructions and conceits, it also keeps a certain emotional distance.

Amid the dozens of songs on “Dangerous,” there’s ample room for variety. Wallen offers fingerpicking and soft-rock country with “Somebody’s Problem” and “7 Summers,” intricately layered Eagles-style country-rock with “More Surprised Than Me” and “Your Bartender,” a Southern-rock stomp with “Beer Don’t.” ... A stretch of songs during the album’s second half, with titles like “Rednecks, Red Letters, Red Dirt,” “Somethin’ Country” and “Whatcha Think of Country Now,” grow heavy-handed. But every so often, he allows for other possibilities.

At times, “Sling” sounds like Steely Dan’s “Pretzel Logic” had it been released on the D.I.Y. label K Records. ... “Sling” makes the case that her most direct vocal precursor is either Elliott Smith or Phil Elverum. ... There was always more depth to Clairo’s sadness and songcraft than could be conveyed by the three-minute synth-pop ditty that made her famous. It also demonstrates that her music is at its most lucid and effective when an extended hand — or paw — is drawing her back up to the surface.

During its slower stretches, “Happier Than Ever” languishes. ... The risks start to pay off, though, on the album’s strong closing stretch, beginning as the warping “NDA” segues into the brash posturing of “Therefore I Am,” one of several lukewarm singles that benefits from the surrounding context of the album. ... Eilish remains an inveterate rebel. “Happier Than Ever,” though, exposes both the strengths and the limitations of her preferred mode of subversion.

Every song on “Solar Power” pulls from a similar and finely curated aesthetic — early 2000s “CW”-theme-song pop; sun-drenched ’70s folk; just a pinch of Kabbalah-era Madonna — and rarely draws outside those lines, let alone picks up differently hued crayons. ... “Solar Power” stops just short of offering a full, varied range of expressions.

Even when Halsey returns to first-person through most of the album, their lyrics are less confessional, more general, as if they have stepped back from immediate conflicts.

The “Unlocked” songs sound like public performances, neat and armored and solidly 4/4, more locked than unlocked. The “Originals” hint at freer, messier, closer, unresolved feelings, daringly unguarded — and thoroughly, openly human.

“Hold the Girl” continues to mine deep material — “Imagining” addresses a mental health crisis; the opener, “Minor Feelings,” takes its title from a Cathy Park Hong essay collection — but the protruding eccentricities that once made Sawayama’s music so distinct often sound sanded down. ... There is, however, a bold and satisfyingly angry stretch across the middle of the album with some of its strongest material.

They’re sturdy songs, even as Sheeran sings about fragile emotions. ... Obviously, Sheeran doesn’t worry about verbal clichés — though in these songs, the sorrowful tone makes them sound more unguarded than banal.

The band’s founding rhythm section — Carter Beauford on drums and Stefan Lessard on bass — still keeps the songs nimble, no matter how burdened Matthews’s thoughts can become.

Cheeky, idiosyncratic and sometimes great.

The tracks crackle and swing with a wit that the lyrics rarely match.

Jimmy Eat World's ballads sink into sentimentality. [8 Nov 2004]

Not every song here benefits from the Aerosmith treatment. [29 Mar 2004]

Like many dancehall reggae albums, this one often cries out to be sampled more than listened to. [19 Jul 2004]

There's little subtlety on "Under My Skin," and... absolutely no fear of clichés. But on the emotionally fraught battleground that is high-school romance, perhaps those would be frills. [16 May 2004]

The album is a thoroughly calculated package, aiming for the same audience that embraces Avril Lavigne and Pink. [26 Jul 2004]

A clever and sometimes enticing solo debut that doesn't quite add up. [22 Nov 2004]

In the end, unfortunately, "Antics" is fairly uneven. [19 Sep 2004]

Individually, the songs are catchy, but as they pile up over the length of the album, it's impossible not to wonder whether the singer's endless complaints didn't drive everyone away. [8 Nov 2004]

There is nothing but earnestness and obsession in her songs, which risk both clichés and awkwardness as they reach for honesty. [31 Jan 2005]

The music combines the kitchen-sink inclusiveness of psychedelia with the swerves and jolts of the hip-hop era, to approach the ravenous eclecticism of Latin alternative rock. [27 Feb 2005]

Mr. Thomas can be a cloying songwriter... Still, plenty of emo singers probably envy Mr. Thomas's knack for writing big, slightly sad songs. [25 Apr 2005]

Part of his appeal is that he's never totally believable: on previous albums, you had the feeling that he wasn't quite as hard as he first seemed; on this one, you get the feeling he's not quite as soft. [16 May 2005]

A rowdy, unpredictable CD that careens wildly from filthy shout-alongs to mournful hip-hop gospel. [27 Jun 2005]

The band's underlying, stubborn seriousness, and nearly Amish unwillingness to change, creates its appeal. [11 Jul 2005]