The casual, lived-in feel of American Love Song makes such political protests as "America" feel a little too blunt, but instead of being a flaw, its directness is a benefit, since it shines a light on how subtle and nimble the rest of this terrific record is.

Jennings and Carlile also direct Tucker toward a few outside covers, including the rousing "Hard Luck" and "The House That Built Me," a Tom Douglas & Allen Shamblin song popularized by Miranda Lambert, that add texture and deepen the emotional undercurrents flowing through the record. When combined with the Carlile/Hanseroth originals, these tunes paint a portrait of a mighty artist who has been through a lot but is fearless about the future.

Korn have always excelled at pain, but with The Nothing, this is the most authentic it's ever been.

Pilgrimage of the Soul is at once a sonic portrait of everything Mono has ever been, yet looks toward a future rife with possibilities as increased physical and sonic force are tempered by graceful subtlety, tense drama, and haunted lyricism.

Perspective displays how her music has evolved from its roots in club culture to the realm of contemporary composition, retaining such a distinctive sound that the boundaries crumble.

Song for song, this is some of Speedy Ortiz's best work yet.

With Open Your Heart, the Men achieve the elusive balance of growing their sound without diluting the intensity and attitude that made them great in the first place, weaving together their influences with fresh ears and a nuanced touch, making for one of the year's most satisfying listens.

Attack on Memory is another fine snapshot of a band that is growing and playing as fast as they can.

An uncommonly rich and moving album.

Punk without guitars has been done before -- everything has. Few have done it with the blend of skill, imagination, and flat-out commitment that Osees exhibit on SORCS 80.

While Yellowcard's songs still retain the youthful, emo-rock enthusiasm and catchy melodicism that marked the best of their earlier work, there is a weightiness and expansive gaze to many of the songs on Southern Air.

On The Violent Sleep of Reason, Meshuggah set out simply to capture the energy of their live shows in the studio. They accomplish that in spades, and reaffirm why they don't need to worry about innovation: their writing and playing accomplish that in their very nature.

The Goat is full of daring approaches, intense performances, and skillfully constructed songs. Its best tracks give a sense that Polo G, already a captivating talent, is capable of even greater things.

If you're a historically minded Lou Reed completist, Words & Music, May 1965 is a must. Others are advised to approach with caution and keep their expectations in check.

With its loping, relaxed grooves and patina of sweetened strings, $10 Cowboy could be mistaken for a product of FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, not an album originating from a small studio in Austin, Texas.

Some tracks are easier to digest than others, and the frenzied energy of much of the album might make Dan's Boogie a less-than-ideal starting point for new fans. Paradoxically, some moments here (in particular "Cataract Time") rank among the best work in his catalog.

For anyone expecting the cheeky fun of her 2000s gems, there's no mirth to be found here. It's purely righteous anger, biting sarcasm, and cutting barbs, all draped in pain and disappointment. The bloodletting is cathartic and unexpected, making this a surprising maturation that makes Allen as relatable as she's ever been.

Skeleton is one of the more interesting releases of the summer, and proves that Abe Vigoda are more than worthy of joining their peers in the spotlight.

For those willing to take this on its own terms, the payoff for listening is enormous.

The resulting Love's Last Chance does evince a more direct step on a surface level. Pacific rhythms with squiggling synthesizers and casually bobbing basslines course through it, with not one flashback to the wrought, jagged edges and stammering patterns of Early Riser. There's a nearly equal increase in the musician's stylistic agility.

Horse Lords make music for liberation, celebration, and revolution, and The Common Task is a prime example of their all-encompassing vision.

The different sounds and scenes add up to a rich, complex album, one where Lambert finds the perfect blend of the writerly The Weight of These Wings and the breeziness of Wildcard.

Highway Prayers is too long -- there is a fantastic 40-minute album in there -- but it's also a lot of fun, and it may take a young superstar like Strings to bend and stretch bluegrass enough to deliver it to the masses.

A stellar effort from both producers, Implosion pushes ambient dub to the limit.

