This record plays like his shot for glory, and with tracks as hooky and well-constructed as "Mockingjay" or the title track, there's no reason he shouldn't hit the big time.

Dim Probs is vintage Gruff Rhys and the very simplicity and directness of the album sets it off from the many concepts and schemes of his other, bigger records. Sometimes less truly is more.

Cuts like the opening "Relentless Love," "Vertigo," and "Stay On Me" are utterly scrumptious anthems, showcasing Ellis-Bextor's wry brand of dancefloor elan, her cooly posh accent set against pulsing disco grooves.

Tyler's parents worked as songwriters in Nashville. 41 Longfield Street Late '80s is informed by this nostalgia, but it's also a forward-thinking record that pushes its influences into another realm.

For any critics who complained that Hail to the Thief was just too long, bloated, and disjointed, this is the course correction that'll give that album the justice it has always deserved.

The world will always need songs about heartache, revenge, and bidding good riddance to someone; though Young delivers them with style, there's a sense that she's got more to offer.

Visceral, engaging, and potent enough to warrant the Nine Inch Nails name, Tron: Ares is one of the standout soundtracks in the Reznor/Ross catalog, one that mirrors its subject by taking something digital and transforming it into something very human and emotional.

Confidently bookended by two of their most compelling tracks, "A Little Love" and "Two People in Love," Futique is a gloriously straightforward and pop-oriented production, even as it retains all of the kinetic riffs and stadium rock enthusiasm of their best work.

On I Barely Know Her, the 20-year-old star takes a magnetic first step.

Better Broken is an ideal late-era set that warrants the term "comeback" and adds an unexpectedly beautiful installment in her catalog when fans thought there might not be another.

["Jealous Type" is] a savvy throwback banger, thrillingly evoking Janet Jackson at her most physical. Yet, as with all of Vie, it underscores Doja Cat's power as the diva who's in control here.

While these songs rarely sound like they're brimming with joy, they act as an affirmation of life and hope even as they acknowledge the shadows, and it's his best and most rewarding solo album to date.

It's a more subtle record with a comfortable, stripped-down feel that adds new shades to Plant's global folk fusion.

It continues the deepening specificity of Le Bon’s creative personality, with these songs representing the next notch of all of her various and unlikely components gelling into something that’s simply hers alone.

Between the quality of the album and Nation of Language's new label home, the project is on course to continue its upward climb.

Neon Grey Midnight Green finds her challenging herself and adding enough new elements to make it a genuine standout, and is a reminder she's one of the most gifted singers and songwriters of her generation. Each of her albums is a gift, and this is no exception.

Geese at their most chaotic, delivering an assured yet jarring set of no wave-tinged art-rock missives -- "Trinidad," "Cobra," and "Taxes" -- that are as unnerving as they are affecting.

A representative mix of personal and political atrocities, All That Is Over is far from a grim headbanger, rather offering a cathartic, frustrated call to action that seems timely as ever in its blunt demands for care and safe spaces in a world on fire.

This is a couple cuts above her promising debut.

It's a record that doesn't just offer warmth -- it invites you to enthusiastically participate in it and find comfort in the quiet spaces.

It's a clearer-than-usual sonic landscape from the band, one that invites the listeners to get lost in the details, where they can see how truly separate this chapter is from the rest.

While its backstory is conspicuous in its lyrics and title, the album doesn't play like an accommodation or something that's lacking, even if its quietly haunting, dramatic character was born of necessity.

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.

Nobody's Girl is sometimes tough to listen to as Shires pulls no lyrical punches, but it's never less than compelling, fearless, and brilliantly crafted. As an act of musical exorcism, it's breathtaking.

With its artful use of nostalgia and fantasy, not to escape reality but to inspire a better one, Purity Ring is an undeniable level-up.

Pushing the quartet onto yet another exciting path of artistic and creative evolution, Silver Bleeds the Black Sun is a fully committed, thematic foray into the darker corners of the AFI experience.

Snooper might not be having fun on Worldwide, but they make alienation served with an absurdist wink sound more entertaining than it has in some time.

Songbird doesn't tell us much new about Waylon Jennings, but it reaffirms that he was one of the strongest and most compelling country singers of his generation, and this is a welcome gift for fans who wish there was another fine 1970s Waylon Jennings album they'd never heard.