His tracks are vibrant and imaginative, calling on fuzzed-out guitar solos and summer-day vocals that recall a raft of solid shoegazers.

The allegories and metaphors of her previous work are replaced with direct, vulnerable lyrics, and the album's production polishes the songs instead of obscuring them in noise or studio tricks.

Post- is actually a pretty wild ride. ... Perhaps surprisingly so, Post- is also one of his most accessible solo outings yet.

All the songs may be good, but they're given life by a group that has been broken in by endless dates on the road, a difference that helps turn Weiner's best set of songs into Low Cut Connie's best album.

Previously, Tumor has stated that they want to make songs listeners need to play. They more than achieve that on Heaven to a Tortured Mind, an album that suggests the easiest way to define Tumor is as an artist who consistently outdoes themself.

Patty Griffin is a remarkable portrait of the artist and the experiences that informed these songs, and even by the high standards of her body of work, it's something special and is a potent reminder of her status as one of America's signature singer/songwriters.

Headier and more reflective than that 2018 release yet laced with some drums with churn and bump beneath Gibbs' double-time wit, it reinforces the reputations of both artists in the hip-hop underworld.

Both as a listening and reading experience, the entire collection is fascinating and eye-opening, and far more than just pleasant, unassuming musical wallpaper. It's also somewhat overwhelming in a sense, simply because there's far more music from this era to discover, and this release barely scratches the surface.

This record plays like his shot for glory, and with tracks as hooky and well-constructed as "Mockingjay" or the title track, there's no reason he shouldn't hit the big time.

Rather than offering something for everyone, Big Time wrangles complex, overwhelming emotions with a broad palette that's commanded by its lyrics and tormented vocal performances.

No surprises in terms of material, but the presentation is exquisite, sounding familiar and fresh, a stunning re-presentation of records that were teetering on the edge of over-familiarity.

Like a lot of career overviews, this is somewhere between an introduction and a collector's item, but it initially retailed for the price of a single disc and holds an edge over the marginally less expensive A Collection.

Party Intellectuals may have set the bar high, but Your Turn is definitely a worthy follow-up.

By entering the mainstream one limb (album) at a time, Bring Me the Horizon are merely reaping what they've sown, and longtime fans should already feel acclimated to the water.

Neither his music nor lyrics follow shopworn blues changes, but that's why they feel so vital: far from resting on clichés, Taylor recasts the blues and the history of Black America on Fantasizing About Being Black in a way that speaks to a new century, and the results are bracing.

What follows is one of Ritter's loosest and most rewarding outings to date, delivering a steady stream of compelling characters caught between bravado and vulnerability, constantly trying to find their emotional footing.

Ancestral Recall is a stylistically and culturally dynamic album borne out of Scott's deep awareness of his New Orleans roots and African American history, and his ability to push his forward-thinking post-bop skills into musical traditions far beyond jazz. However, the real revelation is that the album also manages to feel intensely personal, imbued throughout with a deep sensuality and romantic creative vision that feels distinctly his own.

If Prince intended these songs to be released under his own name, they'd be given richer, bolder arrangements and his singing would've been sharper, but he meant these as guides toward a finished product. Keeping that caveat in mind, this is an enlightening and illuminating listen.

It's heady stuff, but Wallace and company imbue the proceedings with so much heart and soul -- and considerable pop acumen -- that the compulsion to hear and see where this sci-fi Canterbury Tales will go next never abates.

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

Regret, longing, and grief fill the other songs, but Lusk's soaring, whole-hearted articulations of hope and reassurance prevent this transfixing half-album from being an unqualified downer.

Honey from a Winter Stone is arguably the most forward-thinking, emotionally vulnerable, and moving album in Akinmusire's catalog. It offers an intimate musical language that transcends genres while being at home in them all.

There have been other Wings collections and they were fine; this double-disc does the best job of capturing all aspects of the band’s career. Anyone wanting to study pop music of the era should make this one of their first stops.

All that's here, dark or bright, is vital.

An amalgam of Streethawk: A Seduction's glam rock posturing, This Night's guitar-heavy psychedelia, and Your Blues' apocalyptic wordplay.

A singular talent, Harding seems to have hit her stride on album number three, and while the darkness of previous efforts is still pervasive, Designer feels like a summer record, though it's probably best suited for dusk.

A small triumph, but a triumph nonetheless.

At once more delicate and more concentrated than any of her previous work, Magdalene is a testament to the strength and skill it takes to make music this fragile and revealing. Like the dancer she is, Barnett pushes through pain in pursuit of beauty and truth, and the leaps she makes are breathtaking.

[The E Street Band are] playing not out of a sense of hunger, but communion. This shared warmth carries Letter to You through the moments where the younger Bruce is perhaps a bit too precious and the older Springsteen is a bit too clear, turning a record that's a meditation on mortality into a celebration of what it means to be alive in the moment.

Musically, Undun flows easier and slower than any other Roots album.

