Unlike Dali's separate delivery of the two, Yeezus is an extravagant stunt with the high-art packed in, offering an eccentric, audacious, and gripping experience that's vital and truly unlike anything else.

The Window remains an intensely intimate listen, as if Salvant and Fortner are playing just for you.

Hearing this evolution in microcosm is fascinating: few albums are ever as lavishly and carefully produced as The Wall, and by going through this "Work in Progress," it becomes clear just how much labor Floyd and producer Bob Ezrin exerted on the finished album.

While the reduction in lucid hooks and the uptick in wince-inducing lyrics diminish the album's appeal, the charms are hard to repel.

No longer able to croon as he once did, Nelson opts for playing around with the rhythms of his delivery, a move that makes him seem limber, adding a sense of vitality to Last Man Standing. Willie realizes he's not going to be here forever but he's made up his mind to make the most of his time here, and that's why Last Man Standing feels richer than so many self-conscious meditations on mortality.

These may be the same songs in the same sequence as Funeral for Justice, but they have the character of an entirely different album, and that's a tough feat to pull off.

The Necks move incrementally forward in their quest for the musical unknown on Body; it displays all their creative strengths in a single typically engrossing work.

Restlessly creative and challenging, Gentle Confrontation is James' most moving work since For You and I.

Throughout, RE-ANIMATOR's crisp, melancholy anthems, if less colorful than prior albums, remain captivating, bringing with them an existential poignancy that lingers beyond the closer, up-tempo rocker "Violent Sun," and its apocalyptic chorus ("I wanna be there!/When the wild wave comes/And we’re swept away").

It's quite arguable that this lean, muscular remix is a marked improvement on the original mix, as it's easier to focus on both the songs and group's interplay.

Heterocetera is more than a worthy successor to Damsel in Distress--it's some of Lotic's most exciting music.

Countless Branches, perhaps due to its profound yet intimate vision as well as its craft, just may be Fay's masterpiece.

Drew's music stresses the importance of the communal rave experience, and reminds us that everything is possible.

Concise and lively, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is a remarkable blend of focus and creativity.

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.

Crowded and long overdue as it is, In My Mind is a satisfying and mature showcase for one of the most skilled and creative talents in R&B.

Arcadia is a long-awaited return for Krauss and Union Station; here they reframe American traditional music in a context informed by modern production aesthetics, yet still sound kinetic and completely organic.

The Tallest Man on Earth, keeps it sparse with a summertime EP of fingerpicked acoustic guitar and vocals, written on the road just after the release of The Wild Hunt.

As different as it is from anything else in her body of work, Henryk Górecki: Symphony No. 3 "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" is an affecting example of Gibbons' willingness to take her music in unexpected--but ultimately winning--directions.

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

Long Lost Solace Find has traces of Dinosaur Jr.'s most hushed moments, Anne Briggs' heartbreaking clarity, and the resigned grandeur of legendary artists like Karen Dalton or Nick Drake. It's a stunning turn of heel, and one that instills a sense of anticipatory excitement for where Polizze will take his music next.

Though earlier albums saw her crafting a strange otherworld, the perpetual sunset hinted at before is painted here in new dimensions, making this set of songs her best and easiest to revisit.

The new material didn't merely simmer.

A remarkably assured set of bold-faced indie rock and maximalist goth pop teaming with earworm melodies, intelligent, darkly romantic lyrics, and thespian bluster.

Takk... is still very much a Sigur Rós album, due in large part to the ever-present, otherworldly vocals, but also because the only real changes are the activeness of some arrangments.

The best Delfonics album since 1970.

Cronin's second album is a step forward from his debut and shows off a guy with enough talent to step out from behind Segall's shadow and make it on his own.

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.