The SOLs are skilled at crafting songs rooted in striking specificity.

Her evocations to dance, be present and claim space are the most potent and political moments.

The wild, bludgeoning crest of the album’s centre gives way to the soft, yellowing bruises of its final third, revealing that the band can be just as disarmingly potent and complex even while exhibiting the utmost restraint.

The music sounds slightly repetitive on its own, so he’s smart to collaborate with vocalists.

Side A is mostly introspective threats, neurotic boasting and paranoia about enemies. Side B is the same but with a focus on women and his love life. As with most of his releases, it works perfectly--but for 25 tracks to work is undeniably impressive.

While clearly her most varied album to date, it still sounds decidedly Mirah: DIY folk singer/songwriter of the 90s with that heartbreaking voice and a knack for killer guitar melodies.

There's nothing cerebral about her lyrics; she's a captivating, blunt performer, here emphasizing classic arrangements and raw emotion over poetic invention.

While moments on Vapor City might have sounded completely at home at a 1996 rave, the mood and sound overall are more wistfully nostalgic than retro.

A song like AM/FM is downright uplifting, catchy and groove-heavy which, along with bucking our expectations, is always what lifted this eight-member band above the fray.

Made is at once more adventurous and more accessible, with a greater respect for straightforward(ish) pop.

This time around, though, female backing vocals add interest and drama to what is essentially a rich batch of breakup songs that somehow leave you feeling good.

It’s distancing stuff, though also hookier than earlier LPs. But it’s the humanity and levity of the lyrics that’ll really get you on board.

It's easily his most personal work yet, and even though the story of his mother's difficult life is hardly universal, the results are deeply moving and richly evocative.

Turkey is erratic, disjointed and full of loose garage swagger--in other words, classic Krol.

Despite the somewhat pessimistic prognosis, Davies is a sharp enough tunesmith to keep his darkly droll song cycle upbeat and rockin’ throughout.

Her best album in more than a decade.

it’s unfair to expect him to suddenly modernize now. He does, however, explore some unexpectedly psychedelic terrain here, which he handles impressively.

XXXX is more than just pastiche, however. Songs like "Lonely’s Lunch," "She’s Spoken For" and "Glory," a callback to their earlier sound, reveal a chemistry that is entirely this band’s own.

With production duties primarily hot potatoed between Hagler and Kenny Beats, the beats and feel are consistent and strong while not getting in the way of Staples’ flow, which is elastic and modern without losing an inch of his clarity and bluntness.

Once you get past the placid bit at the beginning, it's straight into the relentlessly pummelling assault we've come to love and expect from the mighty Japanese trio, and Pink's wallop-per-second rate puts it in a class with Heavy Rocks at the top of the Boris heap.

They put their cloudy heads together and came up with the power-chord-slashing and hobbitty keyboard werping goods but wisely didn’t lose all the dirty distortion and strummy acoustic bits.

The Hungry Saw may make Leonard Cohen’s stuff sound positively giddy, but it’s a positive turn for the Tindersticks.

He still sounds like Hayden, but he’s stripped down the production to better approximate the sound of a band in a room. That bare-bones intimacy works perfectly with his delicate voice and melancholic songs.

Even if they’re generally delivered with an easier flow and more laid-back vibe, sharp production and catchy hooks increase each track’s impact.

Tell Me How You Really Feel is her most inward-looking album but also one that pulls back to engage with bigger political and cultural conversations more directly than we’re used to from her.

The production does justice to the 80s-underground-evoking mix of surf, punk, industrial and shoegaze.

All the tracks on her eighth studio album, Our Bright Future, are as clear as her voice, and the lyrics are simple and honest.

For all its glossy, soul-searching schmaltz, the band’s full-length debut is a polished record full of consistently catchy hooks.

Rihanna is at her most adventurous, and while we're not completely convinced that all the wailing hard rock guitars suit her, the aggression makes sense within the context of the album.

It falls short of the band’s more certified classics like Death Is This Communion and Blessed Black Wings, but Electric Messiah feels basically satisfying--like a meal ordered from your favourite restaurant. A heavy, greasy, gut-ballasting meal.

The 10-year-old band should be able to get a dance floor moving more than ever with these songs.

Definitely on the arty end of the post-rock gradient, No Age manage to channel elements of other great bands who have woken up drunk on the lo-fi line between pretty and noisy.

