Their compositional creativity is at once complex and sophisticated while remaining inherently accessible. They match a ferocious appetite for muscular musicality with intricate attention to production details and rigorous energy.

The bottom line is that this 14th proper album of hers combines nuanced performances and succinct writing like none other.

The choruses are delivered in joyously emphatic unison. If there is a complaint about Cold as Weiss, it's that at 40 minutes, it's a tad short, because no one wants this dance party to end. (If you do, please check your pulse, you may have expired.)

On a strictly musical basis, Earthling is the most varied project Eddie Vedder has ever released, and it's also his lightest album: there's a palpable joy to his free experiments here that's infectious, even fun.

Their best since 2014's This Is All Yours, The Dream finds Alt-J in top form. Despite being so lyrically death-obsessed, the beauty and warmth coursing through the album make it full of life and absolutely human.

Once again, Spoon show there's still plenty of mystery left in classic sounds, and they're still experts at revealing it.

While its seeming contradictions make it a slightly more challenging listen than Shamir was, Heterosexuality acknowledges how complicated just existing can be with the wit, creativity, and unguarded emotions that have been a vital part of Shamir's music since the beginning.

Several tracks ("heavy," "heartbreak3r," "regret") follow a similar emo-rap style, but On to Better Things gets more interesting when Dior commits fully to exploring different approaches.

The powerful, sometimes writhing, and often transcendent sonic landscape the band creates here is their most inspired work to date, brimming with purpose and assertiveness that goes beyond mere entertainment and reaches for enlightenment.

It seems unfair to call DNWMIBIY a failed experiment, as it's loaded with gems -- including some of Big Thief's most free-spirited work to date -- however, it lands much more like a showreel than a plotted album.

The Highest in the Land may not be the strongest Jazz Butcher release, but it certainly has enough frothy treats and swooning bits of heartbreak to remind everyone why they -- and Fish -- were so delightful.

As far as Punch Brothers albums go, Hell on Church Street is a bit of an odd bird in that it's an album of covers chosen by someone else. As a nod to Rice, however, they honor his spirit well enough.

Even though A Place to Bury Strangers have been bringing the noise back to shoegaze and post-punk for years, they're still finding new forms of expression. That they can create a career peak like See Through You two decades after forming makes them all the more inspiring.

Clocking in at just over 37 minutes, Dissolution Wave doesn't overstay its welcome, which helps to absolve it of some of its more directionless moments. However, even at their meandering, Cloakroom manage to compel, and their seismic heft and majestic layers of sound do all they can to counteract the weightlessness of space.

The band seems to play as a single multi-armed unit, and yet Wood's tortured voice is at the very center of their palette. Black Country made a strong impression on their debut, but things become much more interesting with Ants from Up There.

At times Give Me the Future feels a bit heavy-handed. Fortunately, the album's brisk pace saves it from feeling overblown. This is music for and of its moment, with a mix of ambition and pop concision that's unmistakably Bastille.

The hit of serotonin for longtime fans is an absolute joy. Against the odds, Korn have done it again with Requiem, a quick and ferocious blast that finds the band still hungry and innovative nearly 30 years into the game.

A bit of a slow builder with an almost cinematic trajectory.

The dense and shrouded nature of this album means you sometimes have to wait for the clouds to clear before certain lines resonate or choruses grab you, but once they do, they don't let go.

If formulaic in approach, cosmopolitan rhythms and trippy hooks vary, and any track or combination of tracks on the album is well-suited for front-of-house play or for a soundtrack to get the party started.

Second album Glitch Princess is more futuristic than yeule's past work and perhaps more dystopian as well.

It's an especially lucid reading of the sound they've been perfecting for over two decades at this point, and one that adds a human warmth to a group that's long been defined by their otherworldly nature.

The 7th Hand is a major work. It travels dazzlingly from tranquility and comfort to ambivalence, restlessness, and impatience before it engages re-entry, rebirth, and transcendence. This band understands that Wilkins' bold question may be unanswerable, but they play as if they know.

Listening to Good and Green Again is like visiting a warm little den where the songs of yesteryear spend an easy hour catching up on the news of the present. His is a peculiar gift, but one he's learned how to use to great effect.

The track sequencing is skip-proof. This and the film belong in every library on the planet.

Sees the group shift away from the more anthemic direction of their major hits ("Love Killa," "Gambler") to an airier, more vocally driven set of songs: strummed-funk tracks like "Tied to Your Body" and "Blow Your Mind" pull heavily from Justin Timberlake's early-2000s run, while others like "About Last Night" and "Better" slide toward the nostalgic disco yearnings expressed by their 2010s contemporaries.

DS4 is caught between the woozy, floating sounds of WUNNA and an older, heavier-hitting sound, yet nails neither.