Lavender Networks almost feels like a successor to Aphex Twin's Come to Daddy because of the way it juxtaposes surreal aggression with a softer, more sensitive side.

It's not always an easy listen, but These New Puritans have made a career out of challenging themselves and listeners, a worthy pursuit that they continue here.

King Gizzard's inventive sound, giant hooks, and hard-as-titanium playing make Nonagon Infinity not only their best album yet, but maybe the best psych-metal-jazz-prog album ever. That can be debated, but at the very least artists like the Flaming Lips, Ty Segall, and others who think they are doing something cool and weird should check it out and take a few notes.

Ferry had impossibly combined the hazy sheen of golden-era Hollywood glamour with a wry singer/songwriter sincerity and a wallop of good-time rock & roll. He brought all of this jazzy charisma to bear on this live concert date, offering a cross section of songs from these two solo productions.

While case/lang/veirs doesn't approach the greatness these women have managed on their own albums, it does offer more than a few beautiful moments they could not have achieved on their own. The result is a fascinating, rewarding experiment that deserves to be repeated.

Hearing Pearl reclaim her agency with an older, wiser, and hopefully more sustainable incarnation of Be Your Own Pet is a thrill for fans old and new.

More is classic Pulp, aged to near perfection.

A heavy album that doesn't pander to what's PC, what's on the radio, or what safe, suburban America believes.

On first glance, Gargoyle doesn't feel like an album full of surprises, but after the second or third spin, the fuller and bolder sound of the arrangements and production becomes clear, and it all serves Lanegan's talents in a way his last few Mark Lanegan Band albums have not.

By focusing on outsiders instead of trusting their crate-digging genius, the Avalanches shortchanged themselves and ended up making the best psychedelic Chemical Brothers album ever instead of making another classic Avalanches album.

The Remote Part captures a divinely aged five-piece.

Electronic elements balance out the harsh guitars with regularity, resulting in a handful of full-blown zingers.

Darker and more immersive than previous outings, Underoath treads familiar ground, though each step holds the promise of a land mine.

All this hurly-burly camouflages the essential truth of The Hot Sauce Committee: that the Beasties could sit on an album for two years to no ill effect to their reputation or the record's quality.

Solid, purposeful, and crafted in a manner that betrays both Drew's age and the album's hurried road to release, Ill Manors makes heavy-hitter number three for the rapper, suggesting that Plan B doesn't issue albums, just milestones.

While the music on this self-titled offering is breathtaking in its intensity, beauty, and mystery, what's even more incomprehensible is that this quartet manages to challenge, realign, and perhaps even redefine the entire post-metal landscape in 28 short minutes. Given that, there is no excuse for every post-metal and black metal fan not to enjoy EX EYE's project.

Prodigal Son is yet another act of committed intention from one of American music's greatest guardians and purveyors. In its grain, aesthetic pleasure and the will for justice converse and ultimately convince the rest of us to act.

Longevity is one thing, but sticking around without going stale is a trickier matter, and Deserted demonstrates that more than four decades on, the Mekons are as fresh and challenging as ever.

Even when she's still working with high BPMs, James lets the tracks on this album breathe in a way that she doesn't on her other releases, making Whatever the Weather a standout in her rapidly growing catalog.

Filled with casually brilliant moments, Component System with the Auto Reverse is easily one of Open Mike Eagle's most enjoyable efforts.

While each of these EPs stand on their own in quality, they create a rhythm orgy that is wildly musical and presented as a near symbiotic whole when combined.

No musical ghetto here as White Men Are Black Men Too suggests Young Fathers are quintessentially ahead of their time, even when their music is tight, attractive, and vital enough to be enjoyed today.

It's an intense and trippy odyssey, one that should make fans old and new appreciative of Jurado's depth while mulling along.

The duo's playfulness here verges on hammy at times -- more often than on their solo recordings. The trade-off is that they push each other into new levels of showmanship without pandering to the audience. Besides, there's some genuinely witty stuff here.

