It's Not Them. It Couldn't Be Them. It Is Them! is superior work from a great rock band. If this is going to be typical from this point on, we're all pretty fortunate.

It's a startling performance. The package design is simply stellar and the liner essays by critic/historian Ashley Kahn and Coltrane biographer Lewis Porter are educational, authoritative, and indispensable.

My Morning Jacket is MMJ's most satisfying work since 2008's Evil Urges, and a splendid example of what can happen when their group mind is in sync.

With its balance of eras, sounds, and short and extended songs, Shade has the depth of a career retrospective and the freshness of a new album, both of which make it especially appealing to new and longtime Grouper fans alike.

A manifesto that only Deerhoof could create, Actually, You Can is a perfect example of how they achieve what seems like the impossible time and time again -- and with its heroic doses of fun and optimism, it reminds listeners that actually, they can too.

Sometimes beguiling, sometimes bewildering, Fantasy Island is a strange album even by Clinic's standards. While it's hard to shake the feeling that its sunny vibes are just a mirage, it's still immensely entertaining for anyone game to follow the band into their oddest musical terrain.

Once Nao enters on the finale "Amazing Grace," an ethereal original that shares some lyrics with the popular hymn and delivers another message of salvation, it becomes more clear why the title song, an ideal closer in just about any other context, starts the album.

Intriguing from beginning to end, Cocker's lush, emphatic takes should delight fans of vintage French and Baroque pop.

Fohr's lyrics draw from personal experiences as well as scientific phenomena, and she elevates them with her dynamic, sometimes earth-shaking arrangements.

Perfect listening for solitude, Ookii Gekkou discovers strange beauty within the mundane -- and once again demonstrates that Vanishing Twin's imagination is boundless, even when the world only extends as far as the walls around them.

That Magdalena Bay also augment their capital "P" pop melodies with industrial textures, shoegaze flourishes, and plenty of funked-out bass grooves means that Mercurial World offers both sugary melodic highs and deeper sonic layers to explore.

Largely due to Duffy's restrained, inward-facing vocals, Fun House is at its best on songs with soft-spoken, atmospheric designs, but the experiments here are far from missteps.

Chaotic yet tightly controlled, Eternal Home is boundlessly creative, and up there with Skinless X-1 as Marcloid's best work.

With other songs featuring Psycho-like slashing string effects and whirring bass echo ("Darkest Hour"), robotic vocal distortion ("Did My Best"), and spoken-word broadcast recordings ("Cógelo Suave"), Una Rosa has a kitchen-sink, blown-out-speaker quality to it that will alternately alienate or excite.

Instead of party-starting excitement, the band refracts echoes of Can, Bowie, and the Talking Heads at their most abstract for an album that feels tense and bleary, like a party that's still fun but has burned on for so long that the sun is coming up and things are starting to get weird.

While certainly one of the most robustly guitar-centric albums Angels & Airwaves have made, there is still plenty of synthy, otherworldly shimmer glowing at the edges of Lifeforms, and cuts like "Rebel Girl," "Euphoria," and "Spellbound" bristle with a vibrant blend of punk and dance-rock energies.

Mod Prog Sic finds Black Dice pushing themselves even further into a place of singularity, making music that's gross, funny, captivating, scary, and beguiling at once, and finding new details in the extremes they've been exploring for decades.

While late-era Evanescence is definitely a touchstone, fans of TesseracT, Deftones, and Meshuggah will have plenty to enjoy, especially with tracks such as the swirling "Circle with Me" and the haunted title track.

At a scant four tracks, The Roadside EP hardly marks a major release from the veteran artist, but in lead single "Bitter Taste," he presents one of his better late-career offerings. ... The other two cuts, "Rita Hayworth" and "U Don't Have to Kiss Me Like That," are well-executed, if forgettable tracks that harken back to the singer's '80s heyday.

Faster may piss off blues purists, but that's their problem. Fish uses the genre aptly in these well-crafted songs; she extends their reach to dance with sophisticated modern pop that in turn gleefully meets her brand of unruly rockin' blues.

The love and fire on display here confirm what his best work has always shown -- he's not just a fine songwriter, he's a top-shelf musician who lives for this stuff, and it's a pleasure to hear him dig into this material.

The moments of uncertainty and incompleteness that sometimes surface only get closer to the unvarnished core of what Morby was aiming for with these songs: a state of emotional suspension that's not quite the end of the day, but not nightfall just yet.

