Barnes and Trost may be back home from their sojourn abroad, but their music is still out on the road somewhere.

Listening to this album suggests a universe of unheard information beyond the reach of understanding and perception, of phenomena both too brief and too enormous for us to comprehend.

At 35 hefty minutes, Dedication is Zomby's most complete statement to date. But, much like the man, it offers a number of details in one hand while obscuring other crucial signs with the other.

Where there was previously a plethora of cuts, glitches, and turntable sounds, there are now indie pop hooks with an underlying aesthetic of experimentation.

Oblivion Hunter recaptures missing pieces of the Lightning Bolt jigsaw and reconfigures them in a new context, painting a broader picture of the band's roots while giving us the sense that it might not be a singular instance of "lost" material being pulled back from the edge of eternity.

This is just a modern rock record, and it definitely won’t change your life, but it’s more than competent and beyond clever.

There is indeed more good than bad. Unfortunately, there is also more bad than there should be.

This set of witty pop songs fits perfectly in the musical panorama of the last 15 years: there are no underground rock references, no orchestral pop sensibilities, no vacuous attempts at updating a 'decades-old' sound to modern audiences.

While keeping the same mix of hushed beauty and spooky old-time feel, Holland seems much more direct and confident, a forwardness that risks losing some of the mystery, but instead ups the awe factor.

As dub creates stripped canvases to then be used to host further expressions, so do these versions. They encourage engagement and further remixing by projecting the past and present into an unknown future.

Last Summer sounds good; next summer could be even better.

They've got that sound--you'll know immediately that you'll like it, and this time around, Grooms don't screw around with your certainty.

It’s more akin to a journal of the individual’s emotions amidst this state of the world. Constantly on the edge between sadness and rage, its disillusionment becomes anger, brought on by the feeling of helplessness in the face of global violence.

After navigating complex matrices of identity under an indulgent, accessible veneer, Dirty Computer is ultimately--even “simply”--a cathartic assertion of self in a hostile system.

Where its siblings thrash and writhe and scream, No One Dances flows, undulates, sighs. The result is nothing short of pastoral.

Plaintive, spare, and narrative in approach, these songs--which seem to bookend the album--are among Raposa’s most affecting.

While Franciotti's work is far from unique in its revival both of lo-fi synth panoramas and of ambient experimentalism, the combination and alternation of the two allows Forever a certain originality beyond other musicians mining either one or the other vein.

Sure, Street Horrrsing doesn’t overtly delineate any new sonic set, but its execution and relative brevity reflect highly on these two venerable artists.

Every track on Sort of Revolution would feel at home in a warm, European coffeehouse.

Beam's voice is streamlined and a little too perfect for fans of his prior music who felt, with good reason, like Beam was serenading them from their living rooms.

The best parts of Iron & Wine songs are almost always the bridges between chorus and verse or the outros, the spaces void of singing where Beam adds subtle riffs on top of the normal progression... They are the sharpest hooks, and, unfortunately, Calexico pretty much cuts out the effect of these bridges on In the Reins, replacing them with dull saxophones, harmonicas, trumpets, and ill-defined electric guitar parts.

Although it isn’t as full-fledged or layered as a full-length Aphex work, it’s full of minor miracles, advanced lessons in acid appreciation and stirring little lines of drum poetry.

They still get a thumbs up in the sonic department, and their songwriting is certainly to my liking; but that quality of elusiveness that made their prior albums a journey of discovery seems to be missing.

Hanged Man absorbs the worries of a world (Leo’s and ours) and reflects on it, rolling with the inconsistencies and fractures to make something better.

An album of cloudy-day pop that's hard to top.

It does justice to the musical traditions it invokes, integrating them into dynamic, scrupulously constructed rampages that escalate at just the right moments and explode at just the right moments.

Overall, Venus in Leo deviates minimally, fearful of letting light shine in, but the moods it creates shimmer with a gorgeous, melancholic atmosphere.

It is blatantly experimental, though most indie fans should find it at least mildly accessible.

What you will get with From A Compound Eye is your typical gourmet spread of Pollard delicacies from the modern eras of Bob.

The biggest problem with Late Registration though is Kanye's verses; he's not a great MC, but he doesn't know it.

Pressure Chief won't change your mind on the band, although I will call it their weakest effort simply because there's no memorable single like "The Distance," "Short Skirt/Long Jacket," or even "Never There."

Poppy but pugnacious, familiar and yet dizzyingly foreign, Matangi is a contrarian work from an artist who lavishes us with liminality, with contradictions.

This descent into industrial retro-futurism provides a fitting artistic and aesthetic parallel to the corresponding descent society has made into technology worship, into a disempowering worship of things at the expense of an appreciation of the social, political, and economic realities in which these things are situated.

If there's one thing to complain about, it's a lack of focus to each individual track, in deference to sheer joy at the combinations of sounds they're making.

The familiar ingredients are there, from superb buildups to instrumental pyrotechnics to Esjstes' buttery voice and a general insistence that points toward some bright and shining future.