It takes her music in a somewhat more accessible direction while retaining the creativity and fervor of the rest of her work. Considerably less noisy than previous Moor Mother releases like her 2016 breakthrough Fetish Bones, the album flows through slippery jazz rhythms, mellow R&B vibes, and meditative ambient textures, with Ayewa's lyrics remaining forceful even as she's delivering them in a softer register.

Like much of Fennesz's solo work from Endless Summer onward, Mosaic is a vast, immersive effort that bases its abstract soundscapes in raw emotions.

For any critics who complained that Hail to the Thief was just too long, bloated, and disjointed, this is the course correction that'll give that album the justice it has always deserved.

This is a deeply focused, wonderfully colorful, and deeply expressive work that showcases a collaboration between mother and son and displays depth, strength, creativity in spades, and intense beauty.

With No Answer, the band rises to the standards in anti-music set by its own discography.

She's made the most interesting album of her career to date.

Thanks to its wandering nature, Cloud Corner is the kind of album that benefits from repeat listens, unspooling, shifting, and then settling a little more with each meditative revolution.

Her combination of sweet melodies and bitter moods, her conversational flow, and her self-awareness are all skills many songwriters twice her age would love to call their own, and they make Sour a well-rounded emotional journey and strong debut album.

The result is a frantic, jarring, and unpredictable effort which darts from breakbeat-fueled mayhem to noisy droning, all framing Elucid's persistent lyrics about caring for his family, struggling for survival and success inside a racist system, and maintaining hope.

A triumphant live album, Resuscitate! is as much a celebration of the evolution of Callahan's music as it is the shared experience between musicians and audience.

While the production still has bite and the danger of unpredictable straight-to-tape recording, the songcraft is completely in focus. It's where the long-germinating seeds of White Fence's psychedelic excellence finally bloom into their full glory, and these songs are among the best the group has ever put to tape.

Regardless of where they end up next, the Horrors have already traveled much further than most listeners would have imagined.

It may have taken Mogwai 25 years to open up like this, but it was well worth the wait: As the Love Continues is another peak in their long and influential career.

It is pure artistic id, and after hearing it, it's possible to view Rossiter's entire body of work in a new light, gaining an appreciation for his grace, wit, and artistry.

Denser and fathoms deeper, this is some kind of leap.

Lisbon, like the rest of their music, is meant to be savored, the fullness of its songs allowed to develop over many listens.

After releasing one of the best and boldest albums of her career with Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, Williams goes from strength to strength with The Ghosts of Highway 20.

An earthy, majestic, endlessly inventive album that caps both his own storied career and points the way toward the future.

This is easily the producer's most emotional and story-like output.

Holland not only delivers her most intuitively crafted and realized collection to date, but she expands the boundaries and possibilities for American roots music in the process.

All of Container's recordings are amazing, but this one is his most concentrated burst of energy yet, and it cements his status as one of the most exciting and inventive artists in the underground American electronic music scene, as well as one of the most successful in merging noise with techno.

With Take It Like A Man, she's made a striking, deeply satisfying album that follows no rules other than what her muse has chosen, and it's inarguably her finest work to date.

In spite of his occasionally weighty subjects, The Very Last Day is an entirely energizing listen.

She may emphasize her ties to the past but she's intent on expanding the tradition, turning country music into a bolder, more inclusive place, and that desire is what makes Wrangled such a compelling album.

Upgrading significantly from 2018's brief and scattered-feeling Daytona, It's Almost Dry finds Pusha T in the role of the cool, collected, bulletproof rapper, and Kanye-produced tracks like "Dreamin' of the Past" and "Rock N' Roll" (both of which he contributes verses to as a featured artist) harken back to his distinctive and sample-heavy style pre-My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Though she took a roundabout path to make and release Giant Palm, the way Bock shares her profound moments and little insights with a generous spirit makes for an often brilliant debut.

Mostly playful in tone despite its timely, often serious topics, Long Wave Home makes for another strong entry in Hoop's catalog.

