2025's Based on the Best Seller is Sloan's 14th album, and it has everything you could ask for from a pop-leaning rock band – killer tunes, plenty of swagger and spirit, guitar crunch for days, expert harmonies, a first rate rhythm section, and production that captures their many virtues with clean concision and no excess treacle.

The guest appearances on the mic by Akrobatik, a fellow fledgling Bostonion, Edan, Aesop Rock, El-P, and Jean Grae make all the tracks quality and seal the deal on Lif's breakthrough set.

The Old Kit Bag is Richard Thompson's simplest and most unadorned album since Shoot Out the Lights, and while it isn't an immediate masterpiece like that album, it confirms that this man's work is best presented at its simplest, and the result is a modest triumph.

As serious as things get on Penance Soiree (and the choppy "Spit On" gets pretty serious), there's the happily nagging notion that Icarus Line just want to entertain, and that they're damn good at it.

Colossal and cinematic, the fourth record from the Herbaliser is a timely achievement in music, a genre-bending statement of creative poignancy.

With The French Press, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever have made the jump from small indie to big indie with style and grace, and if they can bring the same level of skill to a full-length album, they'll be all but unstoppable.

The result is a bit jarring, but there's a fervent originality at work here, despite all of the referencing of the halcyon past.

Cooper's ability to infuse a very human emotional arc into his wordless sheets of sound is a large part of what's made his body of work so captivating. Electronic webs meet with patient piano moments throughout Nightmare Ending, sometimes casting heavy shadows of fear or pain, other times offering relief from that very pain.

Even though it was created by enough people to fill a starship, including the HawtPlates, a vocal group heard throughout and granted the spotlight on a moving a cappella piece, this is as intimate as any of Ndegeocello's previous albums. It's almost as varied as any of them in sound.

It's a great combination of sound and songs that makes good on the promise the band showed on their debut, and shows them navigating the numerous pitfalls of growing up as a band in fine fashion.

Kveikur isn't the kind of post-rock album that you throw on to listen to as you contemplate the changing of the leaves, but rather an album that explores the differences between the comforts of the day and the anxieties of the night, blending the bright and the brooding to create something bold and beautiful.

Melt Yourself Down is an exhilarating debut from a group whose members know each other well enough to head into this kind of wild territory with nothing holding them back.

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.

He sounds freer than he has in years on Tranquilizer, and within its infinity mirror of transience and permanence, he uncovers the lasting soul within the digital abyss.

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

It's a challenging yet ultimately rewarding album -- and one that definitely requires some thoughtful attention on the part of the listener.

The album's vérité feel draws listeners into its ever-changing moods so completely, it's almost a shock when it ends. It's this skill at hypnotizing and disarming her audience that makes Devotion such a captivating reintroduction to Tirzah.

For as haunting as parts of the album are, there is no fetishization of death on the parts of Albarn and Russell; even with a tinge of melancholy coloring the fringes of the album, this is an album that affirms the power of life, in all of its mess and glory.

Tt's refreshing to hear him so candid, even if that forthrightness is festooned by enough bells and whistles to wake the dead.

Still trippy and shambolic, The Weather carries an epic, sometimes otherworldly luster, with a synth-poppy psychedelia that takes a half step out of deep fuzz toward ELO.

Lord of the Birdcage is strong and diverse enough to stand out among Pollard's solo efforts, and proves once again this man's talents shine brightest when he finds new ways to challenge himself.

It lives up to the title and provides an enjoyable contrast to the darker moods earlier in the album.

True Hallucinations is an impressive debut and one of the purest, most innocent-sounding pop records anyone is likely to make in the ironic, convoluted era in which they exist.

What Monoswezi have created is a unique and intriguing fusion, and this album barely scratches the surface of possibilities. Where they take it will be fascinating.

It's organic, relaxed, unforced approach is deceptively high in performance skill, yet resonates with an emotional depth that rings true throughout.

The versatility and strength of The Blind Hole will be impressive to anyone versed in hardcore's various hyper-splintered genres, mainly due to the band's ease when it comes to seamlessly combining so many different heavy styles.

In the end, Jackson's foray into bluegrass seems easy and natural, as if he'd been playing it all along.

It's hard not to find something to like here no matter where your tastes may lie.