With Funstyle, she has crafted above all else an experience, and one that is entertaining and rewarding in ways that few records can be. It's an arduous listen, and as music it is unquestionably terrible; but as a musical experience, it's something that shouldn't be missed.

It’s at once simple, colorful, and cozy, but, if examined closely enough, can be appreciated on another level entirely--one that’s both casually sophisticated and quietly intelligent.

This is not the best or most refined Jesu album and for the casual listener perhaps not the best place to start. For the Jesu fans who have not been able to track the debut EP down, however, it is well worth a listen.

Beautiful Thugger Girls is remarkable because of its Thugger-ness--it’s a clear step forward at the very moment that Thug-derivation is a particularly viable come-up.

Too often, Program 91 is a controlled explosion, hemmed in by a fangirlish conservatism. When it all clicks--as it does with "Above All" and a handful of other tracks--this is spiky twee pop in a black-and-white cardigan of glory.

Luckily, for most of its duration, Where You Go I Go Too manages to assimilate the more enjoyable elements of both of these alternate possibilities into a seamless and engaging whole, with only a few moments of awkward uncertainty.

Jam City’s message is a positive one. The actual music Dream a Garden is offering, separate from all the pomp of its press releases and strained interviews, are beautiful requiems for our lost sense of love toward shallow brand loyalty; they return to our inclinations for warmth, solidarity, and friendship.

It’s Hard For Me to Say I’m Sorry feels brief, too, but it’s still highly allusive and transportive, dense and beautiful, like a field recording without a field.

That Ward succeeds so well in capturing something akin to escapism while keeping things engaging enough to bypass passivity is perhaps the album's greatest strength.

While How to Socialise isn’t the most musically adventurous album, its moments of humanity are what give the band its subtle edge.

Some will find the album’s often starry-eyed nature vaguely overdone, and it’s this more than anything else that will turn them off. However, for those who fall weak at the knees when the strains of R&B, soul, and hip-hop hit their ears, even in an idiosyncratically distorted form, the post-millennial quotations and evolutions of In My World will be love at first listen.

II is, on the whole, worthy of the names and histories that have coalesced and been commingled in its making.

Despite the modern production quality, the overall feel of Ballad Of The Broken Seas is unerringly timeless.

The songs are allowed to crack a few knuckles and stretch their legs before they do any heavy lifting, and you’ll find yourself appreciating their roots more as a result.

Anyone who dug Beam’s official albums will likely enjoy this odds-and-ends release.

The balance of gold to dross still makes this album a keeper.

It’s a nebulous, dense, paranoid web of utterly unfiltered expression that’s utterly or negligibly fascinating depending on how much you care about Yeezy.

Eight of the twelve tracks here surpass a four-minute run time and few would sound as good on a dancefloor as they do on a laptop. So to ask the audience to remain patient for the record’s 55 minutes proves a tall order, especially for music as subdued as this. Still, Weatherall demonstrates an indisputable talent for compiling and arranging a diverse array of sounds into one cohesive song on Family Portrait.

The breadth of sounds covered will scan as inconsistency to all but the most pious Uzi devotees, but it’s hard to imagine anything else serving as a more comprehensive document of rap in 2017.

This, of course, can be a drag, but when said influences are as carefully picked, pristinely melded, and precisely replicated as they are in the case of Crystal Stilts, it can be a real blast.

What Batoh offers us here is a snapshot of a despondent, acousmatic psychogeography - a grief-stricken poetics wherein the blank nirvana-impulse of the Shinto rite of chinkonsai jars against the bleeding-edge caterwaul of his BPM machine.

The Rural Alberta Advantage's capital-E Emotions are rarely comforting, but they serve as a reminder that life, stark - and wintry - as it is, is worth feeling hurt over, that our petty, mortal passions are justified.

Per the majority of The Sea and Cake catalog, Butterfly is roundly solid: not great, but very good, with frequent moments of luminosity.

An interesting and extremely well-crafted moment of critical self-reflection early-ish in a talented producer's career rather than a worrying about-turn.

At its best, when Bozulich is not just casting the spells, but stirring herself into the brew, In Animal Tongue ranks among the most provocative work she's done in recent years.

Something in the air of the hoary label worked obscurely on his imagination.

While it’s certain that catastrophe is written all over Locrian’s high-concept Return to Annihilation, the experience is a step removed from the anxiety of early post-rock: here the listener trudges through the burnt-out husk of a world, its structures transfigured, estranged from their original forms.

Although Banhart might not be in the business of dancing around bonfires anymore, his music still feels like gazing into one, its nocturnal reverie calmly emanating a force both naturalistic and mystical.

It's like an audiobook with the best music ever featured in the medium.

As with most Adams records, the fact that some of the songs made the cut is perplexing.

He continues to chart new territory, using his latest album to highlight sonic textures and what they seem to suggest about a metaphorical city. Working within those constraints, he's captured the nuance of living in many real cities and, in so doing, has crafted one of the stronger releases you'll hear this year.

