It may not change the minds of those who think there isn't much to Cigarettes After Sex's music, but X's delivers enough glamorous brooding to keep fans happily miserable.

The stage show in this form is a perfect distillation of all the themes and feelings the book digs into, boiling them down to the truest, most intense nuggets, and Pastel and Thompson's music is a big part of why it works so well both in the show and as a stand-alone album.

It can just as easily function as music for quiet reflection, nature exploration, travel, studying, or most other activities. II is their most distinctive, sophisticated, and emotionally rich work yet.

Her previous album was a breakout success for good reason, but My Light, My Destroyer succeeds in all the right ways, pushing Jenkins' songcraft ever forward and expanding her already impressive catalog.

While Brijean's music is rooted in bossa nova, AM pop, and funk influences, Macro is one of their most stylistically well-rounded productions.

Given how packed the guest list is, it's not surprising that this party runs a little long, but ultimately, each of Harmonics' tracks reflects the warmth and generosity of Goddard's creativity.

Her previous album was a breakout success for good reason, but My Light, My Destroyer succeeds in all the right ways, pushing Jenkins' songcraft ever forward and expanding her already impressive catalog.

Thanks to the always sympathetic production, Cottrill's dedication, and the overall strength of the songs, it's a living, breathing sound that end sup as Clairo's most inviting and easy to love record yet.

Dig beneath the surface, the lyrics make plain Healy's claim of the album being a personal record but the trick that Travis pulls off with L.A. Times is that it is engaging on the surface thanks to colorful melodies and shifting arrangements--the very things that beg for subsequent listens, the ones where themes reveal themselves.

While Big Ideas could be accused of being uneven, filler is a matter of personal genre preference here, left turns that are fun or even funny dominate, and with a closer like the helium-voiced disco entry "Slay Bitch," any remaining scolds should be few and far between.

Bad Cameo is a compelling picture of two collaborators inspiring each other to try things they might not have on their own.

While nothing quite matches the baddie intensity of "Big Boy," Dopamine works nicely, conjuring a vibe of sultry, post-club afterglow.

Rather than a succinct return to form, As It Ever Was is quite dense, occasionally getting in its own way in trying to do a bit of everything. For that reason, it might not be the record that earns them scads of new listeners, but for longtime fans, there is a lot to love.

Tunes such as "Rainlines," "Dolphin Spray," and the amusingly titled "Cafe del Mars" are among his prettiest and most straightforward, respectively, dealing out throbbing and knackered house, intimate dancehall, and vaporous techno. The few purely ambient pieces, highlighted by "Doves Over Atlantis," are almost as evocative.

While the title track is ostensibly a song about a couple falling in love, the track, as with much of Good Together, could just as easily work as a love letter penned by the members of Lake Street Dive to each other.

Passing through the Valley of Abandoned Songs, it seems, is a little like visiting the Lost & Found, and there's definite value in these reclaimed works of art.

The results are mixed if always entertaining.

Songwriter works well as an important document of a previously underrepresented era for Cash, whose career was about to enter a transformational new phase.

Sounds pleasant enough, but Greene's songs and production are so placid and unbothered by anything remotely emotional that it's hard to imagine the album causing any kind of reaction.

While Megan strays somewhat from the formula of invincible confidence and crowd-pleasing summer anthems that we're used to from MTS, its moments of bitterness and uncertainty do a lot to humanize the larger-than-life rap queen, one whose head has grown heavy from wearing the crown.

The album features a smart balance between serious, inward-looking ballads and dance tracks, and Starr writes from a personal perspective about the mix of emotions and circumstances brought about by early adulthood and stardom.

At its best, C,XOXO is a vibes album, musical perfume -- a spritz of Cabello's "meteor shower" pop moment.

SML lay down some heavy grooves, but their music is less about making people dance than it is about exploring space through communal joy.

While Mercury kept their hit streak going and matured the band with a welcome vulnerability, longtime fans of their aggressive empowerment anthems will delight in this pseudo-"return to form" from the Vegas quartet, one of their most satisfying and immediate sets to date.

On Oath, Mono's seemingly disparate, trademark elements create a universe of sound and emotion to completely immerse oneself in for a moment, an hour, or a lifetime.

The laid-back "Time Will Tell" is bound to prompt comparisons to certain late-'70s soft rock hits but has a lonesome if sanguine character all its own. Even lighter in touch, "Dime" ("tell me") is a lush, Tropicália-inspired duet with Chilean singer/drummer Cancamusa that flashes back to when Frazer's romance was blossoming.

