Longevity is one thing, but sticking around without going stale is a trickier matter, and Deserted demonstrates that more than four decades on, the Mekons are as fresh and challenging as ever.

Garcia Peoples are well-known for their dynamic live shows, and a jam-oriented cassette-tape community has since coalesced around them. In the studio, though, with just two LPs to their credit, they've already forged an unexpected creative path that feels like it could go any number of ways.

With When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, she demonstrates that she can do it all, hinting at a bright future that could truly go in any direction, as messy and hopeful as youth can get.

Though it's wildly excessive and indulgent, it's also inarguably among the most inspiring, thought-provoking, and accomplished of his works.

Easily as satisfying as The Tower, The Crucible builds on its predecessor's achievement with brilliant composition, inspired performance, and consummate musicianship. It is an excellent example of how to mine rock's past in order to discover its future.

While they're too nonconformist to be a traditional punk band, they continue to define themselves as something more challenging and encompassing.

The fragmented patchwork nature of the album can at times make it difficult to separate the songs from the sonics, but adventurous listeners willing to get past this will find that Yves Jarvis hides beautifully soul-bearing sentiments just beneath his veneer of blurry tape manipulation and impressionistic production.

Elegant, unusual touches like these suggest Facs are still finding new complexities in their music on Lifelike, an album that demands and rewards close listening.

It's steady growth all around for these fine Canadians who keep showing up with buckets of great material.

Her intricate, folk-inflected indie rock has a more conspicuous, gentle jazz presence here.

Although the songs were not conceived as an album and, therefore, don't carry quite the weightiness of some of the Jurado's most profound works, In the Shape of a Storm still seems essential as a showcase of his songcraft at its most elemental.

It Rains Love is a master class in the art of modern soul music from an artist who only gets better and wiser as he matures.

Although it paints a picture that best fits a degraded postcard, it's relatable in its own earnest way with a poetic air and a sense of urgency.

The album is a treat to the ears. It's unmistakably in the tradition of soul and funk older than the artist himself, but could not have been made any earlier than the late 2010s.

Not every cut bristles with this sense of adventure -- there are still plenty of stark, plaintive ballads that provide the record with a sensitive, quivering foundation -- but by balancing their familiar backwoods brooding with fearless rock & roll, they've wound up with an album with a wild, twitching heart.

The Hurting Kind stands head and shoulders above Beulah for its mature vision, powerful focus, and poetic songwriting and production. This is White's finest moment thus far.

The startling thing about Absolute Zero isn't that he's chosen to venture to the outer limits of his tastes, but that he's found the common ground between roots music, jazz, avant-garde, pop, and experimentation. It's this blend -- which is seamless, but quite dense, demanding the listener's attention -- that makes Absolute Zero seem to have depths that aren't easily fathomed.

Although it's only the first piece of the puzzle, on its own, Map of the Soul: Persona is a fitting celebration for a group at the top of their game.

Instead of distracting, Ribbons' tangents add to its masterful feel--at this point in Wilkinson's career, his music is so rich that he can bring any aspect of it to the fore in ways that feel equally natural and surprising.

Glen Hansard has long been a gifted and effective vocalist and songwriter, but on This Wild Willing, he reveals a greater vision and intelligence in using the studio to give his music life, and it's an unusually strong offering from him.

V is a raucous, incendiary portrait of the band's maturity; it's creative and expertly crafted, an exploratory step further into an unknown that refuses to compromise or forsake its established sonic footprint or identity.

Saying Happy Now is the best album to bear the Gang of Four banner since 1995's Shrinkwrapped may sound like a dubious compliment, given how tepid much of their output has been, but this is taut, effective music that honors Gang of Four's heritage but succeeds on its own terms. Global crisis is good for something after all.

Epistrophy is a companion to Small Town, but it is also an extension of the intimate, communicative union shared by this duo in near symbiosis. Together they create a gold standard for live performance.

It feels like the turmoil of the late 2010s has galvanized Spiral Stairs into making his most direct and stylistically adventurous (which is a quite different thing than experimental music) music yet.

Fueled by megawatt energy that never lets up, Cuz I Love You is a triumphant showcase for every part of Lizzo's talent, physicality, and sexuality.

While All Time Present moves through various moods and approaches, from Krautrock reenvisioned as rural guitar rock to floating ambience, it remains knowingly tied together by threads of dazzling playing and boundless exploration.

Fulfills all the promise of the debut and more.

No Wahala is an essential addition to any collection of continental African music in general and Nigerian music in particular.