Everything I Thought It Was brims with a misplaced confidence that can only be described as Timberlakean, laboring for such a long, long runtime under the misapprehension that a risk-averse mop bucket of last decade’s trending sounds is gonna hit through the sheer force of its performer’s waning charisma.

In tone and mood, Three is the opposite of Hebden’s stadium setlists. But within the carefully thought-out parameters of what makes a Four Tet record, he’s finding new, quieter ways to surprise.

This vulnerability World Wide Whack puts on display is truly affecting, but for a convention-busting artist as Whack, her directness feels strikingly ordinary.

Unfathomable sorrow and controlled fury give the album its shape.

Deeper Well is sympathetically fame-agnostic and focused on steadying Musgraves’ axis, but its emollient balms also aren’t particularly satisfying when you know what she’s capable of.

If you love Burial—particularly the maudlin turn of his work over the past decade—you’ll love the outsized pathos of “Boy Sent From Above” and the high drama of “Dreamfear.” If you feel like you’ve heard enough pasted-on vinyl crackle to last a lifetime, or aren’t particularly invested in the hagiography of rave music’s formative years, you probably won’t find anything new here.

Smith may have abandoned his trench-coat persona in favor of a more honest self-portrait, but the line between the authentic self and the larger-than-life character remains provocatively fuzzy.

Like John Coltrane, Freitas has learned how to approach his compositions with the same confident, wildly adventurous spirit he brings to his instrument. In doing so, he’s left behind some of the accessibility of his early records, but in its place, he’s forged something transcendent.

With Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom, Ubovich offers a resounding reaffirmation that psych-rock is forever, even if the escape it provides from our cruel world is ultimately temporary.

Drawing on a sumptuous palette of classic synth pop and leftfield electronic music, Pupul imbues his songs with personality and soul, unearthing complicated truths about his relationship to his heritage while finding welcome release on the dancefloor.

sunshine is a slightly scattered, but emotionally generous collection of music that cycles compassionately through the collapse of one relationship and into the hopeful beginning of another.

On Bleachers—especially on the singles-heavy first half—the band is simply playing for each other, much to the songs’ benefit.

The cacophonous, vexing, endlessly fascinating The Collective represents the experience of logging off and finding that your perception of the real world has been forever altered. Few are better equipped than Gordon—who, at 70, is still cooler, smarter, and more fearless than most—to guide us through.

As usual, the feeling of her vocals is more compelling than its literal meaning. These opening songs are strong enough. .... However, by the time we get to these songs towards the end of the album, the fatigue of listening to familiar riffs and howls starts to set in. Playing Favorites is at its best right in the middle.

Pissed Jeans haven’t overhauled their sound or reinvented themselves or “matured” as artists so much as they have amassed a new inventory of modern miseries to turn into scuzz-punk tantrums, from catalytic converter theft (“[Stolen] Catalytic Converter”) to crippling medical debt ("Sixty-Two Thousand Dollars in Debt").

This is a brutally loud album, its low end practically steroidal; downstrokes are accompanied by walloping thwacks, rendering the guitar a percussive instrument as much as a tonal one. Few records—certainly few records that take their cues from the heaviest strains of metal—can boast such a vast dynamic range.

As a listener, you pay attention not just to those steps but to the overtones that fill the air in between. Each chord is a burr of wonderment.

The album is spritely, frequently bright, as intensely melodic as Ex Hex’s triumphant Rips and more playful than a record this heartbroken probably should be.

Few MCs, on his label or elsewhere, are capable of firing in so many different directions and hitting this many targets at once without sounding out of their depth, but Q corrals the ups and downs of his lavish lifestyle into a deliriously entertaining joyride.

If you, like Webster, feel most at home in the warm glow of a band in the pocket of a groove, Underdressed at the Symphony delivers just under 40 minutes of gentle melodies and extended jams, a soft landing pad after the end of a romance.

I Got Heaven moves with an intuitive grace that makes it feel stadium-sized without losing its nuance or its grounding in the scene that birthed it. It’s easy to love, and it knows it.

There’s no disco excursion on Daniel—they already pulled off that trick on 2020’s The Main Thing—but it’s the cleanest and leanest album they’ve ever made.

I’d argue that 4L and Up 2 Më are bolder than anything here: Yeat’s older projects threw you into the deep end of his magma flows and fuzzy world-building and asked that you either get it or don’t. An album this safe and familiar will be great for packing out bigger concert venues but only makes his musical identity more nebulous.

The Past Is Still Alive’s fantastical yet sharply observed writing and revival of a more traditional sound feels like a homecoming.

Where we go from here isn’t just a throwback. It carries the spirit forward, reaffirming that indie rock, as a style and ethos, can still feel like the most exciting thing a young person could be into.

The songwriting is distinguished by its bite and brevity.

For all its finesse, it can obviously never replicate the futurism that defined its biggest inspirations; these classy reproductions only highlight the chasm between us and that halcyon moment.

It’s a fairly conventional set of club bangers done right: This is an alluring, nonchalant flex between albums that’s weird enough to drop in the hyperpop Discord, but satisfying enough to play at your next birthday party.