While Peyroux expertly commands the styles and forms she always has, her wonderful, songwriting elevates Let's Walk to an entirely different level. Essential.

As Guided by Voices approach their fourth decade as a band, Strut of Kings reminds us that they're not only at the top of their game, but they're still growing and trying new things, and succeeding admirably.

This is rock music at it's most exciting and meaningful from a band that's doing their level best to keep the form alive and thriving.

While still haunted and yearning in nature, tracks like "How It Starts" and the especially Halloween-y "A Steady Mind" are driving, melodic, playlist-friendly offerings that provide rhythmic pick-me-ups without stepping outside the confines of the album's blue-tinted universe.

The band finishes off the album by following "Cinnamon Temple" with a raucous remake of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" that shoves the acid rock classic in front of a fun house mirror. Increased chaos and whimsy only heightens Hiatus Kaiyote's ability to enchant and exhilarate.

This is a very strong debut of well-built songwriting and captivating vocals.

Still tuned in to an aesthetic of translating disparate ideas into fine-tuned songs, the Folk Implosion sound at home on Walk Thru Me, taking their music to new, strange places, as always, regardless of the years that have passed since the last time we heard from them.

Though it comes a decade after the last entry to Dirty Three's ongoing story, Love Changes Everything picks up, as each new chapter of the group's story does, as if no time has passed at all, and the trio keeps flowing naturally forward.

The Healer is an emotionally draining experience, like all of SUMAC's other releases, but it reaches transcendence in a unique and powerful way.

Grush clearly finds µ-Ziq in comfortable territory, but he's still trying new things, and his work is still highly enjoyable.

Though most of What Happened to the Heart? lands in a dance-pop middle ground stylistically, ballads like the Brazilian-flavored "The Essence" and synth-enhanced "Dreams" offer room to breathe with their drum-less or drum-light arrangements.

More than a reductive "Zayn goes country" album, the beautiful Room Under the Stairs is the sound of an artist trying something brave and new, tapping into his soul and coming out on the other side with the strongest album of his career to date.

Heartfelt and well-built songs like "Cheap Coffee" and "We Are Loved" help anchor the set, but there's an underlying banality that keeps it from greatness. Still, it's an improvement on its predecessor.

By the orchestral, Chelsea Girl-evoking beauty of final track "Why Worry," Campbell has spent the album flitting from idea to idea, ending up with a sampler pack of different stylizations of her always lovely (if not always simple) songcraft.

More than just a standards or tribute album, Sweet Whispers reveals just how stylistically broad-minded Vaughan was, a compelling trait McFarlane carries forward with passionate aplomb.

Far from limited and much more than a gimmick, O.'s approach on WeirdOs is undeniably strange -- and a lot of invigorating fun for anyone who loves music that's as unpretentious as it is inventive.

Alvin and Gilmore are two great tastes who taste great together, with Alvin's salt and Gilmore's sweetness accenting one another very well indeed, and Texicali is strong enough to suggest this collaboration should have gas in the tank for at least one more album.

She clearly wanted an audience to hear these songs, but she also wanted a chance to create with artists she loves and respects, and the joy of creation is matched by the joy of hearing these musicians at work.

Rest assured, songs including the opening "Millions of Heartbeats" make clear that Nash hasn't lost her impudent flair; however, by the end of the record, any cheekiness is easily outweighed by disarming earnestness.

Staples is in top form on Dark Times. It's another chapter of his uniquely smoke-colored narratives, form-fitting production, and perfectly balanced expressions of heaviness and acceptance.

We Sang, Therefore We Were may have been born out of restlessness and anger, but it's also a remarkably fun dispatch from one of indie music's most inventive musical minds.

MESTIZX is unlike any other album. It is where the historic cultural past meets present-day conflict and jingoism. Undaunted, this duo chart a direction and unfettered hope for the future, holism, and acceptance.

Sonido Cósmico is gorgeous. This music retains Hermanos Gutiérrez's core musical fingerprint. That said, its collaborative strategy extends the brothers' reach in exploring genres, rhythms, colors, textures, and production techniques.

We Have Dozens of Titles offers a sense that their state of perpetual metamorphosis actually went even deeper than what was shown on their widely adored studio records.

Placenta's sound, while immediately recognizable as a work of Niño's, goes very deep and very wide due to his familiarity, respect for, and reliance on the gifts of his studio cast.

