Knock Knock is full of surprises, and Koze is floating, in a meditative stance, watching over your shoulder as you revel in its resplendent glory.

The Sea and Cake continue to be champions for the weary and resolute alike, being both the soothing reassurance of beauty and the wistful resolve that the most dogged absolute is the very impermanence of everything. It’s a deceptively tricky feat and one that they continue to thrive on.

For the most part, it’s the moments that pivot between shadow and light that provide the most pleasure. “L’Inconnue” emerges from its chrysalis around the 1:40 mark, Legrand singing in French as a heavenly choral loop begins to surround her voice. Both musically and lyrically, the development feels closer to the sound of falling in love than anything they’ve made, an ecstatic payoff that ranks among their finest work.

Maybe much will be made of their newplayful trifling with those muchmaligned indiedancetronica influences, but I don’think this is the mereaesthetic synthwave chill,man plasticity of the endlessly reproducible shoppingmall sunset.

It contains extraordinary moments of dissonance, rhythms coalescing and congealing then melting away, quietly shimmering choral vocoders. It’s (even) less pop-influenced than earlier works of Dalt’s (Commotus, for example). In its latter half, it sometimes errs into a backgroundish quality, disappearing into its own subtlety

In Rebound, Friedberger meets mementos of happier times and opportunities for immediate joy with identical ease. And that is the promise, making her latest album an intriguing open door from an artist who continues to grow in all possible ways.

Caer is a magnificent oasis of feeling and reflection, where self-doubt, confidence, love, and lust live so comfortably alongside one another.

If Snares is complexity incarnate, Lanois is distilled modesty. These are strengths that are realized individually but create discord in tandem. Their pairing is like eating apple pie topped with cheddar cheese: some are sure to find enjoyment in the combination, but for the rest of us, these pairings are best avoided.

A Girl Cried Red replaces Nokia’s NYC authenticity for her inauthentic take on a genre that struggles to maintain itself.

Words behave like beats on this record, raising the question: what isn’t a beat? Drops pervade the tracks. Is every beat a drop? Every drop’s a bounty, certainly.

In contrast to 2014’s colossal Ruins, Grid of Points feels relatively slight, though it remains incredibly spacious.

For an album so complex--one that’s simultaneously funny and fearless--it has an uncanny way of simplifying things

At least Sleep are honest about their decision and are committed to seeing it through to its heavy, bong-rippin’ end. And by that standard, they’ve created another masterpiece.

Underneath Lil Xan’s disengaged delivery, TOTAL XANARCHY ends up slogging through his sketches of abandonment, addiction, and, conversely, fame and success, with total listlessness.

Dimensional People wants to be a major rap album, complete with cameos stacked way high, all epic and prodigal. But it’s just not all there.

Ephorize is cupcakKe’s most polished statement both sonically and conceptually.

Freedom is not a “challenging” listen, but choruses or hummable melodies are few; rather, the album progresses at a loping, steady pace, as if somehow delivered by natural rhythm.

Like an imagined conversation set before the waves, Still Trippin’ folds and unfolds. It is still unsettled, in me and out.

The album’s pervasive sameness hinders sustained interest.

Long’s trax are emotionally at a remove from the soulful sirens who are sometimes associated with deep house--that tension between joyful celebration and a modern-day blues, between major and minor keys.

All At Once suggests, in both form and content, that the human tragedies we keep dipping into can be healed by listening. Its you’s and I’s relate to each other, struggle toward dialogue. Even in rankled romance, listening is vital, probably even more so. The songs and styles wheel freely, matching their subjects.

New Material works as an excellent signpost of where the group has been and where it’s headed.

While How to Socialise isn’t the most musically adventurous album, its moments of humanity are what give the band its subtle edge.

There’s a Riot Going On’s theory doesn’t quite match up to its execution, and its parts are greater than the whole. So, is it more beautiful, or is it more boring? The problem is that it’s often too difficult to tell the difference.

The first time I listened to Now Only, it was raining and I cried for 10 minutes; after it ended, like a body after an exorcism, I felt lighter.

What a Time to Be Alive, the yawp and the yeah and the yowl, is the perfect thesis and pinched nail. It’s the resolution to remain unhampered by despair while excising and atomizing all the moments we have to despair in.

Le Kov is not as cold as Y Dydd Olaf (which was based on a decades-old Welsh sci fi novel)--it’s less machinic and more organic, less 80s and more 70s. As such, it wavers a little, particularly in its second half, where the feel is a little too warmly indistinct, too hazy.

Caveats aside, All Nerve is a fresh reminder that Kim Deal is still a fount of inspiration and should keep it going, be it with The Breeders or otherwise.