Still in command of strong technical skills and now rapping over instrumentals crafted with bigger budgets, Cordae falls short when he starts sounding a little too comfortably at home in the mainstream.

If Good to Be... sometimes is a little too cozy -- it's executed well and its unifying spirit is evident, but a cover of "Lean on Me" still feels a little overly familiar -- it's nevertheless a warm, welcoming album that's every bit as soothing and comforting as Keb' Mo' intended it to be.

The subtle shifts in tempo and arrangement make this brief record feel fully realized: these are renditions that are deep and soulful, carrying the same richness of Cobb's secular material while having a palpable spiritual undercurrent.

Extreme Witchcraft isn't a big basket of musical sunshine, but it's been a while since Eels have made an album with this sort of muddled joy, and it's a welcome development from one of pop's major misfits.

It's the duo's keenly observed originals that stay with you the longest, delivered with hard-won wisdom, gallows humor, and the near-supernatural fluidity of sisterly harmonies.

John Mellencamp embodies the stubborn independence of an artist who unquestioningly follows his heart and his muse, and Strictly a One-Eyed Jack is the work of a man accepting the passage of time rather than fighting against it. As a songwriter and a performer, it's a gambit that works in his favor.

Shenfeld's debut blurs lines between post-minimalism, drone, noise, progressive electronic, and ambient. Its nonconformity is a major part of why it's so captivating and refreshing, but even beyond that, it's simply a joyous listening experience.

Simone Felice wears his heart on his sleeve on All The Bright Coins, and while that's an easy way for an artist to sound foolish, in this case he's created something brave and exciting in its embrace of the human spirit, and it's often strikingly beautiful.

Time has shaped their voices fascinatingly, adding comforting heft to Callahan's baritone and resilience to Oldham's warbly tenor. The former lends some warmth to the wry elegance of Steely Dan's "Deacon Blues," while the latter adds a mystical melody to Leonard Cohen's "The Night of Santiago," a spoken-word piece from his final album Thanks for the Dance. When they join their voices, they complement each other perfectly.

As usual the label has done a fine job of capturing all the various streams of sound coursing through the vibrant indie rock and pop scenes during another truly interesting year of music.

Taken together, The Alien Coast isn't as fun or as moving as the Broken Bones' earliest releases, but their commitment to experimentation and growth is as impressive as their collective technical skill, and in this case, the act of discovery provides its own fascination.

Pinegrove has yet to deliver a clunker, and 11:11 should be a welcome addition to any fan's regular rotation, in addition to offering a few gems for anyone partial to a tuneful, earnest protest song.

Although lovingly written and tightly arranged, Havasu's consistently midtempo plod and the bittersweet nature of its subject makes for a somewhat dreary listen.

The Sun Is Shining Down sounds hungry and vital. Mayall delivers these rough-and-ready blues like a champ.

Her music has always been thoughtful, personal, and uniquely constructed, but Godmother is especially exciting as it runs so far and so fast in a different direction than she ever has before, committing fully to the risks and swooping changes that come to define the album.

As the uplifting positivity of "For You" closes the album on an optimistic note, Billy Talent takes the storm of emotions churning through the preceding cuts and salvages the light that remains, avoiding the titular inner conflict by focusing on that which gives us hope and peace.

Perhaps it's simply the growing pains that follow a much-hyped introduction, but Storm Queen is more of an interesting record than an excellent one, though it still has enough high points to recommend it.

The way Barnett shares tracks and experiences on Caprisongs makes it a more diffuse listening experience than her past releases, but it also brings a galvanizing openness to her music -- and suggests pain doesn't have to be her only muse.

Wilds stands proudly next to the albums that have come before it. A little bit more song focused, a little rougher around the edges, but still transcendent and heavily psychedelic in all the right ways.

W is not merely a counterpart to No but its polar opposite -- an album made of moments and atmospheres rather than songs. Nearly spectral in its articulation, this set offers a more elegant, restrained side of Boris than we've ever encountered before.

Much of the magic in Change the Show, as with most of Kane's work, is in the way he turns being a kid of the '90s with an obsession for all things mod into something of his own oeuvre.

While Night Call builds nicely upon Years & Years' indie electronic roots, it primarily feels like a new beginning for Alexander as he boldly embraces his pop future.

While The Gods We Can Touch is ultimately a pop record, it only expands upon AURORA's already mystical bearing.

The Imposters have never sounded better on record -- and they've never sounded more like the Attractions, either, which isn't entirely a coincidence -- and that helps give The Boy Named If its infectious kick: it may feel like an old-fashioned Elvis Costello album, but it sounds entirely fresh.