Lately doesn't always sound like the album Lilly Hiatt might have cut under ordinary circumstances, but it comes from the heart and speaks to the time and place in which it was made. It's a compelling, generous work from a songwriter who grows a bit each time she heads into the studio.

Though its smoothness sometimes makes Moondust for My Diamond a little less immediate than Diviner, it's the perfect complement to that album's somber reflections and another confident step forward in his creative journey.

The quartet sound more cohesive than they've been in years, benefitting from a single producer's vision in a similar fashion to what Brian Eno pulled off with Viva La Vida.

As on Grey Area, there are no dry spells or dips in quality, just a master class in modern songwriting with heaps of poise and a beating, soulful heart.

The most diverse RP Boo release to date, Established! finds the innovative producer stepping back and observing the big picture, and reflecting on his place in the lineage of dance music.

While Optimist makes a good case for FINNEAS' skills around a pop melody and a perceptive viewpoint, he also drops the instrumental piano piece "Peaches Etude" in the middle of the track list. Accordingly, the album plays like a portfolio, perhaps fitting for a musician still sorting out and amplifying his potential.

It's no masterpiece, but it's decidedly not the most cringeworthy Ministry release, either, and it's much easier to appreciate the band's creativity this time around.

While LaFarge might still be a time-traveling rock troubadour, he seems to have found the center of his musical universe with In the Blossom of Their Shade.

A welcome evolution from the debut, Astro Tough's lingering inconsistency is part of the fun.

Swift's young age may be a major point of interest in bringing listeners in, but by the end of the record she's succeeded in keeping them.

A 25-minute blast of brief, confused, oversaturated synth rock tunes, All Day Gentle Hold! is over before you know it but won't soon fade from memory.

Sounding like it was created from the other side of the crushing sadness that defined his earliest work, the album continues Blake's incremental shift to lighter material and songs that lean more into acceptance than torment.

It is unmistakably the work of Brandi Carlile, who once again proves she's one of the best singer/songwriters of her generation.

While I Want the Door to Open is likely to both alienate some fans of Lala Lala's rawer early material and capture the attention of new ones, taken on its own, it feels like a deliberately unsettled middle ground.

Throughout the album, BadBadNotGood and their guest collaborators flesh out the sonic canvas without taking away from the raw energy of the performances.

While the subject matter here is more personal, it sticks to a palette of lush, guitar-based band arrangements and doesn't shed any sociopolitical awareness.

This isn't a record where the songs and arrangements are at the forefront, it's an album that's all about the show and spectacle. Its pleasures are slightly fleeting but they're pleasures all the same.

The band injects their own perspectives -- both lyrical and compositional -- into Modern Fiction, giving the songs personal angles and emotional color that place them very much in the now.

A bit less club-ready than Livanskiy's other releases, Liminal Soul is a stirring set of late-night reflections.

Though not limited to romantic love, True Love is dedicated to relationships and fondness, resulting in the slowcore-descended duo's warmest collection to date. Also their richest-sounding.

When New Age Norms, Vol. 3 comes to a close with "Wasted All Night"'s drifting coda, it feels like a fitting conclusion to the project's mix of big-picture ambition and in-depth emotional exploration.

No longer urgent yet still passionate, the band conjure a sense of operatic melancholy on The Ultra Vivid Lament that feels reassuring, even consoling.

More than 50 years after its release, it seems there isn't much new to be said about The Velvet Underground & Nico, and I'll Be Your Mirror doesn't challenge that notion. But it does allow a number of worthy artists a chance to see themselves reflected in these songs, and it's a labor of love that's engaging and from the heart.

Colourgrade is a strikingly honest audio portrait of love and creativity. It was a bold choice to make an album that's this much of a grower when attention spans are shrinking rapidly, but like the relationships Mastin and her friends allude to, it's well worth investing the time in Colourgrade.

A Beginner's Mind is intelligent and well-crafted, and will appeal to fans of either Stevens' or De Augustine's recent work, but it somehow feels less distinct than the music they create on their own.

Any Young completist will need Carnegie Hall 1970, but it's a special performance that can be appreciated by more casual listeners as well. Alone at the microphone, the purity, simplicity, and one-of-a-kind magic of some of Neil Young's best songs come into view in a way that's undeniable.

