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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A thrilling and thoughtful pop experience.

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.

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.

Stripped of some of their later sonic ambitions, Band of Horses play to their strengths here on what feels like a solid return to form.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Set Sail is easily the band's most mature, far-reaching, affirmative statement. Making it even more indispensable is that it is as infectiously danceable as it is life affirming.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Everything Was Forever not only shows they're still in strong form, it's as bold and inspired as their best work.

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.)

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

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.

Cathartic and confident, Prey//IV releases her pain with a diamond-like strength and clarity that is entirely her own.

Writing happy songs that aren't annoying is a tall order, but Mount and company pull it off with enough flair to make Small World a satisfying microcosm of Metronomy's music.

Mature and focused, The Kick is a welcome return from Allen, a refreshing and ebullient collection that balances emotional introspection with pure physical joy.

This set is a classic-sounding Tears for Fears record, one that makes the listener take emotional, spiritual, and mental inventory of their inner world even as the one outside roils with trouble, violence, and madness. Welcome back gents, we've missed you.

Ocean Child is a fitting tribute to an artist who's challenged herself and her audiences for the entirety of a lifelong career, and inspired entire sects of music in the process.

Sad Cities is the best kind of comeback album; one that has just the right amount of nostalgia baked into the grooves, but also adds in new sounds and approaches. Shapiro and Agebjörn certainly do that and the album is a reminder of just how good heartbreak disco can sound when delivered by people who understand it so well.

The result of this envelope-pushing is one of their most nuanced and emotionally engaging albums in years, arriving at a different kind of immediacy than can be achieved with loud guitars and angsty hooks.

If Sarah Shook has evolved a bit as a person on Nightroamer, as an artist they're as articulate, as fearless, and as smart as ever.

Strictly speaking, there are no surprises or detours within these 16 tracks, yet it's unexpected to hear Marr maintain his drive through a full double album without lagging. He sounds in full command of his craft, and that's a pleasure to hear.

The focus on deeply intuitive, sophisticated improvisation integrated with Luthert's instinctive, tasteful electronics is welcoming, adventurous, and abundantly creative.

After a decade of artistic exploration and soul-searching, the self-proclaimed "motherf*ckin princess" has reclaimed her pop-punk crown.

Timewave Zero might be a far cry from Blood Incantation's best-known work, but it truly rewards the open-minded listener, and is simply a fantastic ambient album in its own right.

For listeners who miss the simpler early days, All the Truth That I Can Tell is a treasure trove of comfort and familiarity, an utterly relatable collection of growth and hope tempered by the starkness of reality.

The unexpected touches, such as Glasper's own drunk-funk drums on "Shine" and the Theo Parrish-like beatdown house gait of "Everybody Love" (featuring Musiq Soulchild and Posdnous), are as welcome as the familiar ones.

A worthy follow-up to Ignorance and an accomplished work in its own right, How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars makes the most of Lindeman's softly insightful powers.

For all of its incendiary music, furious soundscapes, and rhythmic madness, Pray for Me is beautifully produced, mischievously strategized, and expertly performed.

She's added new ideas that make this music feel like a metamorphosis; transforming herself into an artist who has thrown off any generic frameworks that confined her in the past.

As with every Guided by Voices album, fans will find some songs excellent and some unmemorable, but Crystal Nuns Cathedral's steady approach and considered construction make for more keepers than duds, and one of the band's stronger entries.

Track for track, Crown is flawless, the most consistent, musically ambitious, and satisfying album Gales has delivered in a long time, if not ever.

The home-brewed spectacle of this album makes it easy to visualize CMAT tackling bigger stages in the future. It's a witty and thoroughly delightful debut.

On songs as different as the poignant protest song "Freedom" and the title track's winding musings on existence and creativity, it's both comforting and thrilling to hear Hval breathe life into the everyday so fully.

The words offer a lot of food for thought, but the music and arrangements are every bit as remarkable.

Thankfully, all of Who Cares? sounds exactly like Rex Orange County coming into his own.

Allhallowtide is another fine example of how Bid and his band are experts at the form. They have been doing this for a long time, and for the past decade there are few bands who have been doing it as well.

All of Widowspeak's experience feels channeled into The Jacket's poetic, poignant songs, and after more than a decade together, they're continuing to build one of the quietly great discographies of the 2010s and 2020s.

It's easy to wish all four members had been able to work together again, but having the band back in any form and operating at such a high level is a dream come true for all Boo fanatics and should be a nice discovery for younger fans looking for some classic OG dream pop.

Re-emerging after a nine-year gap, their fifth album, For the Sake of Bethel Woods, retains some of the progressive experimentation of its predecessor without losing sight of its sturdy core of songs. In producer John Congleton, Midlake has found a worthy foil and he helps imbue highlights like the gorgeous "Feast of Carrion" and "Meanwhile…" with a sense of elegance and mystique.

At a sleek 33-minutes long, Crash lets songs like "Lightning" -- an unlikely but winning collision of freestyle beats, giddy orchestral synth stabs, and processed vocals -- claim the spotlight they deserve. It may not be quite as striking as how i'm feeling now, but on Crash, Charli XCX once again finds endless freedom in pop's constraints.

