Kids See Ghosts is everything Ye wasn't, delivering a worthwhile listen in spite of the extended PR disaster that preceded its release. With Cudi as the yang to West's yin, the pair inch closer to finding peace and a light in the darkness.

Ye can feel uneven, sometimes boring, and more indulgent than usual, but it's a fascinating peek into West's psyche.

The truth is this sounds less like a 50/50 collaboration than a Joseph Arthur album with Peter Buck pitching in. Which is not at all bad, of course; as usual, Arthur's lyrics are bold, clever, and incisive, his vocals are passionate and reveal just the right amount of drama, and the melodies are strong, with Buck adding an extra spoonful of melodic bounce.

No Shame isn't a soundtrack to party. It's music for reflection, and coming from an artist who made snark her specialty, that's a step forward.

While Post Traumatic takes an emotional toll, it ultimately instills feelings of hope and the idea that things can get better. For Shinoda, Linkin Park, and their devoted followers, it's an effective group therapy session.

Certainly few, if any, bands of the era made an album as consistently great as Hope Downs. Not many in Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever's era have, either. It's a small-scale triumph of hooks and guitars from a band whose members have figured it all out and delivered a debut album that comes as close to perfect as any guitar pop album can.

The greater flaw of Liberation is how its blend of R&B reflection and tense testifying doesn't seem to be an easy fit on any format in 2018. This weakness is also a strength, as it shows that Aguilera didn't take an easy route with Liberation: she instead found a hybrid between the personal and commercial, which makes the record resonate emotionally no matter what success it may or may not have.

At first glance, it's easy to underestimate Culture Abuse for the part-time slackers they present themselves to be, but there's a lot more to them than meets the eye on this satisfying second effort.

Both acts mesh perfectly with each other, and Mental Wounds Not Healing is a brilliant, seamless collaboration.

Carla Bozulich is a vital and fearless artist, and Quieter demonstrates that her muse can adapt to whatever fate throws her; this is fascinating music that merits your attention.

While not as immediately appealing as his prior releases, Nothing Is Still is clearly designed to be appreciated through multiple listens, and it's ultimately a work of considerable depth and feeling.

On Nightstand, she almost splits the difference, softening her tone but not abandoning the crunchy effervescence of prior albums.

Their sonic restlessness never falls off track into musical excess, but instead allows keen articulation of the plethora of identities found in non-Anglo culture, and denotes the places they intersect. Besides, you can dance your ass off while absorbing its coded messages. Bravo.

The Dock of the Bay Sessions is hardly essential for loyal Otis Redding fans, but as a compact summation of his final recordings, it's a fine collection that flows with the coherence of a "real" LP, and if you're looking for an album with "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay," this is a good way to go.

An especially poignant return for Waterson, who endured a harrowing illness that left her in a coma after their last release as a duo, Anchor is a powerful performance arriving late in her career and is a testament to both her strength of will and creative voice. ... For her part, Eliza nearly matches her mother's earthen elegance as a singer while turning in some of the most natural and sympathetic fiddle work of her care.

Mien's experiments are sometimes a little too formless, but the album's standouts prove they weren't keeping all their best ideas for their main bands.

Acutely personal--almost to the point of discomfort--and exceedingly fragile, Seedlings All somehow manages to remain resilient, which is a tough balance to pull off.

With What Heaven Is Like, Wussy have made it clear they're not giving up their status as one of America's greatest indie bands just yet, and this is another dark but compelling album that deserves your attention.

It's an aural lava lamp, kicking up slow-bursting explosions of texture and sound.

Kanye West grants taut, grimace-inducing beats, assisted infrequently by Mike Dean and Andrew Dawson, enabling Pusha to pack each one of the seven tracks with characteristically trenchant and terse rhymes. The lyrical focus is similarly laser-sharp.

If Tomorrow's Daughter isn't a great Matthew Sweet album, it's most certainly a good one, featuring a batch of strong songs played with genuine skill and commitment by one of the most distinctive artists in contemporary power pop. If you liked Tomorrow Forever, you'll enjoy the sequel, and even if you missed the first installment, this is well worth a spin for pop obsessives.

The resulting Violet Psalms is more measured, but no less distinctive (and destructive) than previous outings, delivering all of the architectural twists and turns, fragmented rhythms, and surreal narratives that have come to define the group over the years.

A musical getaway, Rebound finds Friedberger freed from expectations, and with a spring in her music's step that hasn't been heard in some time.

While in some ways Testing is more musical than anything we've heard from A$AP Rocky before, it's also more confused, with ideas and musical shifts colliding at times to the point of randomness.

Equally soothing and exciting, heartfelt and innovative, Ecstatic Arrow is Virginia Wing's finest work yet.

Every track on this album is densely constructed, colorful, and unpredictable, and while it may seem lighthearted at first, it manages to cover a wide range of emotions. One of the most inventive debut albums of 2018, for sure.

Shannon in Nashville demonstrates she's capable of more than she's shown us in the past, and this is an experiment that succeeds with flying colors.

Soil captures a passionate, complex artist coming into his own.