In the end, though, it is all but impossible not to come away from this album with a grin like Marshall Allen’s. The positive vibrations in the studio are evident, and the musicianship is, naturally, of the highest order (including Allen’s wailing alto).

Rolling Golden Holy is more comfortable and assured than its predecessor, but not as eerily evocative. If the self-titled was a twilight vista full of mist and longing, the follow-up ambles through sunny backroads. It has a bit more Johnson, a bit less Mitchell in its mix, though the two artists find intriguing common ground on multiple occasions.

The Beths took the path of being exactly who they’ve always been, but more intensely and immediately. Given the interruptions, they waste no time in getting going.

It’s a nice way to spend three-quarters of an hour, even if you don’t have much to say about it afterwards.

The majority of the first half finds Ejstes at his most melodically direct — including singles “Nattens Sista Strimma Ljus” and “Skövde” — while the second half indulges some questionable studio experimentation.

His songs flash by in vivid, disconnected mental images, floating on an underlying current of mood. What we see passes by. What we feel about it lingers, evocatively, just out of reach and often filtered through digital mechanisms. ... The album’s lyrics are about all kinds of things, but its sound is about being isolated and frightened with contact only through digital interface.

Orcutt builds musical structures layer by layer, part by part. These compositions are sometimes jaggedly ecstatic – “Or head on” for one, leaps and lurches with joy. As in any congregation, sometimes a delighted, discordant, untrained voice rises in volume above the rest.

In times of uncertainty, you might very well look to the music Anderson interprets—folk, blues, gospel—for reassurance. But the uneasiness works its way in, even to these lovely songs. Anderson captures that conjunction of solitude and stress, of beauty in the moment and angst about what’s next, in a way that reflects very clearly on the last couple of years.

These songs have a dream-like, airy quality, despite the genuine rock fire power that Why Bonnie brings to the game.

You can hear the impact of the pandemic in this latest album from No Age, not in the recording, which sounds as assured as ever, but in the bouts of introspection, the intervals of lyricism, the sweet haze and jangle of home-cooked rock. Spunt and Randall went inward, not out into the world, to find a different way to sound.

The tunes tend to unfold at mid-tempo and with the logic of a short story as, once more, Jones composes and performs, with seeming effortlessness, a set of memorable melodies that reward repeated listening.

Despite its uneven presentation, Someday is Today is a beautiful, evocative record, whose charms invite and reward repeat listens.

These songs are direct, sometimes stripped down, but the components are robust, clear and smartly mixed. They sound like Osees.

As ever, he refuses to offer any easy answers, leaving the listener beguiled.

Success is a fine example of Oneida’s willingness to fly in the face of fashion and once again reinvent themselves.

Even the soccer dads and middle-management types might find themselves nodding along to lyrics like, “It’s losers all the way down, stay undefeated.” That’s from the album’s flat-out banger, “Wage Wars, Get Rich, Die Handsome,” a sing-along celebration of nihilism that pounds and punches and exults in itself.

Though the album is closed out well enough by the droning “Atomkerne,” it’s “Be a Pattern for the World” that leaves a lasting impression.

Every sound is thrown like a punch, rocking you back with sheer bludgeoning impact. The sound is instantly familiar, though surprisingly hard to pin down with punk antecedents.

It’s an eccentric mechanical universe that Kamikaze Palm Tree has constructed and well worth visiting.

Everything Was Beautiful isn’t some showy highlight reel, though; it’s an example of how keenly Pierce has honed his inner space rock and how much room it still has left to soar.

Kode9 fans will enjoy club ready tracks like “Uncoil” and “Lagrange Point” and as with his previous work, the mastery of dynamics and the production values are to rights but there’s a sense the music cannot carry the weight of its associations alone.

The music sometimes meanders as perspectives shift and but Barbieri’s juxtapositions of church and club in which transcendence through music can be both a public and intensely personal experience is never less than transporting.

The interaction between machines and the power and tone of branch’s trumpet is the core here and the duo play off each other with unerring control and infectious joy.

Such clear chemistry and inspired interplay will hopefully lead to future releases in the same vein. Anyone with a penchant for classic-sounding ambient electronica with a kosmische bent will find plenty to nod along to here.

A graceful, thoughtful, utterly modest triumph, wrapping its twisty modal melodies in layers of fuzz and convening a junk shop orchestra of synths, drums, keyboards and, occasionally, harpsichord to fill out their fragile contours. Like all good pop, the songs have an emotional ambiguity.

Arkhon is a distinctive and consistently winning album. It is a departure, but one that still manages to be an addition to Danilova’s catalogue that complements her other releases. Some of the best singles of 2022 reside here.

If the Sadies had set out to make a final statement—and let’s be clear, they did not—they could hardly have done better than Colder Streams, a swirling, trippy summation of their journey so far. ... The whole album is great.

It’s remarkable, throughout, how well Purim has held up, as a singer, as a jazz composer and band leader and as an artist. You wouldn’t know, from listening, whether she was 80 or 60 or 20. The songs are vital, pulsing with bright energy, imbued with a lifetime’s skill but effervescent. Not many women got to play as pivotal a role in jazz as Purim did. This retrospective makes the case for her importance without getting bogged down in it.