Another triumph, Birth of Violence is a potent -- if hushed -- reminder that Wolfe's intensity never wavers, no matter how she expresses it.

Strong hooks abound on a true collaborative effort that officially passes the mantle to trad rock.

Beneath the Eyrie isn't just the best Pixies 2.0 album to date -- it suggests they just might be stepping out of the shadow of their legendary past.

Full of insight and inspiration, The Return is an impressive, powerful work.

It can be difficult to digest the combination of super-catchy pop hooks and shocking or gross lyrics on Miami Memory, but both are essential for the complex, cynical fiction Cameron has been building on all his albums. This one is the best produced, most catchy, and most vulgar of his catalog up until this point.

Hypersonic Missiles is smart, passionate, and loaded with rock-solid anthems that surpass the "promising" designation.

ICONOLOGY is a good placeholder while fans wait for the next chapter of Elliott's brilliance, but overall seems truncated and undercooked.

Resonant Body is an inspiring release that demonstrates the healing qualities of dance music.

The vibe is appealing and so is Hynde's performance. Unhurried and nuanced, she eases herself into songs she clearly loves, and that sense of warmth lingers long after the album's last notes fade away.

An apt, and winning, culmination of Khan's music. As she celebrates the renewal of disappearing into a new identity or the freedom of getting lost in the moment, her visions feel more vivid, and more real, than they have in some time.

Another State of Grace isn't as immediately satisfying as its predecessor, but like all things built with care, it attains a golden patina over time.

While this LP might seem like a present custom made for expectant deep-listening fans who have grown with the makers, it's plainly evident that Phonte and Pooh needed to make it for themselves. Like the return from their idolized A Tribe Called Quest, May the Lord Watch strengthens a legacy of an act crucial to hip-hop.

These are songs that make you want to roll the windows down, light up a smoke, and pound the dashboard in agreement.

While lyrics stick better than hooks here, the album is not without a handful of low-key anthems (including the latter track's high-flying, Auto-Tuned "it's gonna be okay"), and the atmosphere manages to be consistently warm and inviting despite its mechanical veneer.

Though the songs average just under two minutes each, at 21 tracks, it's generous for a Cosmos outing and does nothing to detract from Kline's reputation as one of indie pop's most reliable songsmiths.

While it was unfinished and framed in '80s studio tropes, their attempt to complete it with modern charts and muddy, hip-hop-styled mix weighs down what remains of the original proceedings.

The record's resonance lies in its deep emotions and sense of craft. The craft isn't incidental, either. Their shared skills as writers and singers provide the supporting evidence to Shires' conceptual thesis: if country radio doesn't want to play music this good, what's the point of radio anyway?

As a detour from rock & roll, Free is a fine and compelling study of the mind and mood of Iggy Pop at the age of 72, and if it's clearly the work of an older artist, that works to its favor, a pointed contrast to the abandon of his youth but with no less gravitas.

Even solid instrumentals begin to blur before the halfway point arrives, and the monotonous wash of mediocre content and phoned-in performances becomes exhausting long before the collection ends.

As usual, Vaughan completely ignores modern electric blues trends. On this excellent slab of grease, grit, and soul, past is present is future, thank goodness.

That Tinariwen continue to extend invitations to outside inspirators, even on their own literal turf, is a testament to their unyielding collaborative spirit and on this hybrid of an album, they again summon a common musical language while sounding as authentic as ever.

The album maintains the smouldering quality that Lower Dens have always had, but replaces all the washed-out splendor with exacting pop hooks borrowed straight from the Reagan era. It ends up being both the headiest and most commercial material the band has created. It’s a different beast from their earlier iterations, but a compelling remodelling with interlocking layers of both sound and cultural critique.

Thoroughly inspired as well as creative, Hoodies All Summer is arguably the best work of Kano's career.

Familiar in style and approach, Engine of Paradise offers a sturdy distillation of Green's worldview, albeit a slightly darker one.

The band have never made music that's sounded so modern and disconcertingly eager to please. It's a sea change that's hard to swallow, and despite the presence of some decent tracks, Wallop is the band's weakest album to date.

Every bit as excellent as their previous two full-lengths, Venus in Leo is HTRK's most sensuous material yet, and the type of album that provokes repeated, enraptured listens.

Like a more pastoral variation on Joni Mitchell's Blue, the reduced volume on Like The River Loves The Sea gives the music strength, not fragility, and this is Joan Shelley's best work to date. Turns out that trip to Reykjavik was a wise investment.

