On Treasure House, Cat's Eyes' vision is more focused, creating a charming record worth repeated listens as you drift through the imaginary films in your mind.
Love You's sticky problem is the same one that plagues all but the Thriller/Purple Rain-iest of pop records, and it's that everything that comes between the hits sounds like filler in comparison.
With Will, Barwick has once again created something only she could. It's a remarkable achievement—in whatever genre she decides to embrace.
With many tracks played live in the studio with the Spacebomb crew, the result is a warm, inviting collection that showcases Slow Club's chemistry while drawing their strengths to the fore.
In the end, Fall Forever feels more like an exploratory step forward than a head-to-toe reinvention of the band; it will be even more interesting to see where they go from here.
The four write their songs collaboratively and share vocals; the collective approach to making music has resulted in an incredibly cohesive album with 10 tracks that flow naturally from one to the next for 41 minutes.
Post Pop Depression is very much a man trying to find the proper context for himself, his considerable legacy, and where his shape fits in the modern world, and perhaps sounding a little lost in the process.
Simply placing a fuller smile over their songwriting, Teleman have created a sharp, smart pop record that—if there's any justice in this world—should bring them the wider attention they merit.
The incorporation of frontman Scott Hutchison's verses of cagey lament and realization into Dessner's poignant pop arrangements feels contrived rather than meant to be.
There is a stout cohesiveness that gives Preoccupations a feeling of completion and resolute artistic confidence and its reverberations mount with close and repeated listens.
IV is a compelling rocker—and among the best of the larger Black Mountain Army collective's releases.
Summer 08 is Metronomy stripped back and as a result plays to frontman Joseph Mount's strengths.
Woods have never sounded more like a fully-functioning unit. Every single layer here swims together to create an unceasingly fluid song cycle of ebb-and-flow paranoia and pleasure.
Teenage Fanclub sounds positively content, and even tranquil. It's not the worst fate for a group of rock lifers, but it doesn't make for the most compelling listening.
Ten albums and more than 20 years into their career, Wilco are still making great music.
The album's charm is that it manages to deal with first-hand melancholy so eloquently and so affectingly without centering itself entirely around it. Bloom Forever, you can't help but feel, is Cohen's second record that will stick around for a very long time.
The things the band does right on this album make it worth checking out, but hopefully next time around Warpaint will be able to keep the songwriting as consistently great throughout as the beginning and ending songs.
Far from retro, Jet Plane and Oxbow lives up to its Back to the Future billing.
Blood Bitch is her latest attempt to marry up the pretty and the grotesque. An open exploration of menstruation, the record uses her ceramic intone to startling effect,
This is a terrific and ambitious mining of a rich creative world that returns with gold.
This is a debut record that focuses less on establishing identity and more on crafting its own picturesque little world. Light Upon the Lake hasn't a care in that world; it innocently rolls around some of the loveliest, sunniest country songs you're likely to hear all year.
As slick as this production is, the atmosphere on this record is sometimes hard to absorb beneath the constant rhythm, and the occasional moments when the music is allowed to slow down and breathe are refreshing.
They've glacially been building to this, one of the most inventive, adventurous, and best rock records of 2016.
The magic of The Hope Six Demolition Project is the glimmer of hope that in a war-torn, inequality-ridden, and ultimately unpleasant world, things might somehow change.
In an era of 9-12 track albums, The Colour in Anything comes in at 17 songs and the amount invites you to explore and absorb at random, offering moods and tempos beyond just the ruminative and forlorn.