Rife with moments of artfully sustained anticipation, Orchestras is one of Frisell's most accessible and virtuosic recordings.

It's an active, engaging album from an artist whose travels ultimately brought her more knowledge of herself.

A Sober Conversation is that rarity, a top-shelf pop album that also has something important to tell us.

The songs bleed together in a way that invites the record to be listened to from front to back, with Open Mike Eagle's existential metaphors and semi-abstract flows melting into an interconnected statement best experienced in its totality.

The two lengthy "Sparrow" pieces in the middle of the album are patient meditations that break away from the busier pace of the "Evensong"s. .... The fourth and final part of "Evensong" is earthy and joyous, sounding like a roomful of musicians dancing together and celebrating life, though it appears to be created by a multi-tracked Ellis alone. Ellis' work is perpetually filled with hope, always finding a way through.

Lydia Loveless' Indestructible Machine possesses a classicist's grip of country, a rock & roll sense of swagger, and the keen eye of a songwriter twice her age.

A lush and finely rendered follow-up to her Grammy-winning breakthrough album, 2023's Bewitched.

There's no mistaking the more personal vibe here, and on the whole Silent Hour/Golden Mile offers proof that Rossen's songs can stand proudly on their own.

This short house-rap blast bottles all that "cool list" excitement into a sharp set, so jack your body and get your freak on because you're in her hut now.

The album is sometimes languid, often jittery and beaming, but mostly an almost subconsciously storytelling collection of moments that would be boring and forgettable if they weren't captured in songs so accidentally perfect.

The match of songs and sounds on Singing Saw delivers on all the promise of his earlier records, while firmly establishing Morby as one of the best singer/songwriters going.

Throughout, the star of the debut remains Kirby's inviting voice and hummable melodies, and, at less than 30 minutes, Cool Dry Place will leave many fans of the singer/songwriter tradition eager for more.

Although Wings are augmented by an orchestra on occasion, One Hand Clapping feels rough, free, and immediate, lacking the polish that gave Wings Over America its sheen. The loose feel isn't limited to the performances themselves. McCartney punctuates the rockers with vaudevillian throwaways, alternating between classics like "Baby Face" and originals like "I'll Give You a Ring," not so much concentrating on smooth transitions as indulging his every whim.

Electric Dirt sounds fresh, emphatic, and as effective as anything Levon has cut since the mid-'70s, and one can only hope he has a few more discs in him just this good.

Walker may tip his hat to Chicago's experimental underground or prog behemoths like Genesis, but with this release, he's very much his own man.

This is rock music at it's most exciting and meaningful from a band that's doing their level best to keep the form alive and thriving.

It should not take the seasoned listener too long to grasp that Serena Maneesh transcend the narrow boundaries of shoegaze.

Kelly and the Cairo Gang may have started out plying a quirky, inward-looking brand of folk; now they are the brightest, shimmery-est, most impressive folk-rock revivalists around and Goes Missing is as good as guitar pop gets in 2015.

This is elsewhere music one can feel eternally at home in, no matter your place of origin.

Before the Dawn is an album just as special as she is, a remarkable and expansive creative statement full of wonder and magic that rivals the best of her LPs.

While most of these songs are rife with anxiety and isolation, the open-hearted lyricism and wide-scoped productions, put together by an artist in peak form, make them immensely engrossing. Frank Ocean, Pharrell Williams, Kali Uchis, Syd, and Estelle are among 11 supporting cast members, not one of whom is inessential to the whole.

An absolutely crushing listen, and every bit as powerful as the previous three TTA albums.

It's a record where the sum is greater than the individual parts.

This is most easily recommended to casual fans and folks looking for an introduction to the group's music.

It's the way they bring their pop skills to the fore that makes The Great Pretenders solid evidence that Mini Mansions should be as well-known as the company they keep.

His sweetness and melancholy are as palpable in the composition as they are in the performance and, ultimately, that's why the live-in-the-studio recording of Out of Silence cannot be dismissed as a stunt: such a simple, yet kinetic, production is the only way to do justice to songs are rich as these.