Themes of struggling to overcome depression and drug dependency surface often on Fighting Demons, making it a heavier collection than the sometimes celebratory memoriam of Legends Never Die. It's not an essential piece of the Juice WRLD story, but it's also not without some solid reminders of his greatness.

Live Life Fast is a strong sophomore effort, one that finds Ricch taking a few moderate risks alongside his attempts to repeat the approach that worked so well on his debut.

This is a perfectly adequate Ross LP differentiated by its mix of collaborators more than anything else.

Summery beats and glitched-out soul samples make tracks like "Ugly" and "Hollywood Gangsta," and the huge fun of "Wave Gods" finds A$AP Rocky dropping in for a guest verse while DJ Premier scratches in some familiar hooks from the archives of golden-era rap.

Formula of Love surpasses expectations, infusing the group's love-centric lyricism with newfound confidence and creative flair. This is one of Twice's most assertive and varied releases to date -- and with a more concise track listing, perhaps their best.

Sharp, direct, and fluid in a way that's almost supernatural, Sick! perfectly conveys the duality of frustration and drive to persevere that arises from living through exceptionally difficult times.

The easy melodic hooks that drew fans to the Lumineers in the first place remain, but the combination of stronger material and looser performances make for a strong fourth outing.

Forfolks is as welcoming as it is musically adventurous. Void of production or virtuosic solo excesses, it allows the listener inside the guitarist's soundworld for an instinctively guided, infectiously listenable tour.

Covers is a treat for fans, and reaffirms that Marshall can find the Cat Power -- as well as new meanings -- in the music that moves her.

A thrilling and thoughtful pop experience.

Unsettling and plaintive throughout, the soundtrack ends with its sole song, the also mournful "The World to Come," which calls back earlier musical themes. A striking score debut, it does much to establish the film's tone.

Moments of unfulfilled anticipation and endless, directionless drifting might make Antidawn seem difficult compared to other Burial releases, but there's something quietly powerful in the way he's able to express the sensation of being inexplicably lost.

Tesfaye's almost fathomless vocal facility elevates even the most rudimentary expressions of co-dependency, despair, regret, and obsession, and he helps it all go down easier with station ID jingles and an amusingly hyped-up ad for "a compelling work of science fiction" called (the) "After Life."

His productions are just the right balance of lush and gritty, blending rich string arrangements by Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and lovely harp playing by Lara Somogyi with modular synth swells and soulful organs.

The diversity of the songwriting and attentive production make Dodging Dues one of the more ambitious and well-groomed outings in the Garcia Peoples catalog.

Drew's music stresses the importance of the communal rave experience, and reminds us that everything is possible.

It would be nice to hear a more nuanced and stylistically diverse album from Dion (like 2005's Bronx in Blue or 2016's New York Is My Home), but there are more than enough great moments on Stomping Ground to remind us Dion is still a major talent over 60 years after scoring his first hit single.

Leaving the listener with a sense of sweet melancholia, Amarante wraps up with "The End," a dusty-voiced piano ballad that serves as the closing credits to Drama's captivating journey.

Aided by a wealth of musicians including drummer Wolfgang Haffner, reedist Shabaka Hutchings, and returning keyboardist Robin Taylor-Firth, Evelyn offers some of his headiest and most emotive productions.

A mellow blend of low-key, late-night, left-field pop and yearning R&B, the release boasts a number of intriguing high-profile collaborator.

Sparke touches on poetic remembrances of people, places, and joys as well as the more preoccupying struggles, making for a mature and poignant introduction.

The most compelling moments on McCartney III Imagined arrive when artists cut their own version of one of the album's tracks: Phoebe Bridgers finding the sweet, spectral pulse on "Seize the Day," Beck singing along to his funkified version of "Find My Way," and Josh Homme treating "Lavatory Lil" like a Desert Sessions jam. These moments help elevate McCartney III Imagined into something a little more than a curio.

Even if it's not quite as varied as Beabadoobee's debut album, Our Extended Play is still a welcome follow-up to Fake It Flowers' success.

Keem is a necessary, forward-thinking presence in the rap zeitgeist -- but The Melodic Blue is a set of variables and experiments, not the game-changer he's capable of producing.

Disc one is essentially a standard Alicia Keys LP, while the second disc is an album of remixes plus two more new songs. ... The latter half's new songs are two of the album's higher-profile collaborations: a tentative-sounding missed opportunity with Khalid and Lucky Daye, and an intoxicated duet with Swae Lee where Tyrone Davis' coasting 1979 hit "In the Mood" does most of the work.

The main shortcoming of At My Piano is that even though Brian Wilson is playing songs that he wrote, the mellow, elevator music style of these versions doesn't sound any more significantly connected to Wilson than any other session musician or unknown piano player running through familiar tunes as background music at a martini bar would sound. Despite this, it's pleasant to hear these songs in a new form.

