The sturdiness of the craft and its faithfulness to Cast's body of work means Love Is the Call could indeed function as a handsome farewell, but it also suggests the band might have more plenty of road left ahead of them.

Grey's voice is sometimes treated in a way to further emphasize the urgent bulletin-like quality of the material, but otherwise, this crackles with spontaneity, and the band at times plays with nearly the same ferocity displayed on some of their 1980-1982 output.

Y’Y a singular meditation on ancestral history, environmental awareness and spiritual devotion, is wide ranging, complex, and in places, quite mysterious. It is also utterly compelling.

Wry, riveting, chaotic, and infectious throughout, Where's My Utopia? easily upstages what was an impressive debut.

The piece ["Interstellar"] is easily the album's lightest and most optimistic moment, as the rest can feel cold, ominous, and sometimes challenging. Still, the album's more mysterious aspects make it worth hearing.

Shah's most exciting collection yet.

"Get Numb to It!" is a late-arriving outright banger with headbanging drums, a soaring singalong chorus, and lyrics that include "do do, do do do" as well as an anthemic "No, it never gets better/It just gets twice as bad…So you better get numb to it/Get numb to it." The rest of WWBWWGFH is just as nihilistic, a potentially appealing trait given the global tenor of its time.

On Untame the Tiger, balance doesn't mean compromise; as Timony works her way through grief, she creates moving, memorable songs that fans of any point in her career can appreciate.

A remarkably assured set of bold-faced indie rock and maximalist goth pop teaming with earworm melodies, intelligent, darkly romantic lyrics, and thespian bluster.

There's an intimacy to the interaction between Lund and the Hurtin' Albertans that gives El Viejo a warm, weathered vibe that's every bit as appealing as the songs themselves.

The material occasionally slides backward, from subtle and reserved to nearly featureless, but it's as clever and almost as charming as Sensational.

Though the communion and self-awareness Sadier envisions seemed almost impossible at the time of Rooting for Love's release, that's precisely why the album feels so vital.

It's not a return to form, a return to pop, or really a return of any kind, just a continuation of the band's blissfully weird frames of mind and a record that includes some of their strongest songs in years.

Ross rounds out the session with two vibrant covers, including a shadowy, off-kilter take of Thelonious Monk's "Evidence" and a dewy, after-hours reading of the John Coltrane ballad "Central Park West." Those last songs nicely underscore the vibraphonist's thoughtful, entrancing distillation of blues and ballads at play throughout all of nublues.

The very pleasant surprise is that Nance and his bandmates -- guitarist James Schroeder, bassist Derrick Higgins, and drummer Kevin Donahue, with some extra guests sitting in -- slip into this music with an easy authority, more languid but no less emotionally engaged than his more raucous efforts, and the spare acoustic closer, "In Orlando," leaves no doubt that Nance can do heartache at 3 A.M. every bit as well as he can summon a wall of fuzzy mania.

Underneath the burnished surface, the album is every bit as vital as its predecessors, examining situations fraught with private and political pitfalls.

This is Real Estate at their best, giving us the same bright and bittersweet indie perfection as always, only better with age and experience.

A rather inoffensive listening experience, a middle ground that Idles have mostly been able to avoid until now.

The album is relatively streamlined and sleek, containing no guest appearances and showing no overt attempts at chasing trends.

Kanye has shown the world his unfiltered megalomania, heartbreak, self-obsession, self-contempt, and confusion, and even at its most ghastly, it's always been at least a little bit exciting or provocative. On Vultures 1, he struggles to show much of anything, crafting songs that are loud and shiny, but still largely blank.

A more playful, song-oriented set, if one where the lighter tone proves to be more than a little ironic.

Compassion is a hefty companion to Uneasy. Musically, it's deeper and wider. Their mature group invention is heightened by their playing together live. They bring a fresh, intensely interactive, seemingly time-elasticizing approach to the jazz piano trio that is at once bracingly kinetic, intimate, and lyrical.

More than just a bright spot in their career, Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs is a beacon of romantic punk defiance.

It all works well together sonically and conceptually, resulting in an album that is Itasca's most cohesive and mystical yet -- and that's saying something.

"Dig a Hole" has a big, funky swagger, "Be So Lucky" rides its chunky tremolo riff into the sunset, and "Other Side of the Light" is a sunkissed open-road anthem worthy of the Marshall Tucker Band. These tunes provide Be Right Here with a solid foundation to endure multiple plays, but it's immediately appealing upon first spin thanks to that burnished Cobb production.

The result is indie rock, and Omni, at their 100% best and most exhilarating.

If one is looking for the more adventurous and off-kilter band of their earlier days, steer clear. If it’s introspective, somewhat epic country rock balladry one desires, then Blu Wav might be just the thing. It's certainly the band's most focused record to date and if that seems a little unexciting, the emotional payoff will make it worthwhile in the end.

This isn't an acoustic album: it's a lean, nervy rock album that uses its mess and its contradictions to its own advantage.