The record’s second half is a different sort of foggy, due to a baffling bit of sequencing where the miniature songs “Beagle in the Cloud” and “Adorable” alternate with the instrumental interludes “Darmok” and “Bull of Heaven.” Taken all together, the passage drags, and it’s hard not to think these songs would be better served as buffers between some of the longer tracks on the album. However, the pirouetting arpeggios that introduce “Obsidian Lizard” immediately correct course.

It is the most hungry and explosive Scott has ever sounded, blowing her style into a magical fantasia of instrumental bombast and delirious joy.

While lacking the consistency and pure inspiration of Strange Desire, easily among the finest albums of its decade, Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night exceeds the value of its predecessor Gone Now.

Stand For Myself hangs together more cohesively than Walk Through Fire, feeling more urgent and existing upon a grander scale than its predecessor.

Even though Animal has some second-half fits and starts, the album’s opening salvo and last half highlights place the album squarely in the running for year-end best of lists.

Banned’s air of experimentation mixed with the artists’ ardent eccentricities fails to materialize into much worth noting.

All in all, this is an absolute treat for old fans or those who just love this style.

Jackson Browne is one of the boldest talents in American music, his first four albums standing as understated classics. Downhill from Everywhere, however, fails to recreate that magic, although the first three tracks come close. Browne is an intelligent artist with valid thoughts and concerns to address, but Downhill from Everywhere does not serve as a strong vehicle for such statements.

On first listen, Gold-Diggers Sound may pass you by like Bridges’ lane changing motorbike and could even be mistaken for being on the slighter side. But it’s the “quiet storm” power of keeping things hovering just above neutral that gives the album its after hours glow and silky appeal.

Throughout the record, Cottrill yearns for a home, a place of final peace and belonging. As Sling unfurls each new intimate detail, the album freely offers that same welcoming refuge to any who desire it, inviting each listener into the world of Clairo’s quiet reprieve.

Hologram ticks all the right boxes and then some, once again proving that A Place to Bury Strangers are way ahead of the field when it comes to creating experimental noise rock.

It just may not be an album for beginners, or for those not patient enough to enjoy its subtle rewards.

Though their “of the forest” mythology and semi-anonymous countenances may be growing as thin as a birch bark canoe, the group’s dance floor rhythms and ever-escalating sense of urgency keep things ably afloat on Forest of Your Problems.

It comes as a comfort that life-long friends are still making music together and Treasure of Love finds them in fine fettle.

After 30 years in the game, No Gods No Masters demonstrates Garbage still have plenty to say. And they do so with style, swagger, and verve.

A wonderfully danceable and euphoric piece of electro-pop that is destined to soundtrack many people’s summers.

Williams’ music once again excels in the small details. Texture and atmosphere rule her world more than earworm hooks. Outside of the moments of gnarled solos and the occasional scuzzy distortion, Williams invites your attention more than demands it. But when that attention is given, new depths to her songwriting reveal themselves.

The pairing is as gripping as it is vulnerable, bringing these characters to life in a way that feels real and authentic. Even if this is ultimately the only collaboration these two will share, their survey of familial pain and heartbreak is powerfully affecting and thoroughly human.

This is an album made by adults still concerned greatly with not just the plight of the world at large but also their own internal lives.

Sabotage is one of the more unique and interesting albums in the Black Sabbath catalog. ... The live show is interesting in its comprehensiveness and fleshes out the Sabotage experience. And while frontman Ozzy Osbourne is not always in top vocal form, there are standouts that are worth their weight in gold.

If starting the album with the melody of The Chordette’s “Mr. Sandman,” along with a later homage to Doris Day’s “Again” (here re-worked as “This Couldn’t Happen”), is intended to be campy, Berrin has too much talent to make it sound anything other than heartfelt. This is cemented fully in the string-laden showstopper, “Forever.”

Through the conviction in Kang’s voice—and the experimental nature of some of the choices in arrangement and production—otherwise sterile arrangements are given life and charm. A Color of the Sky may not light the world on fire, but it should ignite a warm spark in enough hearts to make it worthwhile.

While Preacher’s Sigh & Potion: The Lost Album isn’t a newfound direction per se, the album gives a new perspective on Dear’s two-decade career. ... His latest is proof that artists can always learn from their younger selves, to take their alternate histories and make them part of their present.

Webster’s decision to not stray too far from the magic of Atlanta Millionaire’s Club was a good move. There’s no one else quite like her out in the landscape and playing to that strength makes perfect sense. If anything, from its opening notes I Know I’m Funny haha puts Webster’s skills on fuller display. The grooves get groovier, the jams jammier, the tears saltier and, as advertised, the jokes are funnier than ever before.

The album is littered with a barrage of ghostly and reverb-laden foley effects, making it near impossible to not visualize the space in which her witchy, out-of-this-world performance would theoretically take place. This is Cabral’s show, and we’re all just spectators.

With the band’s first album in six years, Modest Mouse prove they have the staying power to remain atop the indie rock heap with their knack for harnessing a whimsical energy combined with tight little nuggets of sound and various fragments from diverse styles and genres to create something entirely different that is both exciting and fresh.

Home Video will appeal to Dacus’ existing fan base, but also holds the potential to bring hordes of new fans that will find themselves in the middle of a story not exactly their own.

From the slowly paced beauty of the penultimate track, “Rabbit,” to more openly country tunes like “Lonely Places,” Earth Trip is a joyful romp recorded in the quietest of days.