Open Mike Eagle is one of the few artists that seems to improve with every release, and just when you thought he couldn’t get better than a full collaboration with Paul White on yesteryear’s Hella Personal Film Festival, he does just that. It helps that the various producers manage to make unique beats that still fit in with the album’s general aesthetic.

This is the kind that makes you want to go back and listen to his older stuff, if only to remind you he’s capable of wonders.

At the end of it, this record is a mixed bag. Fans of Weezer’s poppier side will find plenty to like. Whereas fans of Weezer’s more well regarded records will wish they chose another producer.

Turn Out the Lights is an exciting sophomore effort from an even more exciting artist. While the album isn’t a tremendous leap forward from Sprained Ankle, Baker emerges with her vision and voice more fully formed. Wherever she goes from here, the world will be waiting to meet her.

Plunge is a worthy addition to Dreijer’s career discography, and fans of Fever Ray and the Knife are sure to enjoy it. It’s an energetic and erotic record that may very well soundtrack some of the freakier parties you attend this fall. Still, it doesn’t capture the full scope of Dreijer’s ambition.

The Ooz is an Archy Marshall hash, the strange scraps of his brain stewed into something unrecognizable and delicious.

What’s left is an artist reframing the landscape, a reverse-chameleon who can’t camouflage, but transforms the world around her instead. “Pop” is the sound of a bubble bursting.

Colors is the opposite of The Information. The first time you listen to it, you know its average and you keep listening, begging it to give something that hasn’t had its edges shaved off by a production style that strips all weird aesthetics in favor of aerodynamics that no one wanted and no one will like.

Although the overall album lacks cohesion, Double Dutchess’ sonic diversity does remind you of Fergie’s versatility as a performer, one who spits, warbles, and belts all across the project. The only thing is, she brings little innovation or excitement to the many genres she channels.

The one redeeming quality behind this whole project is Cyrus’ twangy voice, which saves this project from being entirely pointless. In her lower registers, Cyrus draws you into her husk and warmth. It is in these moments she reveals the traces of an artist who otherwise remains absent from this album.

This is a record where the sum is greater than the parts, whereas The Epic was its parts (and having a lot of them). Harmony of Difference is another win in Kamasi Washington’s book.

Haiku From Zero has none of its strength in songs or clarity of goal. The electro-funk mixed with the alternative dance and light tropicalia percussion ends up tasting like pizza and pie and popsicles all at the same time. It isn’t that this record is bad, its just meh.

On Wonderful Wonderful, there are glimpses of that ambition on an otherwise routine album from a top-notch band on autopilot. But if the Killers want to capture the moment like they did a decade ago, they’ll have to want it more.

Luciferian Towers is a better album than Asunder. I’d venture that it’s even better than 2012’s Allelujah! Don’t Bend, Ascend! by virtue of its interludes not being completely disposable. It’s less bold than their earliest and best work (I wish they’d make another double LP one of these days), but it bodes well for their future, and stands as one of the best albums of the year.

Perhaps one of the most macabre albums of the year, Okovi shines in its ability to beautifully illustrate a disturbing but ultimately shared human experience.

While the album is beautiful both sonically and lyrically, in some of the tracks, Batmanglij falls into his older artistic patterns that feel played out. However, if you weren’t aware that he was in Vampire Weekend, this might not be as obvious.

Title track aside, this a really good album by a really sketchy guy.

Too little is far better than too much as dozens of overstuffed double albums have taught fans of each decade. Every song here is a hit and Antisocialites is brilliant.

It’s a different kind of thing now, even if the fundamentals are unchanged. It finds the National snapping out of the comfortable groove they’ve settled in over the last decade, fuelled by strife, battle-tested wisdom, and a touch of righteousness.

American Dream is as close to a unified artistic statement that Murphy has delivered. I’d argue it’s his first front-to-back, total triumph.

Even though it doesn’t do nearly enough to distinguish itself from the band’s earlier albums, it’s an enjoyable enough listen that it’s not too hard to excuse its flaws.

Bronson still creates a respectable hip-hop trilogy (not many of those), and gives us his most worthwhile long-player since 2012’s Rare Chandeliers.

While Milo’s lyrical wit has remained sharp over the years, the beats he raps over have gotten better and better with every release, culminating in Who Told You To Think??!!?!?!?! as the best batch of beats he’s rapped over.

Sophomore album Always Strive and Prosper had ASAP Ferg striving to expand his lyrical and sonic palette and prospering less than half of the time. Still Striving then, perhaps self-consciously titled, course-corrects by dropping pretense and delivering what we came to Ferg for in the first place: banging beats, fire flows. Some of the time, anyway. 11 out of 14 of these tracks have guest features, and a high percentage of them don’t leave much impression.

Only when you dive in does the beauty reveal itself. Grizzly Bear have never been afraid to expect something of the listener. That’s never been truer than on Painted Ruins.

Rainbow may not contain the electrobops you expect from Kesha Sebert, but at its heart, it does possess what drew everyone to her in the first place: confidence, sonic booms, and an assurance that everything will be alright when the storm clears.

While Mensa’s flow is capable enough (especially on the opening two tracks, which are some of the album’s best), he also indulges in some painfully cheesy lines, from references to television shows long dead (“Tryna take over the world like Pinky and the Brain”) no matter how ham-fisted (“If she see her name, she get Goku tough”).

Overall, Mellow Waves sits nicely in Cornelius’ discography. Not as scene as Fantasma or exploratory as Point. This record uses the studio magic in a more utilitarian way.