Tantabara puts on an ever fiercer show than its two predecessors, its wild polyrhythmic grooves and ebullient group vocals lending an unyielding sense of vigor to every song.

Throughout their hour-long set, CCR sound ferocious, tearing through their hardest material, playing "Born on the Bayou," "Green River," and "Bootleg" with a nasty edge. The hardness of their choogle is a bit of a revelation, as the band sound fiery in a way that they don't on any of the officially released Creedence live recordings.

The album creates beauty out of fear and uncertainty, and it's among Laura Veirs' most personal and satisfying works to date.

Razzmatazz is a masterful debut, one that shows promise for a pair of musicians who proudly wear their influences on their sleeves.

Impera is the most unabashed exercise in exultant pop/rock sheen Ghost has issued to date; it establishes an exquisite front in their own quest for global rock domination.

London Brew is wonderfully eclectic, strange and beautifully realized. In keeping with its inspiration source, it's a vanguard electric jazz album, abundant in communication, immediacy and imagination.

Afro Futuristic Dreams sums up Ackamoor's career and leaps forward, exploring myriad traditions, styles, and harmonic and rhythmic combinations that further musical conversations to an as-yet-unseen creative horizon.

At the center of all this are Nascimento and Spalding, whose smiling interplay helps make Milton + Esperanza feel like both a capstone to a monumental career and continuation of a musical legacy.

Tindersticks sound like they are fully invested here and anyone still listening will be glad of that, as will anyone just checking them out for the first time. They are a band with a catalog worth getting lost in and Soft Tissue stands as one of their finest moments.

This is not just ecstatic music, but cosmic soul music. If you buy one archival recording this year, let this be it.

Love's Crushing Diamond is a title that captures the hope and hardship in these songs, and the album's kindness and calmness make it the musical embodiment of a friend whose shoulder is ready to cry on at a moment's notice.

As a major development from Duffy's early, solitary bedroom recordings, it might be reasonable to expect a bit less of that meticulous complexity here, but they manage to retain that sensibility and arguably bring it to new levels by including the participation of instrumentalists like Blake Mills; Daniel Aged (Frank Ocean, FKA twigs); Tim Carr (Perfume Genius); and Gregory Uhlmann, Josh Johnson, and Anna Butterss from the improvisatory supergroup SML.

Smart, melodic, catchy songs that not only have strong, wonderful structures, but are graced with inventive, clever arrangements.

The album's long-delayed release only makes its joyous sound that much more refreshing; its inviting mix of gentle and fuzzy guitars and Kozelek's empathetic vocals make it the Painters' most hopeful, accessible work.

This album just may signal the beginning of an exciting new era in rock music.

Moby shows himself back in the groove after a long hiatus, balancing his sublime early sound with the breakbeat techno evolution of the '90s.

The most challenging work of Björk's career.

While Spalding never sounds anything less than original on the album, part of the beauty here is in recognizing her inspirations and reveling in how she has made them her own.

A sense of nearly parental patience and understanding flows throughout, reflecting some of the maturation and new feelings Teebs was living through while making Anicca. It's another excellent slice of the producer's developing language, one that manages to be mellow without fading into the background.

Much like the natural world it describes, Complete Mountain Almanac is a deeply nuanced record of layers and unseen details that only reveal themselves with time.

Like the best of Bonnie "Prince" Billy's work that came before it, Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You is the kind of record that gets played over and over until it feels like a part of the listener's personal history.

An album that feels age-appropriate without being stodgy: it's mature and nuanced, cherishing the connections that once were taken for granted but now seem precious.

A worthy follow-up to Ignorance and an accomplished work in its own right, How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars makes the most of Lindeman's softly insightful powers.

Apollo Kids feels just the slightest bit unfinished.

Cancer4Cure is about hip-hop like Glengarry Glen Ross was about sales, but these great works transcend their industries, offering solace and inspiration to anyone who would prefer a satisfied mind over a Cadillac Eldorado, or in current terms, an Escalade.