Brighter Days is a bit tidier and less adventurous than 2017's Got Soul, but it captures the heart and soul of Robert Randolph & the Family Band as well as their big, bold sound, and the results are strong, satisfying stuff.

All the songs aim for intense, tormented statements and end up being about nothing. In this way, ! is more numbing than visceral. After it's done, it's hard to remember anything that was worth latching onto.

The sheer dynamism of When I Have Fears threatens to derail the album, but a dedication to themes makes it cohesive, with the softer moments highlighting the louder counterparts and vice-versa. It's captivating from start to finish, heartbreaking in its delivery, and intense in all the right ways.

The brothers and sisters in arms, longtime partners (Thomas McElroy, Taura Stinson) and new associates (Brook D'Leau, Daniel Crawford) alike, play in service to the vision of one eminent artist, helping him convert grief to artistic brilliance.

The whole album revolves around the idea of rock & roll as a freeing source of energy, a non-stop party that can uplift those who embrace it. The McDonald brothers are living proof of that idea and Beyond the Door is another example of how pure their love for the form is and how powerfully they channel the true unadulterated ideals of the music.

The band rounds out the album with more familiar-sounding songs like "Stranger in a New Town" and "Good Night Out," but it's Powers' riskier, more revealing moments that prove the Futureheads have more to say than ever before.

Shannon Lay lives in the real world even as she's fascinated with all that is not obvious to us, and she's rarely in better form than on August. Anyone this good certainly deserves not to work in retail.

It's clear after four albums that the best Bon Iver is the one that manages to keep the arrangements in check and doesn't swing for the fences. I,I takes many mighty swings and at best knocks out a few infield hits, while striking out far too often.

Tool managed to improve and perfect their sound even further, resulting in one of the strongest statements in their catalog. Whether 10,000 days or the actual 4,868, Fear Inoculum was well worth the wait.

It's a nice dose of rock & roll, but the heart of Sunset Kids lies at twilight, when the day is done, and there are some lingering regrets, but still a glimmer of hope. That bittersweet undercurrent is what lifts this album into the ranks of one of Malin's best records.

Weird, warped and somehow playful while presenting songs about earthlings grappling with a dying planet, Zdenka 2080 constructs a universe of its own. It’s a wonderfully strange galaxy to get lost in.

The benevolent spirit in ["HER Love"] and almost all of the other tracks makes the strong-arming "Hercules" and the retribution tale "Fifth Story" seem like misplaced throw-ins.

The patient flow, risky songwriting choices and mature character of the album make it the most majestic chapter of Lana Del Rey’s continuing saga of love and disillusionment under the California Sun.

It's a roller coaster of conflicting moods and feelings.

Like everything else Pharmakon does, this is almost unbearably intense, but in a way that resonates deeply and is almost soothing, as if the only way to justify the horrors of living is to elevate one's self into the most chaotic state possible.

There are a handful of darker moments, like on the moodily defiant standout "More Women" and the eerie closer "You've Got a Story," but as a whole Wild Seeds is a reassuring balm of thoughtful songwriting and complex but wholly relatable emotions.

Neither as radically charged or emotionally turbulent as her debut, At the Party is still an engaging listen whose charms come by way of connection and compassion rather than discord.

Even at its most subdued, the relentless and invigorating Twelve Nudes crackles and pops like an alkali metal hitting water.

Though the album delivers a jammy, two-minute instrumental in "Rhododendron," the track ultimately lands more like an interlude than an outlier, and Forever Turned Around very much plays out like a world-wearier continuation of Light Upon the Lake. Sometimes no big surprises is a welcome result.

Running a leisurely 75 minutes, Threads doesn't seem sequenced so much as unedited; it's as if instead of finishing the album, she decided to dump every track out into the marketplace. This makes for a somewhat somnolent record, but it's better to think of it as not a complete meal but rather a buffet that contains something to please every palette.

Delivers a punitive amalgam of classic West Coast thrash and bruising groove metal.

They fare better as a dancey new wave party band than they did emulating Joy Division on their album before this, but for all its energy and drive, Spirit World is light on truly striking songs.

Throughout the record, Tropical Fuck Storm intentionally eschew formulaic song structure, relying on unconventional songwriting rather than mining pseudo-psych-rock. As a result, the sense of apocalyptic adventure is palpable; luckily, it's a joy to go along for the ride.

