Granted, tracks like "I Need You" and "Too Late" give off a Cars-meets-mid-career Tegan & Sara vibe that's a little too on the nose. ... This album is full of pleasant surprises, though.

That! Feels Good! is unapologetic in its pop sensibilities, full of hooks that lightly tease and lyrics that keep themselves around. Ware's airy yet soulful delivery of these words, coos and moans is part of what makes her so captivating, and acts as a direct line to how much fun she's having.

All things considered, this may not be the best album ever made by Kid Koala, but it might be one of his most rewarding experiences.

Lightning Dreamers is refreshing for how it demonstrates the veteran cornetist's clear and realized vision. At 58 years old, Mazurek has helped usher jazz into the new millennium by surrounding himself with genre-defying musicians, transporting the arithmetic sound of Chicago through a warped space-time continuum.

Lily's clean and refined songwriting on Big Picture has her following in the footsteps of the similarly polished and venerable Laura Marling while sharing an emotionally intuitive sharpness and tongue-in-cheek propensity with fellow contemporaries like Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers.

The track list moves like grief itself, with a glimmer of hope before plunging back into darkness and hurt. But, as Green does so well, each track is buoyed by his smooth voice, full of emotion, and poetic lyrics that can somehow perfectly capture every sentiment.

This debut album stands on its own as an artistically daring personal statement.

Rat Saw God is wildly ambitious and easily lives up to the industry hype — Wednesday have succeeded once again in twisting nostalgia and existential dread into a braid of bruising, life-affirming rock music.

Taken as a whole, this is the kind of record that will infect your life, to paraphrase "Sepsis," one of the record's standouts. I, for one, am down to let it kill me.

Continue as a Guest picks up on the beats-and-synths sound that drove 2017's snappy Whiteout Conditions. Yet where that album saw Newman and Co. dabbling with syncopation, here the band is moving as one unit, deepening the music's groove.

For 36 minutes, the listener is submerged in the LP's chaos, but when the album finishes and you come up for air, there's a feeling of obligation to go back and listen through again. It's a celebration of the singular stylings of these two hip-hop heretics, one that rejects any semblance of conformity, leaving it free to be exactly what they want it to be, whatever that is.

Dacus brings a sense of wit and sensitivity; Bridgers a quiet melancholy; Baker a raw ferocity. the record combines those individual instincts into a group effort that's compelling in all sorts of ways — and one that's also charmingly (and, in a way, fittingly) imperfect.

On Memento Mori, Depeche Mode turn this philosophical reminder into a beautiful, raw, and passionate rebirth.

It's a lurid, scuzzy, electrifying return to form.

Embracing her past while looking forward, on GOOD LUCK, FRIDAY makes her own.

Putting the tiger back in a 15-year old cage works well for the band, for the most part. You can feel Stump chafing against the creative box he's put himself back in, and the tension it creates in the music gives many of these songs a sense of immediacy.

93696 is an ongoing, turbulent act of engagement — its surging power will throttle you, blow you over with fury and ecstasy. But it will also pull you in for an embrace, to quell and allow for the chance to breathe and reflect.

A record that moves between genres and moods with a deft touch.

Generous helpings of angst and spice on Hot Between Worlds make for a raw listening experience, one which does not offer resolution or understanding, but rather a ding-dong-ditch challenge to psychic fisticuffs in the middle of the street.

Altin Gün don't reinvent the wheel so much as craft a sick new set of rims. They do their thing like nobody else, and they're always getting better at it — Aşk gives you everything you want, and you'll still want more.

It's a confident and proper return, written squarely from Gonzalez's comfort zone with a few fun twists from its undersung predecessor; It's exactly what we needed from M83 right now, even if it's sometimes a little too extra.

Radical Romantics is as joyfully alive with sound as anything that Dreijer has created in their three decades of music making.

This isn't an album of contrasts but a vibe to get immersed in, and it's a welcome reminder of what once made Rose one of the key figures in indie rock.

Guitarists Trevor Peres and Ken Andrews' tones are more menacing than ever, and Donald Tardy's intense, skull-shaking drums are perfectly captured. While vocalist John Tardy's screams have obviously aged since Obituary's early days, they still sound powerful enough to get the job done, and the entire band plays with a locked-in ferocity that never sounds robotic or artificial.

Though there's not much variation in volume or tempo, listening carefully to the record's subtle weather shifts is deeply satisfying; it's a dream state, enveloped by Uchis' inimitable voice.

Ugly explores the rapper's newly formed duality, deepening his songcraft and letting the raging flame dim to a white-hot ember; it's his most reflective album to date.

Bless This Mess feels like a rebirth; a boundless, alien take on Remy's explosive art-pop, its conceptual wildness and sonic friskiness allowing her to flex her vision and sense of humour in brand new ways.

Cracker Island is the most focused and least eclectic instalment in the band's discography — and for that reason, it absolutely breezes by.