It's in songcraft that Black Marble shine (though that's not to give the expectation of overt hookiness, which would miss the point, moodwise).

100 Days is a straightforward progression of rhythm and blues, but on the gut level, well, words like "modern" or "derivative" become fairly worthless.

A journey into their liberated, tie-dyed consciousness and their best project to date.

Soft Airplane’s basement-recorded mastery is equal parts charming and unnerving, and on the whole singularly spectacular.

This record transcends genre and everybody knows it. Country music is haggard and calloused and hung up on itself, and Introducing Karl Blau is none of those things.

The Plot Against Common Sense finds FotL in fine form. It's Falkous' most eclectic crop of songs to date and stands out as a great guitar-rock album in a year that's seen its fair share of them already.

Holistically, there's nothing remarkably new here that hasn't been pursued before by this collective. The execution is nice and easily situates this album in the top two of their performances, and the sound quality far surpasses their previous efforts.

Alex G’s first major wax-plated step outside the bedroom is predictably secure. But it’s also exploratory of his changing landscape, one that’s situated like unauthorized speech-class notecards, articulating each situation and character but still allowing for cracks and incongruity.

The Far Field is carried by light catharsis, diffused and mild-tempered fun, virtuosic vocal delivery, and steel-clean production.

If there's anything to lament about Avatar, it's that its moves towards accessibility, narrative, and more diverse pastures probably won't help to broaden Comets' fanbase.

Far from a drop off in coherence, Mr. Beast is just another stop on a long, strange, satisfying trip.

Sweeney brings an array of agile guitar playing and striking harmonies that create a more contained, musically astute Billyvironment.

A hypnosis kicks in and we discover that a massive and dense album has run its hour-plus course in what felt like... two minutes? Four days?

On Catacombs, as always, McCombs stands as an unfashionable maverick who plays on his own terms, and if that is not good enough for the mindless millions, then tough shit.

Serving as the final part of a trilogy that includes the much feted records Rook and , the album is an epic feat of baroque pop craftsmanship, something akin to an update of Scott IV or Dusty in Memphis for the new millennium.

This sumptuous sonic depth exceeds that of a live band, but still feels like something The Luyas will pull off live without a hitch. Evocative and avoiding narrative, brooding but warm to the touch, you'll feel compelled to return to these songs without actually learning the mechanics of their nature.

Dream On moves in pretty similar territory to Hive Mind and with almost as much flair.

For being as spare as it is, Zomes’ music is incredibly full while maintaining a hazy, idealistic distance.

Records like this are what will eventually outmode the contradiction of “too street for the industry,” eschewing both categories in the unique accomplishment of a profit-driven truth-telling venture. More like this.

While not as immediately consumed fully as a whole as Rejoicing In The Hands was, when given time and taken apart to be put back together anew, Niño Rojo clearly states the depth of Banhart's presence, if admittedly, not quite making a clear purpose just yet.

On Glacial Glow, flurries of compositional details accentuate a reassuring aesthetic, inviting us seamlessly into her world.

It is heavier on quality than most Bright Eyes albums I could name -- both musically and lyrically.

It might be "teenage" in its orientation, but it is an adult album in its serious and mature rumination--and affirmation.

They’ve managed to wrap the menacing and the rewarding up in an air-conditioned pleasure circuit, beyond transgression and provocation

Taking chances within the realm of a three minute pop song takes sheer talent, and on The Slow Wonder, Carl Newman proves that he is one of the brightest songwriters working in music these days.

Ultimately, 13 is a lens buffer for viewing Supersilent’s previous interrogations of how conditioned humans process sound and space, yet it needn’t in itself be a normative work.

There aren't a great deal of people making chill this good any more.

All The Way is quite good; let’s hope Growing defy their album’s title and live up to their own name by pursuing their clever ideas even further on their next release.

The whole affair has a grandiose, almost decadent feel to it, with its damaged beauty and elegance.

Though proVISIONS offers some playfully charming moments, ('Can Do,' 'Out There,' 'Increment of Love'), the dark center of this album’s middle is telling.

Slime Season 3 is as celebratory, emotionally rich, and life-affirming as a good funeral should be but never is. And this isn’t the end; it’s only the beginning of a brand new chapter.

CLPPNG is an excellent, beautifully-executed record.

There’s little apparent by way of concept, lyrical wit, and aesthetic quirk — qualities that illuminate the work of many of Duterte’s colleagues — but ambience, style, and ingenuity are well at work, making the album a vibe-y classic worth hanging onto.