Fresh and exhilarating, Nothing Great About Britain firmly establishes slowthai as one of U.K. rap's most relevant artists.

Throughout, the slippery beats, rangy songwriting, crisp, breezy production, and the streetwise pleasure-seeking confessionals and sideways jokes, make for a feel-good (even in its darker moments) summertime urbano album to be pumped loudly from car stereos, at parties, or on the beach.

It's a record that gets by on feel, not songs, which may mean that it doesn't provide many distinguishing hooks, but it does sound awfully good as it plays.

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.

Despite these variations, discernable influences, and the involvement of collaborators, the comforting Anak Ko is more unified in tone than prior releases and benefits from its marriage of immersive sound design with consistently engaging songs.

More than either 1989 or Reputation, Lover seems fully realized and mature: Swift is embracing all aspects of her personality, from the hopeful dreamer to the coolly controlled craftsman, resulting in a record that's simultaneously familiar and surprising.

The clarity of the remastering on The End of Radio makes this a must for fans of Shellac. It would be nice if we could get another live set from this trio that was recorded less than 15 years ago, yet as an artifact of the Live Shellac Experience and a sincere tribute to fallen comrades, this is as good as you could hope for.

Tucker's previous few albums contained some of his most stripped-down, direct material, but here he goes for a bigger, grander sound, and the results are no less powerful.

Tropical Fuck Storm are fast becoming a watering hole for listeners with a thirst for the weird, and on Braindrops, they have eschewed formulas to such an extent that they are now staring back through the dimensional mirror with wry smiles and killer tunes.

Like some of the more cerebral acts of Britain's early-'70s folk-rock heyday, Modern Nature aren't a portable commodity of singles and small ideas. Their music is defiantly experimental -- though by no means impenetrable -- and best enjoyed in its long-form splendor.

The 16 songs use a wide variety of stylistic approaches while centering around Durk's lyrical narratives of desperation and survival. While not all of it feels essential, the high points are fantastic examples of the rapper at his best.

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.

Amazingly, Childish doesn't show a single sign of slowing down or losing a step. At this rate, he may indeed be the last punk standing; he's certainly one of the few still making records as impressive as this.

In many ways, Animated Violence Mild feels like the inevitable sequel to World Eater. Where that album used the full force of Power's music to rail against the world's injustices, this one reflects the resignation, frustration, and emotional overload of its time in its startling and moving tracks.

Stieglitz's and Morgan's work both speak to the desire to preserve the power of a moment, and to make something fleeting eternal, whether with a photograph or a piece of ambient music. There's something noble about that, and on Equivalents, Morgan captures it eloquently.

He tells these stories (many of them dark and tragic) with empathy, tenderness, and a desire to illuminate curiosity about his subjects, making No Man's Land a welcome addition to Turner's catalog.

This skillful balance of consistency and surprises -- as well as the past, present, and future of dance, indie, and pop -- makes Inflorescent a more than welcome return.

As impressive as these textured emotions are, Gypsy succeeds as a record because of Jewell's facility with roots music.

Hints are abundant that they are on the cusp of stylistic and sonic evolutions balancing bold and experimental elements, but their commitment to the material, as well as their energy and focus, aren't forced but are occurring naturally. This is easily the band's strongest outing since Leach's return.

In both vocal cadence and lyrical content, NF falls somewhere between Eminem and Twenty One Pilots' Tyler Joseph, while channeling the former's rage and the latter's emotive introspection. As such, The Search is a heavy and emotionally exhausting listen, brimming with troubling allusions to suicide and soul-baring pain.

Other Girls benefits from Cobb adding a sense of spectral melancholy to the proceedings. It's a quality that's thankfully not overplayed; it's there just enough to add dimension and mystery, emotions that still linger when the record turns and eases into something a little simpler.

Mixed results notwithstanding, This Is Not a Safe Place is further proof that these four musicians belong beside one another. They won't make the long-list for the Patrick Fitzgerald Shoegaze Poet Award, but they still create quite a sighing racket.

Triumphantly romantic, Forevher announces Shura as an artist who's as deft at soul-baring songwriting and soaring pop as Carly Rae Jepsen or Christine and the Queens.

King Gizzard aren't sugarcoating anything, either musically or thematically, and that makes for their most timely and political album yet. It's also one of their most musically compelling and impressive, too, and that's saying a lot.

Frequent serious references to mortality make Port of Miami 2 his heaviest recording.