This means there are fewer musical surprises, though one comes when Martin Doherty takes over lead vocals for a song, seemingly out of nowhere. It makes Mayberry’s return to the mic even sweeter.

No One Is Lost is the best kind of pop music: the universal made intimate (and vice-versa), one note at a time.

Although the album revels in its sonic clutter (it’s remarkable how they can make percussive rhythms sound both primitive and absurdly futuristic), there are tracks scattered throughout to catch your breath.

It's Cut Copy's most textured and rhythmically complex record, and also irresistible in its emotional simplicity.

It's Collett's ability to lyrically and aurally crystallize moments in time that makes this album such a delight.

Regardless of Tatum’s ever-shifting musical obsessions or emotional moods, an enjoyable lightness and subtlety to the arrangements and overlapping textures draw your ear in closer.

It doesn't sound quite the same coming out of a pair of headphones as it does, say, from the bathroom at Sneaky Dee's, but even on record it's sure to quicken your pulse by a few beats.

Like the best dance music, The Drawing Board has one foot firmly planted in the early origins of house, while still sounding completely modern and forward-thinking.

Paired with Quezada and Thulin’s frantic soundscapes, Obey is a reminder that the steeliest demeanors can belie a raging cauldron of emotion. By the time the album’s short 38 minutes are over, what seemed at first like ambivalence feels more like transcendence.

More than just another post-whatever crescendo generator, SMZ remain committed to nuance and subtlety while no less committed to getting louder.

Even when duetting with harp sprite Joanna Newson, she avoids the trappings of twee.

Cuomo’s notes contain detailed autobiographical backstories for each song, some of which are probably the best Weezer never recorded.

Torbjorn Brundtland and Svein Berge move away from millennium trance tracks like '49 Percent' from 2005’s "The Understanding," and that’s a good move.

A sample-heavy hodgepodge of indie rock, hip-hop, garage rock and mature instrumentals fills out the rest of this joyous album whose almost wistful title track near the end brings everything together in the most satisfying way.

The results are exactly what fans of either act would hope for and a pleasant surprise for those who'd given up on both of them.

Bicycle begins with an infectious melancholy hook, opens up with a perfectly placed vocal line steeped in regret and ends with Peter Hook-inspired guitars over a choir. Breathtaking stuff.

Ezra Koenig's songwriting is effortless and breezy, and the Afropop rhythms are as strong as ever.

The album contains some indisputable classics (Here, Summer Babe, Shady Lane) but aims to dig deeper than the hits.

Though there are clear highlights--the druggy, danceable Egypt and the dreamy Anomaly--the album holds together as a larger, unified statement.

Jiaolong feels more organic and warm than the kinds of bangers the genre's superstars are playing in massive arenas.

Admittedly, the whiny Martsch-inspired delivery of singer dude Christian Hjelm will be a turnoff for some, but the Figurines' compositional skill shows real promise, and their endearing enthusiasm should win them many fans over here.

The album swells, twists and turns, but rather than feeling helplessly meandering--a pitfall of the genre--it has an organic pacing that naturally starts and ends with each song.

A beautifully crafted debut full-length that delivers on the early hype.

These are understated, heartfelt tunes carried by lovely acoustic guitar work.

Oblique by pop standards, the album's full of raw, tightly wound energy.

Once you get over the lack of choruses, you'll find a very solid, satisfying melodic techno album.

Collapse is a genuine return to form for the band, blowing away anything else they've done for more than a decade.

Hard-fought optimism fuels the political fury behind Savages’ buzzing aggression (timely given the momentum behind progressive political movements), but now the manifesto is delivered via more familiar, accessible sounds.

A Different Kind Of Truth sounds familiar in the best way.

This time his band has gelled into an effective stadium-rocking outfit, and his dark humour actually seems connected to some real emotion rather than a strategy designed to create some ironic distance.

At a time when many musicians seem eager to gain currency from identity politics and sociopolitical events, Mangy Love satisfies by being rooted in a nuanced observer’s perspective.

Mixing punk rock with cute pop, the Atlanta, Georgia, quartet are a fine addition to Slumberland's near-flawless roster.

These are personal, contemporary story songs that centre on DeMent's signature plain delivery, the gospel-soul horn arrangements and the occasional wailed vocal

It's heavy at times, but always thoughtful and interesting.

The Haunted Man is yearning, elegant pop music in line with the past year's best.

