The album marks the return of that sharpness of perspective in Beam’s songwriting. However, there are moments where the music--though the band plays together well--threatens to tip from spare into stale. It never quite gets there.

A Deeper Understanding is an epic, panoramic record, but its effect is an intimate, personal one. The way these song stretch out make them grand, but they still leave space for you, the listener.

A lack of self-editing is the only real flaw on an album which proves that two decades into their career QOTSA are sounding fresher than ever.

It can be a bleak listen at times, but for every scuffed-up shadow and turn to negative space, there’s a song like “No Tree No Branch” or the frenetic “Coins in My Caged Fist” to pull you out.

They sometimes drift back to that comfortable space, and those moments make the record feel a bit longer than it is, but overall this is another interesting twist in the band’s sound.

Rainbow is simply the record she needed to make. And at a time where most pop music is either designed by committee or drowning in beigeness, it’s also the kind of individual and achingly honest record we needed to hear.

The one drawback to Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 is that, with the exception of “Light Blue”, its déjà vu nature makes it difficult to distinguish it from Thelonious Monk’s landmark albums.

Everything Now doesn’t stretch out so much as it spreads itself thin, which is why it won’t ripple out like other Arcade Fire records. In the end, the band that made neighborhoods sound endless makes Everything into a cul-de-sac.

Flower Boy is a fascinating, singular effort from Tyler, The Creator. He’s crafted a record that finally measures up to a promise that has always been there.

Although the reinvention teased before release never materializes, Lust for Life is still a return to form which should cement Del Rey’s status as the queen of femme fatale pop.

The tensions on the second record take on new, fascinating layers as you go back to the perspective laid out on Born on a Gangster Star. The two also clash musically, sometimes echoing one another, sometimes conflicting. But both albums reward repeated listens.

Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star is a curious new entry for the group. It expands the space-age palate of Lese Majesty, but slips in the unique tunefulness of Black Up. And yet it doesn’t quite sound like either, and--maybe unsurprisingly, at this point--it doesn’t sound like any other record you’ll hear this year.

Out in the Storm is a deeply impressive record, one that finds Crutchfield honing the strengths we knew she had, discovering new ones, and adding another strong record a rare sort of catalog--one that is consistent but unafraid to push for something new.

It’s encouraging to hear Coldplay finally tackle something timely and weighty, even if’s taken 17 years for them to do so. Kaleidoscope’s other two offerings aren’t quite as essential, but are still worthy of taking a spot on one of the band’s seven studio efforts.

Something to Tell You is so impossibly infectious that they can just about get away with more of the same this time around.

Sure, it’s nowhere in the same league as the seminal CrazySexyCool and the innovative concept album FanMail, and the absence of Left Eye--apart from a touching brief posthumous appearance on “Interlude”--is still keenly felt. But there are still a handful of tracks here which can sit comfortably alongside their incredible mid-late 90s canon.

Ultimately, Harris appears to have simply swapped one formula for another, and if there’s to be a Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2 he will need to discover at least a few new tricks. ... [But] there are encouraging signs here that the Harris of old hasn’t been entirely lost for good.

The best parts are worthy contributions to their catalog, and worth the price of admission here. But as a whole, Weather Diaries isn’t the brilliant Ride return fans might hope for. Though there’s enough here to suggest it could be a start, the preamble to the next great Ride record.

For Wilco fans, the songs here won’t surprise. But the effectiveness of these performances, the intimacy of the quiet, and the small, new lights they shed on tunes they’ve long known all makes this a worthwhile record. It’s a record of execution over ambition.

This is a very different record from Summertime ’06, both thematically and sonically, but it’s no less incisive, challenging, or flat-out excellent.

It is a record that tries to rise above the expectations created by the band’s past success. In doing so, it loses sight of where their past success came from.

Still only 20 years old, Lorde could have been forgiven for floundering under the weight of expectation. Instead she’s reasserted her status as today’s ultimate alt-pop artist with a record that balances the contemporary with the classic in typically immaculate style.

While she may have slipped down the pecking order, Witness proves she’s still a more interesting pop star than she’s often given credit for.

It shows a quick growth in confidence from the last record to this one, mostly leaving behind the moments that feel too quiet, too intimate to always connect to from the last record. Capacity is another strong record, and a brave step forward for Big Thief.

Darnielle’s lyrics never let nostalgia float off in the ether. There’s a geography to Goths that adds complexity and specificity.

While the album has the signature Wavves sound, the songwriting and production is taking on a sophistication that only comes with a progressing level of musical maturity.

With such a hooky, immediate, and yet complex record, let’s hope it’s not the final fade out.

In taking a slower and more deliberate approach to his craft this time around, FaltyDL is responsible for one of the more purely enjoyable albums of the still-young year.