With twangy acoustic guitar and lap steel backed by darkwave synthscapes, Sterling Seperpent paints a picture of haunted desert plains, prodigal sons, and ill-fated lovers. Like a shadowy lone ranger, this album gallops off into a blood-red sunset, and we’re glad to be along for the ride.

Though history later subsumed this story as part of a worldwide movement towards market liberalization, artists like Gullibloon shout out from the back of the room, reminding us of the absurdity of a supposedly “socialist” party dismantling a nation’s welfare program.

Our result crosses the weightless, immobile chords and harmonies of Slint with the bebop impulse to fly across the track with extended improvised melodies that still manage to act as lead lines.

A decade since her last release, Marnie Stern returns to perfectly express the feeling of regression for the sake of progress in The Comeback Kid.

A strange, cathartic, and surprisingly relatable testament to the end of something great, A Time to Love, a Time to Die shares in our torrent of tears as we suffer through our reality of failed closure and disappointing conclusions.

Matmos pulls a variety of sounds for us, ranging from the benign, like a typical house doorbell, to the deeply disturbing, like the sound of the human voice after the larynx has been removed.

An eclectic mix of unidentifiable samples and industrial droning are layered together as peopling tames the chaos and sculpts the cacophony into melody.

Combining the emotionality of early aughts twee rock with the pissed off grit of modern punk has resulted in an actually engaging indie emo album, a feat I thought was no longer possible in the oversaturated indie rock sphere.

Created during the artist’s move across the globe, Describing the Thing by Shane Aspergen is an atmospheric ambient project that aims to decipher the indescribable with a focus on communication that transcends the sometimes limiting bounds of spoken word.

Matching a bedroom pop, folksy dream pop sound with lyrics absolutely dripping in melancholy and nostalgia, Catbells uses its acoustic guitars and reverb-laden vocals to hit an emotional vein located somewhere between Eliott Smith and Nico.

Dey struggles to court her avatar, propositioning this perfect being to fuse with her, which would tarnish the digital purity of the hero girl to allow Dey to reach an awkward, halfway self-actualization.

This vocal style, combined with the band’s reliance upon lo-fi synth instruments that almost calls back to the sound of Daniel Johnston, creates a homespun sound with endless charm and personality.

Appalachian-inspired folk metal is having its moment, and the new record Fall's Resplendence by Robes of Snow is one example of how atmospheric black metal and traditional Appalachian music are a perfect match made in the holler.

On Montreal-based mathy art punk band Nushu’s new self-titled record, the connection between mind and body inspires a sound that remains cerebrally intensive, despite each song making perfect intuitive sense subconsciously.

Driven by angular riffs and energetic percussion, this exemplary blackened hardcore project plays with tempo as it veers from speedy to sluggish and back again over a concise 10-minute run.

Existing somewhere between ambient pop, baroque pop, and art pop, this lush yet minimal album is a must-listen for fans of Kate Bush, Cocteau Twins, and Julee Cruise.

NYC experimental punk group Cronies candidly explores this struggle in their new release L1V3 S1CK0 L0V3 F3ST, a relentlessly high energy yet vulnerable noise punk project that toes the line between resistance and resignation.

In our humanist era, witnessing someone prostrate themselves so completely before God inspires emotions that many of us have never felt before. SAVED! By Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter will go down in history as one of the great religious testaments of our time.

Whether you come for the clicky, crunchy percussion and groovy post-funk sound, or for the quirky storytelling, 12 Shots of Nature demands attention from all of the senses.

With strong influences from Norwegian folk music, Mytevegar by Karl Seglem is a collection of progressive folk jazz that evokes these early customs through traditional instrumentation and spoken word.