Throughout Eight Pointed Star's various stylistic touchpoints, artistic allusions, and consistently lyrical melodies, Allen effectively merges the cerebral and the sentimental on an album that's ultimately about different kinds of love.

The preponderance of previous Ziggy Stardust reissues and Bowie at the Beeb collections does rob this set of some of its surprise because so much of this music has been in circulation. That said, this set does indeed contain some excavated rarities, highlighted by "So Long 60s" -- Bowie would rewrite this folky number into the bracingly modernist "Moonage Daydream" -- and two unheard songs from the album's early days.

Although Wings are augmented by an orchestra on occasion, One Hand Clapping feels rough, free, and immediate, lacking the polish that gave Wings Over America its sheen. The loose feel isn't limited to the performances themselves. McCartney punctuates the rockers with vaudevillian throwaways, alternating between classics like "Baby Face" and originals like "I'll Give You a Ring," not so much concentrating on smooth transitions as indulging his every whim.

Why Lawd? is neither crowded nor compromised by the extra voices. Like the debut, this is primarily an R&B record with Paak's variably frisky and lovelorn singing voice and Knxwledge's warped sample-based productions as the basis.

Fine Art is a major step up for Kneecap, an already unique group who have finally delivered on their early promise with a bold, relevant statement.

Though wit and sincerity have never been opposites in Grant's music, he's never brought them -- as well as beauty, cruelty, anger, and love -- together quite as potently as he does on The Art of the Lie's portraits of a society tearing itself apart.

It may not be especially optimistic, but it's certainly powerful and inspiring, and we probably need that more from Cale than forced cheeriness, a skill he need not acquire this far into his career.

An album where the energy is intrinsic and impossible to miss, but deeper complexities hide in the details that keep changing.

For an album that spans multiple styles and features a different guest vocalist on every song, Always Centered at Night is consistently passionate and spiritual.

If Model suffers from anything, it's sometimes seeming a bit formulaic in the process, but the good news is that the band is really good at catchy unlucky-in-love songs.

Goat Girl's wealth of ideas is one of their biggest strengths, but Below the Waste lacks the focus that united their music into a cohesive whole on On All Fours.

This is the best and most satisfying album Buffalo Tom has made since they returned to recording with 2007's Three Easy Pieces, and if it sounds different than these men did when they were in their twenties, it sounds just like who they are, and in this context, that's a gift.

A welcome standout in Eels' body of work.

The album teeters eloquently between introspective folk, twangy roots pop, and bashing psych-rockabilly numbers. Musically, the album is a nice balance of the sounds and influences he's pursued throughout his career.

Gravity Stairs may feel cozy, but it never feels lazy. Some of that surely lies in how the band chooses to camouflage its strong melodic core with fluid, shifting surfaces -- a decision that winds up emphasizing sound over song while also directing focus to the familial chemistry of the band.

Full of dark-hued emotions that speak to the self-examination and deconstruction Garcia went through, Gemelo is also bright with passion and artful musical experimentation.

Kaytranada continues to refine his sample-laced mixture of house, compas, hip-hop, and other cross-continental styles of dance music with Timeless.

Brat's supersaturated sound amplifies her music's swaggering highs and vulnerable depths. .... She delivers some of her most engaging and mature music.

Jon does sound more robust than he did on, say, 2020. It's also true that Bon Jovi isn't making music that would push their singer to his limits. Forever is filled with ballads and midtempo anthems that would sound bigger on an adult contemporary station than an arena. The subdued nature is accentuated by Bon Jovi's proud embrace of nostalgia.

I Hear You varies in quality, with some songs clearly more successful than others, but overall, it's a fun, adventurous record confirming Peggy Gou's status as one of the more distinctive figures in club music.

Darning Woman is at its most captivating when it doesn't even sound much like music at all, but more like the grinding gears of an overactive brain processing confusion and bliss.

Stylistically, Kravitz may not be trying anything new, but his decision to prioritize good vibes above all else generates an unusually satisfying record from the rocker.

This is one of the most rewarding and indulgent releases in Bring Me the Horizon's post-Sempiternal era, a big payoff for fans willing to delve into the lore and a pure thrill for anyone who likes to feel heavy music both in spirit and body.

The bulk of Gunna's boastful wordplay is less inspired than normal, though that shortcoming is mitigated by a handful of bravely reflective and revealing deep cuts.