What's really impressive, though, isn't that the band can do spacious or aggressive or psychedelic, it's that they can somehow find a way to cram it all into one album and make it work without feeling muddled or diminished in any way.

Divided & United is vital listening for anyone interested in the history of pop music or the United States, and it satisfies as both education and entertainment.

This may be Cline's quietest recording, but it is one of his finest.

Though it's more than a little contrary that their first album on their own label is more melodic and emotionally immediate than their work for Rough Trade, it's one of many moves on Eton Alive that are pure Sleaford Mods.

There are a few moments on the album where the drums sound a little cluttered or it isn't quite clear what direction a song is going in, although perhaps that's to be expected for music meant to be this dreamlike--it's not always supposed to make perfectly logical sense. Regardless, the album is a delightful trip from an unmistakably original artist.

Splid (which translates to "Discord") commences with a slow-building storm of distortion that gradually reveals a blazing, punk-metal core festooned with Iron Maiden-worthy guitarmonies.

As crucial as any of Muldrow's better-known creations, this proves that Jyoti is more than a side project.

Forgotten Days is the album that will likely unite all Pallbearer fans. Its return-to-roots aesthetic is planted in a physical base that carries the band's dark, progressive doom into a new era.

Even at its most experimental, Vynehall's music radiates with energy and spirit, and Rare, Forever brims with a different type of excitement than his past work.

As a songbook, it's excellent, but it's equally effective as an album, as the trio harmonize and pick guitar with an emotional immediacy that gives The Marfa Tapes a warm, resonant immediacy.

The quiet intensity, supernatural control, and disquieting character of his singing are all in full focus, adding mystery and longing to even the most benign lyric and making the highlights of Midnight Rocker rank among his best work.

Like so much of Cooper's work, these songs present raw depictions of hope at odds with sadness, only this time underscored with a palpable concern about how quickly the future is arriving and how little control human beings might have over it.

Archangel Hill documents a singular artist with a tremendous command of her gifts – no small accomplishment for someone who was 87 years of age when this was released.

Something to Give Each Other succeeds because Sivan has been freed: to be who he wants to be and express that through his most engaging and addictive album to date.

The preponderance of previous Ziggy Stardust reissues and Bowie at the Beeb collections does rob this set of some of its surprise because so much of this music has been in circulation. That said, this set does indeed contain some excavated rarities, highlighted by "So Long 60s" -- Bowie would rewrite this folky number into the bracingly modernist "Moonage Daydream" -- and two unheard songs from the album's early days.

An even more clearly defined rendering of the group's sound.

[The] Last Will and Testament is among Opeth's most adventurous and sophisticated outings. Like a cross between Watershed and In Cauda Venenum, it's heavier and more adventurous than either while bringing the band's past, present, and future under a single creative umbrella.

Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation stands with Edwyn's best work.

Into Oblivion lives up to its name by confronting the void with a cleansing blast of sonic malevolence.

This Is Happening doesn’t quite reach the monumental heights of Sound of Silver, but it serves as a almost-there companion and further proof that LCD Soundsystem is one of the most exciting and interesting bands around in the 2000s.

Where previous outings like This Night and Streethawk: A Seduction mined the '70s for inspiration, 2011's Kaputt utilizes '80s sophisti-pop, New Romantic, Northern soul, and straight-up adult contemporary to deliver a flawed but fascinating record.

Donuts just might be the one release that best reflects his personality.

It's art with a beat, noise with hooks, and more proof that No Age are one of the great slept-on bands of their generation.

If that album [7] expanded the idea of what Beach House could sound like, then Once Twice Melody fills in that idea with colors both familiar and new.

Look for Your Mind! is a relatively more romping set of Lemon Twigs songs, but the performances remain airtight and the song construction is as intricate and involved as any of their previous work, keeping them one of the most intelligent and infallible bands making power pop in the 2020s.

Kim Shattuck loved rock & roll and was too grateful to her muse to take it for granted, and No Holiday is a joyous if bittersweet testament to her spirit and her gift.

