Dumb Flesh is a vast leap forward for Power's solo career, which peels back flesh from bone to reveal a throbbing, palpitating polyrhythmic masterpiece.
Abyss, like any Wolfe album, is a vast and immersive sonic universe, and her deepest and most personal yet.
All Around Us is a worldly, global, and harmonious 43 minutes. Marela's fascination lies with sound manipulation and digital music creation tools, techniques (like vocal looping) she employs throughout the album to deepen her already full sound.
It's difficult, ambitious, and very diverse. And while it's fun to see such a promising band trying to make big leaps, Foil Deer only succeeds when Sadie Dupuis and company stick to their roots.
This feels like little more than a competent game of catch-up for three years away, with Purity Ring now following in the footsteps of others, in a genre where they once led the pack.
With Boxed In, Bayston comes as close as anyone in creating cerebral dance pop that works for the non-EDM dance music enthusiast as much as the experimental electronic rock enthusiast.
While some tracks just aren't that interesting ... Savage Hills Ballroom has highlights worth celebrating. Three albums in, Youth Lagoon will likely remain as lauded as before.
One of the rare new acts with a truly original sound.
Fresh Blood is a much more consistent album than its predecessor. But with it, White has lost some of the sparkle that makes him so compelling. It's a balance he needs to put right.
The songs on The Agent Intellect are fuller, longer, and more meaningful.
Empress Of tackles heartbreak and passion through a refreshingly feminist lens. Girl power never sounded so good.
Are You Alone? extends some of the same sounds of Magical Cloudz's debut album, Impersonator, but the music seems stretched and more expansive.
For long-term admirers, it’s standard Watson fare; a series of bucolic, slow-winding country-tinted melodies led by his majestic falsetto swoop.
La Vie Est Belle / Life Is Beautiful, sees him scoop handfuls of intricate synth and bright horns, spread his fingers wide, and spill them through the gaps like sand in an hourglass.
That's the cloud Poison Season is under-it's not bad, and it certainly has its moments. But on the heels of Kaputt, it can be a frustrating, uneven listen.
Ad Infinitum is perhaps Telekinesis' most experimental album to date, but it never gives up on the heartfelt soul that we've come to expect.
The music on Summertime '06, Staples' debut, is uniformly great, with spare, booming beats allowing Staples' sneakily technical rhymes to dart in and out of the rhythm. It's a vital entry from a burgeoning new star.
Escape From Evil is the most direct, and accessible album Lower Dens have yet made, augmenting their more experimental, Krautrock predilections with the buoyancy of brighter melodies while crafting nuanced, humanist pleas for compassion.
The Las Vegas native's debut LP is a luminously cool engineering of synths and beats that will no doubt furnish the dancefloors of hipster hangouts across the globe.
The Magic Whip is far from perfect and it's far from the best album by a band whose greatest strength I've always considered to be their hits. It has to count as a success though, because Blur sound like a band from 2015 rather than 1995.
It's an easy record to listen to all the way through, front to back, which is a rare thing. It's a very good Beirut album, but the hope remains that Condon has at least one great one in him.
Jackrabbit isn't as smooth as its older brother: it's a heavier record, and demands more from the listener.