This compilation is positively essential for fans of the band and of psychedelia of all kinds.

Radical has all of the mathy riffage, radiant melodies, and neck-snapping energy of a group fresh out of the basement. It also has the emotional maturity and brinksmanship of a seasoned crew who know which buttons to push and for how long, and it's in between those two persuasions that the album achieves greatness.

This slyly crafted collection of big bass and even bigger brags manages to bridge the old school and the new, with Uncle Snoop's encouragement as the host with the most.

Guests including Big Thief's Buck Meek, Mauno's Eliza Niemi, and pedal steel guitarist Aaron Goldstein also contributed to the album's gentle, textured palette. It opens with a sparse, Renaissance-style folk tune, the dulcimer-accompanied "Take On Me," which introduces Le Ren's lithe and lucid vocal delivery alongside evocative lyrics.

Vertigo of Flaws is Trees Speak's most colossal work yet, demonstrating that the group's ambitions are even greater than their previous work indicated.

Tempest Revisited seamlessly twins harmonic lyricism, soundscape textures, and powerful dynamics here. The end result is her most diverse -- and musically compelling -- album.

The clearer, uninterrupted version of the album sounds absolutely gorgeous, and actually gets better as it progresses, as Voigt saves some of the most recognizable elements for the second half, while also adding new details such as the eerie choir which appears during the tenth track.

Much as Nas' Illmatic, Wu Tang's 36 Chambers, and The Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die all defined New York hip-hop by offering individualized perspectives on an ungovernable metropolis, Wiki also puts himself in the center of it all on Half God, and in doing so becomes an inextricable part of New York's magic, suffering, and boundless inspiration.

It all goes to show that Carpenter's knack for composing scores that are entertaining in their own right is alive and well, and just as engrossing nearly half a century after the first Halloween slashed its way onto the silver screen.

Delta Estácio Blues is easily the most experimental outing Marçal has yet released. The rhythmic genre fusions across rock and afoxé, glitch, samba, and pop experimentalism combine with seams and scars showing as one of the most ambitious musical projects released this year.

An album that's both intimate and communal, composed of small sounds and textures but expressing bigger feelings, particularly through the guest vocalists. "Fantasy" is easily the album's most memorable tune, cleverly snaking flutes and manipulated vocal hooks around Verushka's passionate, yearning lyrics.

Gay more than succeeds in weaving all of these seemingly disparate sounds together, and Open Arms to Open Us has the engaging feeling of walking through a kaleidoscopic multimedia art installation.

The few '70s selections -- from Sumiko Yamagata, Hiroshi Sato, and Makoto Iwabuchi -- all take easy, pleasant strolls down the middle of the road. Among other more fascinating curiosities are Mizuki Koyama's vivacious pop-R&B hybrid "Oh! Daddy" (with all-English lyrics), Kumi Nakamura's capering "Kimagure" (somewhere between Michael Franks and Seawind), and Haruo Chikada & Vibra-Tones' Kid Creole-indebted "Sofa Bed Blues," the only one that whoops it up (if politely so).

Haunting and gripping, New Decade is one of Mute's most striking releases in some time, and gives Phew a bigger platform to prove what her die-hard fans already know: she's at the peak of her powers.

It's honestly admirable that the Melvins were willing to take a big risk with an album like Five Legged Dog, but the finished product fails more than it succeeds.

Even though Old Friends New Friends doesn't contain any obvious epics similar to the most well-known pieces from Frahm's ambitious albums like All Melody and Spaces, there's still an abundance of highlights, and even his smaller-scale works can resonate in a big way.

Like all of Dwyer's improv collaborations, Gong Splat has the anything-goes feel one would expect from an impromptu jam session, but there's something in this one's combination of cosmic glide and shocked-out panic that elevates it beyond the previous releases.

At 70 minutes, Renewal runs a bit long but its momentum never ceases and the extra space allows for Strings and his supple, intuitive band to push at the boundaries of where traditional and progressive bluegrass meet.

Ayewa's poetry soars above the band, whose attack offers ancient-to-the-future sound narratives; they cross blues, free jazz, Caribbean grooves, and Afro-Latin folk with a universe of African rhythms. Open the Gates is a statement. It authoritatively signifies militant creativity as the only real language for expressing liberation and wisdom.

There's a fair number of meandering moments, but the parts that actually go places are something to behold.

Where the Viaduct Looms is a daring and mostly rewarding undertaking, especially for Smith. Performing the songs of one of alternative music's most acclaimed acts with another backing her, she uncovers meanings and feelings that weren't fully present in the original material -- and that bodes well for what she might be capable of with her own songs.