Even with the complete lack of song-oriented material, Instrumentals 2015 serves as an interesting career overview and a welcome return of someone who I had begun to believe had slipped entirely into the light of time.

Plastic Anniversary is unfamiliar, strange, unsettling, and wonderful.

The lack of a reliance on the electronic merging with folk is the most interesting aspect to There Were Wolves; whereas it is essential to the appeal of Genders’ Tunng gang, The Accidental plays it straight, using those ever-present vocal sounds on top of primarily unadorned acoustic numbers.

This album is easily taken as it is, a good side portrait of the parts of America that are somewhat still in the throes of modernity (if we all aren’t to some degree).

Although by the record's second half the brassy, treble-kicked sound wears a little thin, there are enough gems to keep the release fresh through the end of its 35 minutes.

From start to finish, it’s a solid bit of pop, one that clearly took a lot of hard work to make.

It’s one of those beguiling albums saved for times alone, times when nothing else would seem quite right.

It’s catchy, committed, prehensile punk rock.

Lonely Twin is a unified creation, concerned from start to finish with existential idee fixes like death and despair, and how humanity deals with those universals.

The music maintains its drive as it moves, risking the occasional drag in the more languid sections, but never succumbing to a total loss of momentum.

I simply cannot imagine what it would be like to see these guys live, but follow up that New Order at your next dance party with some Congotronics and people will be bouncing off the walls.

For the moment, it’s surely a worthwhile project for players and listeners alike, an album of unusual synergy, exploration, and focus that expands both artists’ repertoires well beyond genre constructions to create something both unique and replayable.

It’s a diverse group and they’re doing some excellent work. Really great stuff.

Yes, Ambivalence Avenue is an album that defies expectations, and it is also Bibio’s most creative and penetrating release yet.

If you enjoy the ear-perkingly dense textures of friendlier experimental stuff like Four Tet and Fridge's Happiness LP, then you can't go wrong here.

As much as Everything In Between transcends what the band has released to date, nothing feels like a true departure, and everything seems like an improvement.

The cuts on Kindred aren't simply longer than before; they introduce a completely different sense of space and continuity... this is why Kindred is so strong.

Blank Face is one of the strongest, most consistently enjoyable in years, even if its glossy and misanthropic merits falls just shy of GOAT status.

With this record, though, Black turns that style into a genuine language--a flexible idiom--one that can conjure up a whole weird world of new emotions and experiences.

Phases nevertheless reaffirms its singer’s preeminence in the current milieu of indie rock. Pulling from material as recent as January and as early as 2010, the album aggregates Olsen’s previously unreleased work into a collection that vacillates between retrospection and contemporariness.

If this isn't the album you are blaring out of your car all summer long, you aren't having enough fun.

Like Bosch’s triptych, the album is vivid and dense, clear as a bell but hellacious, and undeniably worth your inscrutable attention.

[Modern Jester] is, admittedly, a comprehensive representation of his course thus far, but the amalgamation of Dilloway's diverse temperament presents something untried and, for want of a better way to put it, pretty ****ing violent.

Alongside Youngs' anxious, distracted acoustic guitar picking, the most characteristic sound of this album is a damaged electric guitar, pealing its mournful, inarticulate song again and again.

Grief’s Infernal Flower is heavy in the best, most gratifyingly melancholy way.

It is music with palpable warmth, not nearly as cold as your average techno track.

Juxtaposing foley noises, drum loops, and auxiliary click-clacking against minimalist, percussive synth lines and enormous swells of energy, the album clearly has a sonic template and a cohesion easily identifiable within the first three tracks.

A return to/remaining within form where Carey’s freewheeling guitar and (thankfully) sandblasted and virtuosic voice beam at us from our speakers in triumphant denouement.

This record is a tremendous achievement, but in the end, the grandeur of Hidden can be a little much to take in all at once.

Their liquid funk/R&B/hip-hop hybrid has never been more refined.

Black Sun is spotty and rusted, and it is likely that it will be interesting to most for this or that track - a grimy slayer, a leftfield floorfiller - or for the fact that it has a fantastic musique concrète apocalyptic vignette featuring Flying Lotus for a coda.

Intermezzo displays Bishop in top form, and if this is an interlude, the next act should be spectacular.

