To engage with the sprawling, twenty-eight-track behemoth that is Rellyo Bambini’s "Cloned & Upgraded, Insert Soul Here (Rebirth Edition)" is to willingly plug your neural pathways into a mainframe that is rapidly overheating. Most artists treat albums like curated dinner parties; Bambini has thrown a rave in a server farm where the dress code is 'Cyberpunk Baroque' and the appetizers are flavored like anxious...

Geoff Westen’s album, “Music For My Friends”, thumps onto the scene like a dropped box of heavy disco balls – all shiny potential energy and the slight threat of chaos. It aims for that classic pop song euphoria, the kind designed to rattle car speakers and fuel late-night dance floors, an "aural assault" as Westen puts it. And it does pulse with energy, a...