On The Odds, there is a sense in which The Evens are tensing the muscles of their quiet/loud rock within its short range.

Le Kov is not as cold as Y Dydd Olaf (which was based on a decades-old Welsh sci fi novel)--it’s less machinic and more organic, less 80s and more 70s. As such, it wavers a little, particularly in its second half, where the feel is a little too warmly indistinct, too hazy.

Death Lust expands post-hardcore and its asphyxiating spatializations, giving the genre and the sweaty people in it room to breathe. Reinvigorated by this pneumatic procedure, respiration transpires: Chastity’s pulmonary labor sets the stifling structures of headphone listening alight, giving us light and letting us (mired in the heavy) feel light.

Alien in a Garbage Dump sounds like the work of a noise veteran relaxing and trying out whatever comes to mind, tossing out ideas without worrying if every one of them sticks. And in this case, this approach yields considerable rewards, the noise equivalent of summertime jams.

They have laid down some astounding tracks here, but as a whole, the album is not on par with any full-length the band have released since Alligator.

For the most part, BSP is successful in their attempt to infuse a britpop sensibility into the otherwise insipid post-punk genre.

Terra clearly isn't meant for a sun-soaked day at the beach. It's meant for quiet evenings at home, for slow living, for monotonous days of insularity, idealized but never unrealistic.

Despite all its goodness and lunacy, Steal Your Face is not a record that is likely to find itself touching the needle very often. It doesn’t beg for repeat listens, simply because most normal human beings aren’t able to handle the speed and sonically-pulverizing vibe.

Lacking the hooks and spirit of subversion that framed most of their previous efforts, the songs of Shadows require patience and understanding to reveal oft-hidden strength of voice within.

There’s No 666 will challenge you as much as anything you’ve heard in the last year, in both good ways and bad.

These songs won’t necessarily get stuck in your head, but the swerving asymmetry to C’est ça has you clinging to these hooks like handles on a speeding train.

There are plenty of sticky hooks and hummable melodies to be found, and their existence inside the delicate, shifting tapestries are what makes Dreams Say so endearing.

The Stimulus Package, despite its remarkable consistency, remains a modest achievement.

With Tigers clocking in at a brisk 35 minutes, she definitely leaves you hungry for more.

The listener need be an equally astute one.

It’s the change in an almost overall sound--when acts like The Human League, OMD, Ultravox, and Depeche Mode weren’t the only ones making ample use of keyboards--and Kilfoyle captures this incredibly well while retaining a still-in-formation yet already distinct MINKS sound, much in the way many formerly post-punk bands retained their own certain darkness throughout.

It’s a gracefully self-contained ecology--a sonic environment rich with empty and warm spaces, within which the listener is urged to breathe more easily and share in a queer feeling of belonging.

Shots isn’t a perfect record by any means.... However, by the time the epic closer “Ghost Blues” enters its nasty twin-guitar breakdown, you’ll want to pour yourself another drink and hit Shots’ high points anyway.

Although Commuter is nearly musically indistinguishable from a Grandaddy record, it feels comforting to have Lytle back, to hear him working through his issues with new music.

Twins shows Segall in greater command of his craft. Whereas the songs on Goodbye Bread and the previous (and spectacular) Slaughterhouse would gradually fall out of control, here the dissipation feels deliberate, as if Segall were trying to drive the songs to their deaths.

When all these cuts add up, we wind up with an album’s worth of pleasantries.

Even when the instrumentation oversteps its boundaries, like on the extended rock-out bridge of 'Sheets,' it provides the adequate backbone Jurado’s lyrics need to stand.

These are vignettes, quick glimpses into the melodramatic lives of individuals, and the short, abrupt musical handling matches this mode of lyric writing.

Caveats aside, All Nerve is a fresh reminder that Kim Deal is still a fount of inspiration and should keep it going, be it with The Breeders or otherwise.

Although it’s undoubtedly consistent and enjoyable, these are the kind of adjectives that restrain this established songwriter from truly challenging or surprising his audience.

Though hardly a radical departure from the baroque-pop template set by that debut, The Orchard is more mannered, fussy, and prim than its predecessor, exact and instrumentally articulate in ways that evoke no one more than Ms. Bush.

Magic is a sturdy, sure-footed Bruce Springsteen album.

After listening for a third or fourth time, I started thinking of these songs as snapshots, not stories. Just flashes of narrative. All feeling. I started to hear the heart of Kevin Morby’s New York, and it sounded familiar.

While the remixes don't contain the same level of shambolic personality that the nascent originals do, they are still a testament to the fact that Friel's work is full of possibility.

At its best center, Infinite Worlds gives the song back to the person.

A well-done lo-fi pop album lost of the things we’re used to: contexts and whatnot that make both us and the analytical process feel much easier, helping us pretend that we really know what’s going on and how to get behind the ideas.

The results may indeed be reflections of Yorke’s skill and sensitivity, but as compositions, they are self-contained and fully anticipated creations whose power to surprise or displace the listener has waned.