Benny's storytelling lyrics are hardened and aggressive as ever, but he balances out his tales of street dominance and underworld dealings with moments of honest self-reflection.

Despite its generous track list, Hits to the Head never drags -- like Franz Ferdinand's music as a whole, it's very listenable and a lot of fun.

The next best thing to sitting in on a Sonic Youth jam session, In/Out/In distills the band's essence so brilliantly that fans will fall in love all over again.

The Alchemist's instrumentals are fluid and bubbling over with unexpected sound combinations, and the inspired nature of Curren$y's performances comes through even when he's at his most laid-back.

Not unlike the late Emitt Rhodes, there's some of the cult classic singer/songwriter in Ivey's overall vibe, which seems built for a smaller but deeply devoted arena.

It'll take at least a full listen or two to adjust to the album's structure and arrangement. Once it clicks, it's a truly unique, engrossing experience that plays with one's perception of memory in relation to music, somewhat reminiscent of the Caretaker's work, but far from its sense of romanticized nostalgia.

The Cactus Blossoms remain a proudly low-key affair -- the focus remains on the harmonies of brothers Page Burkum and Jack Torrey -- but the small, telling details help turn One Day into a warm, enveloping listen.

Like its three predecessors, Warm Chris blazes its own trail, and following along can sometimes feel like grasping at the last vestiges of a late morning dream. It's both compelling and confounding, like Harding herself.

Labyrinthitis is another exciting step forward in Destroyer's never-ending evolution, delivering pleasant confusion and unexpected choices along with the kind of fractured but magical songwriting of which only Bejar is capable.

These are recognizably Weezer songs, but they're livelier in execution, benefitting from a palpable sense of playfulness on the part of the band.

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.

"Teeth Out, Pt. II" is even more purgatorial, proving that Miller and Kuperus don't need beats to sound formidable. It all makes Becoming Undone one of Adult.'s most harrowing albums -- and all the more impressive because of it.

Only Love From Now On is a beautiful and satisfying culmination of everything she's done so far.

Released six years to the day after Phife's death, Forever serves as both the final realization of his artistic statement, and a loving tribute to the memory of the artist himself.

The overall downplaying of Camp Cope's more emo tendencies plays like a natural occurrence as they age into this satisfying new phase.

Despite the overwhelming emotions, Never Let Me Go is an exercise in control and expert execution that finds Placebo on another level of songwriting and point of view, a welcome surprise at this stage in their careers.

With such a vibrant canvas to rap over, its good to hear Curry come at the project with a refreshed pen game.

Jordan's willingness to allow us inside his head and witness his insecurities and inner dialogue alongside his rage gives this a depth few hardcore bands will ever reach. If you want your ears kicked, Soul Glo can do that like few others, but Diaspora Problems confirms that's hardly the beginning and end of their talents.

Humble Quest is a mature record in its approach in addition to its theme, a record that offers warm consolation in hours of trouble as well as breezy relaxation during the good times.

The creeping lurch and distressed fuzz damage of final track "Aurora" bring the likenesses and differences of previous phases of the band into clear focus, closing out Sonancy with a sound that could fit anywhere in the Loop discography but feels especially visceral, more dynamic than ever, and somehow new.

An album that's trying to move forward and ultimately relieved things are ending, Tell Me That It's Over may not find Wallows any luckier at love, but they're a little older, a little wiser, just as catchy, and more sonically adventurous.

The cathartic release is absolutely joyous on this stylish party album, a heaping dose of maximalist escapism from a quartet that just wants you to dance your cares away.

Biting the hand that feeds is one of punk's great traditions, and it's a relief to find Pup's shambling spirit unsullied by their present status.

Ultimately, Immutable delivers the very essence of Meshuggah. While comfortable in their collective skin, they continue expanding their reach by obliterating -- hell, nearly swallowing -- metal's genre boundaries in their long, relentless search for the undiscovered.

Despite the fractured path to its creation, Two Ribbons is Hollingworth and Walton's most cohesive album yet. They've grown just far enough apart to be themselves, and they've come together to make something equally beautiful and meaningful.

Fans who fell in love with Tillman's sharp social commentary will find plenty to hone in on, but the lush sounds take some of the bite out of his clever barbs and cynical perspectives on love and connection. Even with the strong, considered design of his previous albums, Father John Misty has never sounded so pleasant.

Fear of the Dawn isn't often a pleasant listen, but it wasn't meant to be: it's a dark adventure, an album designed to provoke and stoke fears, not to soothe them.

While Chambers and Teasdale are still discovering what they can do, they're having a lot of fun finding out, and Wet Leg more than delivers on the promise of their viral beginnings.

Fast-forward a few years and that mid-fi, highly melodic sound [on 2018's Parallel Universe Blues] is fully intact on Past Life Regression. It's a little clearer, sharper around the edges, and less bathed in a kind of third-album VU haze.

It's handsomely crafted classic rock played with flair, wit, and precision, elements that make familiar tropes seem fresh.

He relates without judgment these possibilities for others journeying through this deeply troubled world, rendering I Just Want to Be a Good Man an outsider gospel masterpiece.

With this album, he's challenged himself to make something so personal and ambitious that it finds an audience precisely because it's so extraordinary. It's a challenge that anyone who's been a fan of his music in any incarnation should accept.