Once our boy Nick begins his bellicose bellowing, there's no mistaking Grinderman's amped-up scorch for anything but another of Cave's darkly humorous creations of magnificent malevolence. Long may he howl and snort.

The Catastrophist is another shining example of the band’s ability to forge multitudes of different sounds into something new--something singular, that can really only be described as, well, sounding like Tortoise.

With Retox they deliver an intensity and focus few bands could maintain for a 12-song album, let alone a three-album career.

Despite its relatively minimal instrumentation, virtually every song here crackles and hums with distorted, altered familiarity.

It's primal, visceral, addictive stuff – a perfect mix of sweet and evil unlike pretty much everything else out there.

After a few listens, hidden melodies reveal themselves and easy-listening bass lines guide you through the ruckus. Or rather, you get used to the disorder and appreciate the songs for what they are: weird experiments from a prodigal songwriter.

All six tracks are taut, catchy and depressing, 'Fire In The Ocean' in particular--making you wonder what could have been had they stayed together.

Some of the 80s references take a few listens until they stop sounding goofy, and MacLean’s deadpan vocals occasionally grate next to Whang’s light and floating tone, but once your ears adjust, there’s a lot to appreciate.

This offering sets him apart from other acts and may secure his spot in the canon of bedroom crooners.

Mayberry may be better known as the husky voice of HSY, but it's with Anamai that she's truly getting at her roots.

It's a more solid album than the critically acclaimed debut that put him there in the first place.

The songs are still full of lush guitars and dense, clattering percussion, but offer the added bonus of being more grandiose and emotional.

Like a lot of shoegaze, a uniform production and lots of layers mean the tracks have a tendency to lack distinction from one another. But this happens surprisingly rarely.

The hour-long LP often plays out like an experimental 80s fever dream, but it’s still anchored by The Weeknd’s broody sonic DNA.

An intriguing tension exists between the lo-fi production touches and pristine hi-fi sounds, and similarly between Cook's joking/not-joking attitude.

Less adventurous is her sex-on-the-dance-floor lyrical fixation, so it's those playful touches that set Femme Fatale apart from most cornball dance pop on the radio these days.

While Briedrick produces artful, not too noisy drones through vintage analog gear, Balabanian’s vocals have a distinctly soulful quality.

Less immediately rewarding than their debut, but worth taking the time to get to know.

Now, two years after the barbershoppy crew’s breakup, the Justin Timberlake of J5 delivers his solo debut, with predictably solid results.

Oddly, Lasers is Fiasco's most commercial-sounding album – but think of it as club music with a conscience.

The crisp production makes this more accessible to newbies, but it’s definitely still a Souleyman album, successfully capturing the raw, unbridled energy that’s fuelled his jump from the wedding party circuit to indie rock festivals.

The way Ought confront modern bleakness is understandably disaffected but ultimately moving and celebratory, in the idealistic tradition of punk.

When the album is taken as a whole, its full beauty is floodlit--a rare experience in the age of singles.

Green Naugahyde is very much a return to their glory years, which makes it a great introduction for new ears and a satisfying addition to the catalogue for long-time fans.

On his first solo album under his own name, the songwriting is just as sharp and hooky and the emotions sometimes just as plaintive, sad and angsty as on past projects. But this time Bogart hits upon the most fully realized pop idol version of himself by embracing the demented, neon-coloured camp aesthetic he's always loved.

Thankfully, At Mount Zoomer is a formidable collection of catchy indie art-rock that won’t disappoint fans of their acclaimed debut.

In contrast to the neoclassical leanings of Antony and the Johnsons, Hoplelessness is about this particular moment and sounds very of the moment, thanks to beatmakers Hudson Mohawke and Oneohtrix Point Never. Combined with Anohni's trembling and vulnerable vibrato, its grandiose sounds crescendo into a sprawling political epic that could inspire spontaneous bursts of interpretive dance.

The album makes every effort to showcase the band's deep back catalogue, and represents their second coming--it speaks to the new generation of fans they've gained. There are worse ways to be remembered.

The slower grooves still swing hard while allowing Jones to show off more of her impressive vocal range, although it's difficult to say whether her deep funk crowd will be able to handle the shift from the typical shuffle beat barrage they've come to expect.

No, the sound isn’t all that different from what Petty does with the Heartbreakers, but the Mudcrutch album has the looser feel you get from old buddies jamming for kicks.

This is hot.