The M.O. is so resolute, the beat so constant, that even after 17 years it is unimaginable to think that a new GAS album would sound like anything but this. As with the forests of Voigt’s childhood, it’s a comfort and a moment of disquiet to confront something so perpetually, hauntingly still.

The band isn't doing anything that hasn't been done before, but damn if that doesn't seem to matter a lick while listening to the record. It's just too youthful, effervescent, and charming.

The Air Force may signal that Xiu Xiu isn't as jarring and bewildering as they once were, but there's more than enough fortitude and craft present to ensure that Stewart will always be a good handful of steps ahead of everyone else making "experimental" pop.

It is a welcome return home to a band that had been on quite the bender.

When I listen to Waxahatchee, I feel a little less strange. Less washed up.

This is a sexy album.

Stadium here is an exposition of time, in this stadion, this measureless measure, or rather, time is here exposed.

By rising to the high standards of recording and tonal detail set by “kraut” rock pioneers the first time around, and contextualizing the movement’s obsession with repetition within novel structures and rhythms, CAVE’s music sits on a decades-long continuum with the forebears that continue to inspire its members to pick up their instruments and write new music.

The Men have decided to gift us with yet another 10 glorious songs.

It’s a record that vibes on mixture of psychedelic forgery and improvisational wholesomeness.

Murs fails to gain any ground regarding his approach to rhyming and lyrical ingenuity. Yet, Murs 3:16 is far superior to The End of the Beginning, due to the tight and refreshing skills of producer 9th Wonder.

A fantastic record for Morrissey fans.

Double Cup sounds like an album Rashad has been gearing up to make, but instead of abandoning the footwork style he has championed throughout his career, he’s scoping its potential on nonconformist terms. And from the perspective of the listener, it’s an absolute treat.

This is an unfettered, deservedly ecstatic victory lap that’s riddled with in-jokes.

Even though Glass has a lot of physicality to it, it’s gentle in the ways in which it fills our space with its presence. It’s a record one loops for the evening and unconsciously forgets about it, only to wonder what is missing when it stops playing.

What Lapalux manages to do here is capture something of the mood of his time in the sonic language of his time. It's a real achievement.

Bandana continues a conversation not only between eras and between styles, but also between Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, both of whom continue to carve a path wholly their own — with little regard for what lays outside of it.

Within Radiohead's oeuvre, TKOL most closely resembles Kid A and Amnesiac, the double-headed phoenix that rose out the ashes of the band's turn-of-the-century identity crisis. The only thing missing this time around is, well, the identity crisis.

There are thus a number of quite diverse stylistic influences at work, but here they are all fused together into a whole that is both natural and low-key.

He reins in some of his rougher edges, offering listeners a more streamlined sound.

I find it hard to find fault with their approach, which is same-y but laced with beats and rhymes so powerful they conjure the old ‘if it izain’t broke, don’t fixxit’ axiom.

Ghost has had his share of ups and downs, but Apollo Kids finds him back near the top.

Exploding Head is a solid album that spits in the face of any sophomore slump expectations.

Filled with quirky and inventive pop songs packed with sultry harmonies and an immense level of musical intuitiveness.

An exhilarating listen.

The band’s persistence is what makes this music “challenging,” as opposed to the compositional structures that shape them, but on Piano Nights, those idiosyncrasies are pressed through a grotto of layered instrumentation that reveals an essential addition to the Bohren canon.

Jukebox is a big, bold kiss-off to the indie ghetto that’s braver and all the more interesting for the approach she’s chosen.

The songs that do hit the number, however, are unimaginably nimble in their enthusiastic originality, carrying on the busy-bee legacy Hill has been building and venturing into exciting territory. Considering how ground-floor some of his proper-solo recordings have been, this is an intriguing development.

Robert Schneider has always been an expert tunesmith, which makes the potentially disastrous transition from garage rock to super hi-fi feel like a natural extension of The Apples' ambition. Not only has the evolution been seamless, but an expanded mastery of studio technique has only served to buttress a fine collection of songs on Travellers.

In the end, Opticks sounds nothing like Norway, but it's still quite a trip. Artful, spooky, groovy, human, it sounds like anywhere and nowhere on Earth.

2008 requires more focus and more grace. Modern Guilt delivers both.

There isn’t a moment when Charli XCX doesn’t display the kind of wild, brash confidence that other artists take years to arrive at.

While it is simply impossible to duplicate the raw power and energy of [Vaudeville Villian], the newly resurrected Viktor proffers a tolerable continuation of his street hustle and ice-cold thuggery.