Menneskekollektivet is more of an experience than a set of songs to be consumed passively, but it's a richly rewarding listen for those who give it the attention it deserves.

This album is indeed a key turning point for the unit, and easily the most fully realized project in their catalog.

This blend of warmth and invention is what's so appealing about Pick Me Up Off the Floor: the shape may seem familiar, but the construction of the songs and the inventiveness of the performance keeps it fresh and surprising even after the first listen.

Scheherazade isn't exactly the Feel Good Album of 2016, but being lost and forsaken with Freakwater is a more satisfying experience than feeling perky with most other acts, and Scheherazade is a brilliant reminder of what Catherine Irwin and Janet Beveridge Bean do so strikingly well.

They're a band who refuse to stop moving and exploring their sound, emerging every time with a more refined approach to the music. That they can achieve this with integrity should be celebrated, except maybe this time with a bottle of red wine instead of cheap beer.

Sure, it's messy, but Alex Chilton always was--it's also some of his richest and best music, and it's never sounded better than it does on Free Again: The 1970 Sessions.

Her quick turns of phrase and penchant for punctuating moments of self-doubt with colorful bits of impressionistic flair and left-field melodic rejoinders invoke names like Kate Bush, Nick Drake, and Sandy Denny, but the truth is, she's been perfecting her particular brand of moody, bucolic baroque pop for over two decades now, and with the marvelous In Search of Harperfield, that work has finally paid off.

The craft of Here We Go Crazy is superb, and Bob Mould is one of the very, very few musicians who came up in the 1980s hardcore scene and is still making powerful, relevant music in the 2020s. However, if he wanted to make an album that reflects the chaos of the culture that witnessed its creation, he may have hit the bullseye just a bit too close to the center.

Here [on the title track] and on the rest of Nothing Feels Natural, the hunger, vitality, and intelligence coursing through these songs feel timeless as well as timely.

It's like a Beach Boys album when it's calm and a Queen album when it's crunchy, but all filtered through what must be one hell of a record collection over at the Goreas-Lasek homestead.

While it's easy to see why some listeners may prefer the completely unhinged sounds of Grinderman's debut, this set, with its expansive sonics and studied bombast, is still full of so much adrenaline, nastiness, and rock & roll sleaze that it stands in its own league and kicks serious ass.

Red Dirt Road is not just one of Brooks & Dunn's most ambitious records, it's also one of their best.

While the Rapture and to a lesser extent Radio 4 made off with all the headlines, !!! was making the best music of all the retro-punk-disco dancers.

A listening experience that is singular, startling, and soulful.

If Once in a Lifetime does run out of steam toward the end, it has to be said that it doesn't outstay its welcome, and apart from a track or two at the very end, this is a compelling, entertaining listen from start to finish.

Although the duo didn't record nearly enough material to justify checking out quite so soon, Sung Tongs is a striking record, a breath of fresh air within experimentalist indie rock.

Even though this album isn't as immediately or showily brilliant as The Moon & Antarctica, Good News for People Who Love Bad News reveals itself as just as strong a statement.

He isn't really trying to break new ground on this relatively accessible collection of concise, melodic songs, but he is trying to add something to his influences instead of settling for a nostalgia trip.

Immediately moving and yet rather bewildering, New Amerykah, Pt. 1 is an album that sounds special from the first play, yet it will probably take years before it is known just how special it is.

Ultimately, Hidden is the sound of an ambitious young band as eager to use every tool at its disposal as it is to avoid studiously doing what's been done before.

Special Affections is both special and affectionate, highly infectious and recommended.

It's a careful and moody album, but fortunately, Dare has the grace to pull off his sonic and lyrical meanderings without devolving too deeply into self-conscious philosophizing or experimentation for its own sake, showing that he has both content and mystique to spare.

As blissed-out a road record as it is, Eyes on the Lines contains some very thoughtful and well-designed songwriting, with lead single "Conditions Wild" being among its best.