While its stylistic hallmarks are undeniably part of the band's musical signature, here they pay homage to the past while simultaneously reflecting the tense uncertainty of the present and future, directly and consistently, making No the band's strongest, most visionary outing since Pink.

A meeting of the minds that will satisfy and excite fans of either or both artists, Colours of Air is a testament to Morgan and English's artistry that grows richer with each listen.

In Waves sounds like the music Jamie xx needed to make at this point in his career -- its love letter to the communal healing power of dance music is often more purposeful, and more satisfying, than his instant-classic debut.

Humanhood finds Lindeman in the middle of the mysterious, sacred process of returning to herself, and while the album may not offer many answers, its rare honesty, eloquence, and compassion make it another triumph for the Weather Station.

Altogether, The Hex is a complicated record of a period fraught with loss and psychic struggle for Swift, and its beautiful, twisted lyricism and memorably stylized sound rise to the occasion.

It's an act they've being pulling off for a long time and it still doesn't sound at all tired. It helps that Murphy wrote a fine bunch of songs, from the rambunctious ("tonite") to the poignant ("oh baby") to tracks that rage like Gang of Four at their best ("emotional haircut").

Ultimately, A Celebration of Endings fits with Biffy Clyro's long-standing knack for combining stadium-sized rock uplift with an undercurrent of wry post-punk thrills.

Ultimately, No! is one of the group's most creative albums in years, and undoubtedly one of 2002's best children's releases, because it says yes to fun and individuality.

If you've been looking for someone to merge the huge sound of melodic hardcore with a strong dose of narrative depth, search no further.

Sounding both effortless and intricately composed at once, PRhyme is an instant classic, and one that sounds better and better as repeated listenings reveal more of the details hiding behind the album's deceptively straightforward approach.

The record captures Dwyer and the group at their peak powers, and while maybe it's not as good as seeing the band on-stage, where Dwyer's gleefully wild antics take it right to the edge of being a spectacle, it's pretty spectacular.

Here and throughout Before the Applause, Re-TROS sound fully in command of their sound, and fans of Liars, Battles, Factory Floor, and Public Image Ltd will almost certainly get--and love--where they're coming from.

As inward-looking as her particular brand of overcast indie rock can be, she possesses a relatability and a knack for crafting delicious earworms that render even the most painful admission or rumination a small joy to ingest, evoking the wry vulnerability of Phoebe Bridgers and the hooky pop acumen of Lucy Dacus.

Moving slowly but deliberately, the Delines dwell upon the lingering, lasting melancholy of bad decisions and bad timing, creating an album ideal for the twilight moments when revisiting an old heartbreak proves to be irresistible.

Lands somewhere between the widescreen dynamics of their Mercury Prize-short-listed debut, the workmanlike grandiosity of Seldom Seen Kid, and the aching melancholy of The Take Off and Landing of Everything.

The result is that Sadness Sets me Free is both uplifting and comforting at once. It's also just different enough from most of his other work that it feels fresh and exciting, providing more evidence that Rhys is one of the most interesting and satisfying singer/songwriters of any era.

Baldwin's words are woven into eight of the 17 tracks, whether sung by the pained if undaunted Justin Hicks on the rippling funk of "On the Mountain," or recited by Jamaican poet and activist Staceyann Chin on "Baldwin Manifesto I" and "Baldwin Manifesto II." The pieces that don't quote Baldwin are often equally charged, freighted with anguish.

Given that Sleigh Bells' sound is so big--and undeniably exciting-- songwriting falls lower on the band's list of priorities than taking all the dramatic moments from everyone's favorite songs and turning them into songs in their own right. That doesn't stop Treats from having a boldness, immediacy, and sense of fun that's missing from too much other music.

Blue Hearts is a cry of purifying anger in a dark time, and its heat produces a truly necessary light; it's one of the very best solo albums Mould has given us to date.

Whether or not Bop English will outshine the continued efforts of his main vehicle, White Denim, remains to be seen, but as far as debuts go, Constant Bop is first-rate.

While Silver Lake sounds like a Vic Chesnutt album through and through, it's also a better than average introduction to the man's work.