Any band looking to play psychedelic music should look to this album (and Smote Reverser) to fully understand the possibilities that exist within (and far outside) of the style and just how far a band with limitless imagination can go if they don't settle for cliches and easy answers and push hard to make something unique and beautiful like the Oh Sees do here (and almost always.)

It's music that's lush yet spare, tuneful but not forceful, cinematic yet small scale. Those ambiguous contradictions give the album emotional undercurrents both sweet and sad, an appealing blend that sets it apart from most other albums in 2019, along with most of Yorn's catalog.

Where Prick of the Litter settled into a mellow vibe, Tall, Dark, And Handsome is bold and restless, finding McClinton trying on all manner of blues for size.

On Black Love & War, they channel love for one another and their people, vexation in the face of escalating tyranny, and seemingly inextinguishable positivity into some of their most determined and stimulating funk.

Uniform and the Body are both fascinating and terrifying on their own, and their creative superpowers only multiply when they're together.

Thrashing Thru The Passion feels mature but not stuffy or settled; it's the sound of a group that cherishes their own peculiar chemistry and choose to bask within the righteous noise they make.

It's an album that forces the listener to abandon nostalgia and accept that things are different now. It's not a comforting notion, and it's one that may sit awkwardly for listeners who prize raw guitars over refined aesthetic, but The Center Won't Hold demonstrates what a fearless band Sleater-Kinney is.

More than anything else, We Are Not Your Kind feels locked-in on a personal level -- that aforementioned sense of melancholy resides uncomfortably close to the surface throughout -- and that human touch resonates, even as the band unleashes volley after volley of tribal rhythms, scorching riffage, and fathomless decibels.

The rapper's skills aren't in question on The Lost Boy, but the album sometimes overshoots in its ambition, aiming for too many styles to hit them all with excellence. It's still a strong collection, and when Cordae strikes a perfect balance of mellow production and lyrical power on standout tracks like "We Gon Make It," it points to even more fully formed work ahead from a strong talent just getting started.

The variety of styles, sounds, and beats means that this is one of the more satisfying albums Drake has issued. Despite it being made up of songs that were cast off, leaked, or used as bait, it serves as a kind of shadow career overview that gives a full picture of Drake as a talented, forward-thinking, frustrating, monomaniacal, and important artist.

Instead of drowning in dense reflections, these songs see Cohen carefully, patiently sorting them out, and creating another stellar work of art in the process.

On Everybody Split, Possible Humans explore all of their music's possibilities; even if they don't always coalesce, the band's embrace of the unexpected makes for some fascinating listening.

Immunity is nothing if not consistent in providing Clairo's confessional lyrics and seemingly thematically detached vocals with a cushiony-soft landing. What she loses here in charm, she makes up for in lyrical depth and an enveloping sense of comfort, if drowsy melodies tend to waft by rather than stick around.

Any Human Friend sounds sleeker and more polished than Hackman's previous releases, but at the same time it takes the playfully libidinous tone of I'm Not Your Man and cranks it up a few levels.

More Arriving is a giant step for Korwar, who pushes musical boundaries to the breaking point as his tunes articulate righteous anger, passion, pain, and pride with a militancy that emerges from the plight of human decency itself. Brilliant.

Maybe the group loses some of the kinetic kick that made Feel Your Feelings Fool! such a gas, but How Do You Love? proves that Night and the Regrettes have figured out how to turn ebullient punk-pop into a sustainable source of energy.

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.

Along with its generous set list and powerful performances, the attention to details like these makes Live at Troxy another riveting expression of Dreijer's passionate commitment to their work.

The album purposely seems open-ended, as Cross has no clue what's in store for her after this point in her life, but her willingness to explore unknown territory is the main reason her music is so captivating.

Although it elevates the value of the underrated and divisive Stay Together and houses a handful of strong earworms, Duck ranks as one of Kaiser Chiefs' weaker overall efforts.

After a half-decade of life lessons, Azalea could have gone in a certain cathartic and mature direction. However, on In My Defense, she opted for a less gracious and, ultimately, exhausted route.

Take the tapes back in time to 1992 or so, and Young Guv would be right in holy firmament of that era's power pop scene right next to Mr. Sweet, Teenage Fanclub, Sloan, and Velvet Crush. Maybe even slightly ahead, or at least a little to the left, of a few of them. It's certainly the best power pop anyone is likely to hear in 2019.

With nine short songs, Tyler Childers has deepened and expanded the world he etched in Purgatory.