The 2016 triple-disc set The Complete BBC Sessions adds those songs as a third disc to a remastered version of the original 1997 compilation, an addition that doesn't greatly alter the overall picture of Zeppelin's BBC Sessions but offers a whole lot of additional value. Without those sessions, the compilation remains a stellar showcase of Led Zeppelin in ascendancy but with them the portrait deepens.

Bad Bunny does whatever he wants, even if that means quitting when you're far ahead. If he does, we'll still have YHLQMDLG, a transformative fever dream of an album that accents freedom by breaking all the rules without writing new ones.

Trouble No More, more than Saved or even the fine Slow Train Coming, is buoyed by the music. Whether he's singing a slight song, easing into testimony, or leaning into a blues, Dylan seems engaged, even on the verge of rapture, an excitement that carries through the full live shows from 1980 and 1981 on the Deluxe Edition.

Banhart's music is utterly unselfconscious and poetic.

Vespertine isn’t so much a departure from her previous work as a culmination of the musical distance she’s traveled...

While it's likely that From a Basement is cleaner than what Smith... intended, it is much sparer than Figure 8, and it feels at once more adventurous, confident, and warmer than its predecessor.

A fully realized masterpiece.

Jubilee is an album that showcases Zauner's talents to their fullest and makes crushing on Japanese Breakfast hard to resist.

Total absorption reveals that this is simply part of Sault's ever-expanding and increasingly colorful tapestry, no slapdash addendum.

Manning Fireworks is his own fusion of the contemplation of Harvest and the release of Zuma, and it's a small triumph of noisy roots rock.

In Rainbows will hopefully be remembered as Radiohead's most stimulating synthesis of accessible songs and abstract sounds, rather than their first pick-your-price download.

Listeners looking for a concise introduction to the Staples' best work should pick up 1991's single-disc The Best of the Staple Singers, but Come Go with Me demonstrates how consistently rewarding and even moving their lesser work can be, and listened to in full, their Stax catalog is a soul-satisfying revelation.

This may be the band's most self-assured sounding work yet -- their music has never lacked confidence and daring, but now they sound downright swaggering.

Only God Was Above Us isn't just a great album in its own right -- it's one that enriches the understanding of Vampire Weekend's entire history.

Invisible Cinema is as fine a debut as one is likely to hear in 2008.

It doesn't cover the Isleys' brief '60s stints with Wand, United Artists, and Tamla, but it is remarkably generous with dozens of bonus tracks--mono versions, single edits, instrumentals, and so forth--and LP-replica sleeves for each album.

It's ambitious, for sure. That there isn't a single moment that's not compelling is the real victory.

The individual tracks matter less than the collective experience. Isolated songs may hint at Howard expanded emotional and musical pallette, but What Now is a proper album, where each segment expands and interlocks, providing a whole that's greater than its separate parts.

Even the album's sparest moments feature Spoon's much-heralded knack with catchy melodies and hooks, even if songs such as "Don't Let It Get You Down" would be even more memorable with a slightly more fleshed-out approach.

One of the most impressive albums of the home-recording era while still feeling superbly refined.

Monoliths and Dimensions succeeds because it is the sound of a new music formed from the ashen forge of drone, rock, and black metal.

The resulting work is at once loose and deeply complex, effortless in its incisiveness yet still dazzling at its peaks. The three bullions on the album’s cover say it best: this duo keep on producing gold.

The back and forth between quiet and loud numbers softens the focus of this music, and Bleeds doesn't have quite the same cumulative impact as Rat Saw God. That said, Bleeds is a ferocious, sometimes deeply moving collection of songs, confirming the strength of the music and revealing Hartzman's continued growth as a songwriter.

Howard's embrace of all the mess of life gives Jaime its sustenance. Her audacity is apparent upon the first listen, but subsequent spins are profound and nourishing.

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

The result is an LP more rounded and more stirring than the excellent first one.

They are of interest as a curiosity, especially for pub rock fanatics, but Harlan County illustrates why Jim Ford never became a cult artist in his own right.

The album and its production make catharsis part of an evolutionary process, not an end in itself.

The collection's 70-odd tracks can be a little daunting, but appreciated one song (or album) at a time, the creaky magic of the group becomes apparent. Beat Happening existed in a rare and singular space, unmoved by anything outside of the excitement of creating art on their own terms.

A must-listen for anyone following Harvey's archival series, B-Sides, Demos & Rarities serves as a fascinating parallel primer to her music and the multitudes within it.

All We Love We Leave Behind, the group's eighth studio album, manages to summon that same level of intensity [as 2009's Axe to Fall] without the aid of a single mercenary.

On Orquídeas, Uchis remains true to herself by restlessly expanding her music's stylistic reach, embracing the past as instructor to the present. It is as aesthetically appealing as it is musically adventurous.

