It’s a bunch of sad songs which make you feel good to be alive. Can’t go wrong with that.

Though occasionally wallowing, there’s a self-assuredness here, a comfort in one’s skin, that’s refreshing, and relieving, given how close to the edge this ship has teetered over the years. As entertainment via soundwaves, it occasionally sags-lags-drags, but for a thoughtful tome on patient self-betterment, you couldn’t ask for much more.

All told, this is an album which will almost certainly be enjoyable if you like kinda hazy, kinda ethereal, kinda catchy indie/alt thingamajigs, but it’s also an album desperately lacking the hint of an edge which would give the total product further potency. Even so, it’s a solid comeback from another crew of aging shoegazers, just don’t set your expectations too high.

It's hard to be overly harsh on the band for getting too hung up on a good thing, even if there's a missing something holding Cartwheel back from knockout excellence. Get your twelve-year-old into it; be your own twelve-year-old to it; ravage yourself on caffeine with it.

Picture Perfect's silver lining comes in that it is, at the end of the day, a perfectly serviceable pop record replete with euphoric headrushes and the occasional tenacious earworm ("Impossible").

Poppy seems to be restrained here – as if something is holding her back from embracing her typically wild and unconventional whims. Next time, I hope she grabs that sword and cuts herself free of whatever led to this.

Some tracks make notable improvements – a subtle lift on "This Love"'s gorgeous arrangement boosts one of Swift's most forgettable ballads to a late tracklist highlight, while the new version of "Clean" emphasises producer Imogen Heap's vocal offerings so resplendently that it's a crime she doesn't receive a feature credit – yet others are misplaced in their adjustments.

The result is something to be proud of, establishing Omori as a welcome presence in the ambient landscape.

Spike Field does an impressive job of reflecting upon Maria BC’s recent musical endeavors while also advancing their sound.

The sheer joy of hearing the guitarist back and fully committed to blink, giving his all to the style of music that was his first love, is more than worth the price of admission here. Kicked off by the "Always"-nodding synthpop "Blink Wave", Hoppus takes the reins for a more experimental back half where the album really comes to life.

This isn’t an album to convert the naysayers, but for the already initiated, prepare yourself to once more sing with your heroes, 33 rounds per minute.

Every line tends to ring out with a sense of unparalleled, down-to-earth beauty. It's melancholic and often mournful, but thanks to Hansard's ability to spin even the most daunting situations as an opportunity to rise to the challenge, his music has also never sounded this full of both life and meaning.

For the average Goat acolyte, I would say that Medicine successfully takes the band forward, with balanced experimentation and enough psychedelia to make you have an outer body experience while you do the dishes.

Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist along with Mike and Vince Staples (on occasion) make an album that is like sap. it leaks, percolates into gaps: the gap between consciousness and subconscious, night/day, joie de vive/joie de ***-it-all (i don't know the french term for this feeling).

I doubt anyone will be in a hurry to file this as either the weakest or the strongest Blonde Redhead record, but it might just be the most traditionally pleasant experience they've put their name to.

Its strongest moments don’t quite stand with the best that The Menzingers discography has to offer, but they’re well worth a listener’s time and showcase the group’s inherent songwriting prowess. What’s sad is to see a band now nearly 20 years into the career suddenly desiring to be entirely different, independent of the type of music they are writing and releasing.

All in all, these more "experimental" tracks had some very pleasant surprises, with "Golden" including sax leads and Clementine singing in a whispery register that falls outside of her usual belting.

It’s another worthy addition to a burgeoning discography. It’s a wonderful feeling when an old favorite is still in a groove and pumping out quality music after so many years.

This bare regurgitation of conflicting sounds is what hurts The Above the most, presenting as a (not so) greatest hits compilation from purgatory. It feels cobbled together, without care for global coherence nor the refined execution of any one sound, instead counting on the excitement of variety and disjunction to make up for its less considered, less interesting content.

Sticking to the slowlane and sanding down jagged edges has done wonders, giving VOID much more space to breathe, its dripping atmosphere thereby safeguarded, and preserved yet further by excellent pacing and pristine production.

While not without its songwriting inconsistencies, The Enduring Spirit has the supreme merit of forging ahead and exploring new prog(ish) territory, unafraid to take risks or sow distrust and confusion among the more conservative fanbase.

Occasionally, it becomes exhausting, making it hard to finish listening V in one go. Nevertheless, when it clicks, it definitely sparks joy.

Ctrl is a Facebook-photo album of opinions and behaviours that probably shouldn’t be broadcasted online. It’s also an assembly of tracks that prevail as mantras of self-affirmation, and it balances the two sides of its character with an awareness that feels like an accident, though it's welcomed all the same. But even if we disregard what it all means, these tracks are still jams, tunes, or any other blasé term people attach to music that you can throw away your dignity to.

Angel Face deserves some credit for possessing a small handful of excellent singles, but outside of those, this album falters almost uniformly. I can see what Stephen Sanchez was going for conceptually and aesthetically – and admittedly, I even fell for it based off the strength of the singles. However, the additional eight songs add no value at best and more often than not kill whatever buzz that was generated by the likes of "Only Girl", "Evangeline", "Be More", and "Until I Found You".

The band (and mix) sounds healthy and reinvigorated, the tracklist covers a fair range of sounds, and at the end of the day, it's still every inch a Baroness album.

The record showcases their most cohesive and potentially most versatile stylistic palette to date. Returning fans will find the likes of “softscars”, “ghosts” and “bloodbunny” full of familiar glitchy flourishes, and “inferno” within a stone’s throw of Serotonin II’s understated reveries, but there’s a much more ‘physical’ presence to the music here.

This record is definitely a step in the right direction and has some of their most refined and exciting tunes to date. It doesn’t dethrone shutdown.exe, but its ambitions and consistency make it an excellent entry, with fans sure to lap it up.

Nas sounds as energized as ever in his current era and he’s dealing some serious bars across the 15 tracks composing Magic 3. At the same time, it sounds as if the Hit-Boy partnership is finally losing steam--something evident in a record that is stretched thin (cough 15 tracks) and inconsistent, capable of reaching commendable heights and consequently worrying depths.