Generally apologetic, reassuring, and hopeful, Chaos Angel is a comforting album that features some of Hawke's hookiest and most self-assured material yet.

Ship to Shore is one of the tightest collections he's made in the past quarter-century, exhibiting a wide tonal palette and a vitality belying his 75 years.

The album carries a lightness that's emphasized by its brisk running time. That might mean The Border, unlike A Beautiful Time, doesn't quite feel like a final chapter but rather a welcome coda restating Nelson's strengths with casual ease.

While Big Swimmer isn't especially hooky or melodic or cathartic, it is mesmerizing, and performed with an actor's command of an audience, a playwright's turn of phrase, and an expert sense of guitar tones -- as well as an enviable, intangible coolness.

The debut full-length album from Brisbane, Australia's Girl and Girl, 2024's Call a Doctor, crackles with a youthful enthusiasm that finds the quartet ably balancing a mix of late-'70s and early-'80s post-punk and jangle pop influences.

All Aftab's earlier recordings are captivating. That said, Night Reign is a powerful, sensuous, and commanding illustration of the artist's mature vision. It reveals just how receptive, and even vulnerable she is to the spirits of creative inquiry, possibility, and revelation.

Audio Vertigo brings it all together, distilling their many attributes into one of their most exciting albums in years.

The ten-song set is a non-stop whirlwind of chugging, downtuned riffs, urgently screamed vocals, and machine-gun drum performances pushed to the front of the mixes.

The Moon Is in the Wrong Place doesn't feel like an out-of-the-box banger like the Clams' best LPs, but it aims for something different than their previous work, and on its own terms it's a deeply affecting success.

Cleveland's vocals are unfortunately low in the mix and it's often difficult to make out the lyrics, but approached simply as another instrument in the ensemble, her soft, breathy tone is lovely and enigmatic, and the layers of echoey guitars and '60s-style keyboard sounds blend wonderfully with her vocals.

If it ["Ballon de Peut-Etre"] stands out from the other tracks, it shows Bird is in touch with the improvisational heart of post-war jazz, and it's a bold but satisfying conclusion to an LP that reminds us just how quietly brilliant Andrew Bird can be.

Tight, simple, and effective, Hit Me Hard and Soft does just that: it comes in with a bang, thrilling with fresh production and heavy lyrical content, before easing the listener into the murky emotional depths seen on the cover art.

Though its songs about a world falling apart were difficult for DIIV to make, Frog in Boiling Water is their most cohesive work. It's a true slow burn of an album, capturing listeners by degrees and echoing the band's subtle yet dramatic growth since Oshin.

Twenty One Pilots tie a bow on a fascinating narrative that has captured the imagination of a legion of fans around the globe. Fortunately for listeners unaware of the backstory, the songs are reliably catchy and intriguing enough to grab their attention, too.

Throughout the album, otherworldly touches -- loops, processed acoustic instruments, imperfect multi-tracked vocals, echo -- work effectively alongside sighed deliveries and fingerpaint-like lyrics that capture the emotions of otherwise fragmented memories.

Weller sounds looser and lighter on 66 than he did in the recent past, a shift that adds warmth and playfulness to his wisdom.

The lyrics of Dadadi's carnival-ready "Jigi Jigi" acknowledge the sounds of several disparate lands, and Nana Budjei's "Asobrachie" has a strong digital reggae rhythm. Best of all is "Barima Nsu" by Kwasi Afari Minta, an equally hypnotic and haunting ten-minute whirlwind that instantly feels like a lost classic.

To All Trains is almost certainly the final Shellac album, but it isn't a maudlin curtain call. It's a document of a happily uncompromising band living out their vision and loving their art, and on that level, it's as good a place as any to appreciate their (and his) singular brilliance. And it rocks.

The second (and/or third) classic, timeless, and timely Childish Gambino record in a row.

Lives Outgrown reveals Gibbons' music is only getting richer as the years pass.

The album may have been written during a dark night of the soul but it was recorded with precision and concentration, ultimately obscuring the pain at the point of origin. It's an approach that hardly does a disservice to either Shultz or Cage the Elephant: it gives Neon Pill an alluring, subdued pulse that soothes instead of stirs.

Each of Dehd's album's has been smarter, stranger, and more deceptively complex than the last, and the delightful and adventurous Poetry continues this upward trend.

An indispensable addition not only to the Analog Africa catalog but to the burgeoning cultural conversation around the significance, import, and variety of techniques, innovations, aesthetics, and attitudes in African music-making from the era.