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POP/ROCK

Tame Impala, "The Slow Rush" (Interscope)

"The Slow Rush" is preoccupied with the passage of time, so it's appropriate that the fourth album by Australian pop auteur Kevin Parker has arrived a year late.

On 2010's "Innerspeaker" and 2012's "Lonerism," this one-man band came on like an acid-tested '60s throwback, seeking stoner bliss. He's since evolved as a master pop craftsman. "The Slow Rush" at first seems like a lighter than air mood piece. Repeated listening, however, reveals angst lurking beneath the Day-Glo rock, disco and house music surface. "Posthumous Forgiveness" considers things left unsaid in his relationship with his late father.

Dan Deluca, Philadelphia Inquirer

Grimes, "Miss Anthropocene" (4AD)

Grimes finds herself by losing herself: in concepts and characters and costumes, in surreally larger-than-life music, in overarching ideas and omens of apocalypse. Grimes, 31, is Canadian songwriter Claire Boucher, a one-woman studio band. She was also a fashion adventurer and a fount of social media content long before Tesla mogul Elon Musk became her boyfriend.

Grimes emerged from the arty side of electronic pop. Since 2012's "Visions," she has operated in increasingly polished pop song forms packed with subtext. Her verses and choruses are neatly delineated and laced with hooks, though her concerns are rarely straightforward. Her voice is usually high and piping.

"Art Angels," her 2015 album, was giddy with possibilities, juggling thoughts about art, fame, gender roles and cultural impact. Her fifth full-length is more somber, full of dire scenarios, deep bass abysses and floating soprano refrains.

A sense of impending doom fills most of the album. Grimes doesn't make her songs depend on the words. The nervous energy, dread, anxiety, death wish and poppy nihilism are also in the sound of her music. Throughout the album, personal and societal disasters seem imminent.

Jon Pareles, New York Times

new releases

• James Taylor, "American Standard"

• Soccer Mommy, "Color Theory"