There are great moments here, particularly a spare, powerful reworking of Talking Heads' "Listening Wind," and the participants never sound less than sincere, but coming from a band whose heritage includes "Ghost Town," "Doesn't Make It Alright," and "It's Up To You," Protest Songs 1924-2012 never quite reaches its potential.

Let Me Do One More makes the leap from "very good" to "great," and this is pleasurable and full of grand surprises in the way that great pop music connects with the listener. You need to hear this.

Concise and brisk, Trip At Knight is one of the more focused Trippie Redd albums, and calls for repeat listening where some of the others were difficult to get all the way through.

Both acts channel traditional folk music's power to express extreme desire, sorrow, and emptiness, occasionally driving the bitterness home by pushing the decibels into the red.

How Beautiful Life Can Be is not a particularly great or even good album, but there is something in its bright tone and positive messaging that feels undeniably nurturing, especially in the climate of late 2021.

The songs generate a sense of vexation through the interplay between Zedek's plain-spoken guitar figures, with the interjections of piano, pedal steel, and cello, and the unobtrusive, rock-solid rhythm section that holds this music in place.

The Metallica Blacklist is fantastic for cherry-picking tracks from your favorite artists or listening in on the more outlandish interpretations of metal classics, but taken as a whole, it's daunting to the point of making even the highlights difficult to appreciate.

The Bevis Frond isn't just a band anymore, they are almost a genre of their own making now, and if Nick Saloman keeps cranking out albums as inspired, alive, and joyously gnarly as this, the next few decades should bring many more delights.

From start to finish, lolling hooks flood Cara's mind as much as indecision, skepticism, and other negative thoughts. They make all the bad stuff go down easy, enabling the listener to have a proper sulk that soothes.

Aisles is a bit of a one-trick pony, but a cool one that seems prime for themed dinner parties and TV sync placement.

More of an immersive mood piece than a history lesson, Bright Magic is a bold new chapter for the group.

Guyton is broadening and expanding the genre-bending sounds of 1990s country-pop, both through production that weaves in modern elements and her distinctive point of view. She does all this within the framework of pop music, managing to maintain her own strong personality within familiar settings without quite reinventing the form -- and that's quite an accomplishment for a debut album.

The Sound of Yourself is another heart-breaking, spirit-lifting highlight in McCaughan's long and captivating career and shouldn't be missed by long-time fans or new converts.

Even though it's not as stylistically wild as prior efforts, Flux is a step forward for Poppy's songwriting and her ability to command a full band. No longer just the girl in the computer, she's become a fully realized human with this most authentic and earnest work.

Don't go into this expecting casual listening (a notion Fucked Up's fans got used to years ago), but if you're willing to meet this music on its own terms, it's impossible not to be dazzled by it.

Presented as the daring and liberated sibling to a more traditional predecessor, Dawn of Chromatica unlocks an expanded world of potential and reminds her legion of Little Monsters that she still has a finger on the pulse and isn't afraid to take risks once in a while.

Montero delivers in droves, a powerful realization of self that boldly places sexuality, honesty, and vulnerability at the fore.

It's a rare kind of unobstructed window into a songwriter's world, but the magic of One Hand on the Steering Wheel is how Levy somehow manages to speak volumes without giving too much away.

Think of A Beautiful Life as a solo album travelling in the disguise of a group effort (much like how the Replacements' All Shook Down can be easily read as a Paul Westerberg solo project), and you get a clearer picture of the personality of this music, though it documents Wennerstrom continuing to mature as an artist with a talent and vision that connects regardless of branding.

It's fun, mischievous, and wildly enjoyable, Brettin and friends turning straight-laced soul-funk and Weather Channel jazz inside-out and dancing gleefully around the confusing and wonderful results.

These songs are full of a wobbly confidence that puts a tight focus on the personal and political, lashing out at a world of waste and injustice ("To-Do List," "Money Talks") while Felice wavers between a playful appreciation of his own eccentricity ("Jazz on the Autobahn") and a less charitable observer who has something timely and eloquent to say. The band's ragged but right grooves are in especially good shape this time out.

It's a lot of ground to cover in a swift 36 minutes but the nice thing about Lindsey Buckingham is that it feels as vibrant as it is controlled. It's the work of an expert craftsman who relies on his skills as composer, arranger, producer, vocalist, and guitarist to sculpt songs that comfort without succumbing to nostalgia.