Overall, Joy as an Act of Resistance manages to plumb new depths for Idles -- that they've achieved another record in such a short space of time is admirable, let alone one that shines head and shoulders over the majority of their peers -- and it certainly upholds their status as one of the U.K.'s most exciting new acts.

Claire Boucher's fourth album is wilder, more ambitious, and--at least on the surface--more accessible than her breakthrough

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."

Starting with demo versions of "For Ex-Lovers Only" and "Throw Aggi Off the Bridge" that are enjoyably scraggly if not as overwhelming as the final takes. The remaining four consist of new recordings by the original band, though they're not new songs; instead, they're selections from their irregular live sets that were never formally recorded and released at the time. The production style makes it sound like they were recorded at the same time as the rest of the disc, making it a seamless treat.

An aesthetic watermark for Cave, a true high point in a long career that is ever looking forward.

And "dazzling" isn't really hyperbole -- based on these 18 songs, Blur isn't just the best pop band of the '90s, with greater range and depth than their peers, they rank among the best pop bands of all time. The Best of Blur illustrates that, even as it misses some of their best moments -- omissions that prevent it from being the flat-out classic it should be. Even so, it's pretty damn terrific, particularly for the unconverted.

Haunting and affecting.

The scenarios he recounts are as detailed and off-the-wall as ever, elaborate screenplays laid out with a vocal style that's ceaselessly fluid and never abrasive.

As technically gifted as she is, Williams also plays with passion, and Acadia is easily her most ambitious release to date.

No Devolución is an album that could easily make converts out of the skeptical, allowing the band to reintroduce themselves to the world over a decade after their first album was released.

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.

While the group's tone reflects the hardships of life in politically suppressed Kinshasa, KOKOKO!'s songs extend beyond mere protest music, bearing an aura of mystery and a celebratory sense of their own spontaneous creation. In an era of musical abundance and sonic homogeneity, it's increasingly uncommon to hear music this fresh and original.

This is the kind of music only a tiny handful of people are ever fortunate enough to witness, and Forever on My Mind allows us to share that rare privilege.

Cadillactica is an album where an artist launches a superior second act while losing none of the essential elements that made the first so powerful.

It's the best kind of pop album imaginable. It can be enjoyed on a purely physical level, and it also carries the potential to adjust your worldview.

Negative Capability is a testament to her journey and what it has taught her, and it reminds us she's still a talent capable of drawing our attention.

Like his great aunt, and his great uncle John Coltrane, Ellison has created exceptionally progressive, stirring, and eternal art.

One of the most assured, propulsive full-lengths the dance world had seen since Daft Punk's Homework.

A lifetime away from the Long Island quartet's emo and pop-punk origins, Science Fiction is a complex and nuanced beast of introspective indie rock and detailed production.

The Sadies created something very special here, and Dallas Good was rightly proud of this work.

Hearing these (sometimes very familiar) songs in this particular sequence is a journey, one that winds along a twisted road yet provides an experience as complete as its mid-'70s companion LPs. It's not a footnote but an essential part of Neil Young's catalog.

Unassuming yet frequently profound, Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest is a gorgeous and much-needed return from an artist whose powers have only grown during the time he spent living his life.

Ambitious as some of that may seem, Exit never feels like a show-off record--just a thoughtfully put-together one.

Seemingly posed as a promise and threat, Wait Til I Get Over is a striking and poignant deviation..

While White Denim's stylistic touchstones are certainly at play on 12, the album feels less like a band working through their influences and more like one coming fully realized into their own.

For Emma captures the sound of broken and quiet isolation, wraps it in a beautiful package, and delivers it to your door with a beating, bruised heart.

Underneath the burnished surface, the album is every bit as vital as its predecessors, examining situations fraught with private and political pitfalls.

Beautiful, sprawling, peaceful, wise, and as tenderly romantic as the world is round, these Dennis Wilson gems are as revelatory as they are stunning.

The man who cut Complicated Game is the more mature McMurtry has figured out how to deliver the fine songs he writes and get their qualities on tape.

Shah's most exciting collection yet.

A powerful return, My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross reaffirms that Anohni & the Johnsons' ability to confront the hardest issues and moments is as eloquent and relevant as ever.

A unique, epic effort from one of the most inventive and dynamic rock bands in recent memory.

The journey to dive into commitment that Dreijer takes her listeners on with Plunge boasts more moods and colors than Fever Ray's debut, or any single Knife album; ultimately, it's some of her most powerful work with yet.

Indigo is an eye-opening taste of what RM is truly capable of outside the bounds of the K-pop powerhouse.

The hooks arrive one after another and the key change at the end pushes the song's catchiness over the top. The softer songs on the album see the Twigs return to some of the Baroque pop influences they built their earliest albums on, but clear away some of the extraneous sounds that could clutter that material.

Lydia Loveless has matured into one of the most compelling and consistently impressive singer/songwriters America can claim, and with Nothing's Gonna Stand in My Way Again, they have matched form and content with a skill that makes it their finest album to date -- no small statement given the strength of their catalog.