Whether Shot of Love warrants deeper appreciation now is debatable, but this box set wonderfully showcases Dylan's lengthy, complex creative journey that only got rockier as the decade wore on.

It's the consistency and quality of his work that continue to impress, and the timeless Local Valley slots easily into his catalog as if it's always been there.

The end result winds up not as a curiosity but rather a small wonder, revealing new dimensions of the original recording while opening up these songs for new audiences.

The new and inviting layers Tiersen adds to his musical history of Ushant take listeners on a rewarding journey.

For all its sharp turns, 333 has a fluidity and high level of conviction that Tinashe's previous full-lengths lack.

Both vital and respective of the listener's time at just under 35 minutes, Glow On rolls in like a violent, late-summer storm and pummels the power grid but mercifully leaves the lights on.

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.

Surrounded is so overflowing with life that it demands repeated spins to truly take it all in. With songs this strong, however, repeat listening is hardly a problem.

Despite its occasional uneven moments, Boy from Michigan is a frequently brilliant album from a gifted stylist and songwriter who never stops challenging himself or his audience.

Nas sounds sharp and inspired throughout, giving performances that recall the uncanny brilliance that made his earliest work essential, but also showing he's still capable of taking his art to new places.

Side-Eye NYC (V1.IV) offers an astonishing portrait of the many places Metheny has been, and intimates where he may yet go. It's an album that virtually all of his fans can celebrate. It may also lead to another generation discovering him.

It's a colorful, wide-ranging romp of an album -- and an airy liberation for its titular figure.

Fans of the group more interested in songs might feel short changed at first, but further listens only intensify the cohesive power and pocket grandeur of the record.

Like many artists who have stripped away the noise and rough edges from their sound, what's left over isn't as interesting as it could be, and it's hard not to imagine that the songs on Cool would be better off with a layer of liberally applied grungy fuzz coating them.

For the most part, the band plays things relatively safe. Even so, the Vaccines are adept enough architects of early aughts U.K. guitar rock (Kaizer Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand, etc.) to know how to craft an earworm, and the reliable Back in Love City is filthy with hooks, even if you've heard them a million times before.

God Is Partying might be his most honest piece of work. Playing all of the instruments himself and singing in a more direct style than on any of his previous releases, he lays bare his soul with a newfound earnestness that compliments rather than conflicts with his longtime brand.

Their rapid growth is as head-spinning as the songs themselves, lending a triumphant air to Comfort to Me that keeps Amyl and the Sniffers primed and ready to conquer the world -- again.

Not so much a retreat as a celebration of what Sleigh Bells do best, Texis' finest moments thrive on the razor's edge between sweetness and annihilation.

Sparhawk and Parker are still trying to make sense of a world that seems increasingly alien, and the paradox of raging against the artificiality while using it as a creative choice is powerfully effective here.

Her self-produced full-length debut feels more elaborate than her EPs while also seeming impulsive and off-the-cuff.

Listen closely, it's evident that Star-Crossed is a quintessential divorce record--the story is laid out quite clearly in its 15 songs--but in a practical sense, the album delivers sophisticated mood music, providing a soothing soundtrack for all manners of quiet domestic activities.

Both occasionally cringy and refreshing for its willingness to express bitterness, History of a Feeling's greatest strength lies in its emotional honesty.

Seinfeld has mentioned that the album's title refers to how he's been able to reflect on who he is through experiences such as relationships and family trauma, and his music skillfully expresses a mixture of loneliness, uncertainty, and wistful nostalgia.

As it stands now, the album is an overlong, undercooked, and cliched listen that will no doubt appeal to the Drake fans who can't get enough of him, but will leave anyone looking for something new sadly out of luck.

The epic Senjutsu is another distended late-career triumph, albeit one that requires multiple spins to set up camp in your Homeric metal-craving cranium.

The Witness is a consumptive listening experience, designed with precision and purpose in the same way as the immersive albums that came before it by Portishead, Talk Talk, Radiohead, and other artists willing to take their time systematically disassembling and rebuilding their music.

Donda isn't without its highlights, but taken as a whole, it's both confused and confusing.

Tess Parks' simmering vocals on the title track drive home the range of Korody's colorful vision, simultaneously offering up a reimagination of Manchester's swirling '90s peak, while at the same time feeling futuristic and unfamiliar.