Far from a rehash of Cuz I Love You, Special finds Lizzo revealing new layers to the genuine songwriting and generous spirit that has defined her music since the beginning.

The Resurrection of Rust doesn't suggest the world lost a potential classic when Rusty failed to make a record in 1972, but as a glorious recollection of a youth well misspent, it's hard not to love if you care about Costello at all.

With 2022's Misadventures of Doomscroller, Dawes have crafted one their shortest and tightest albums to date that also happens to be one of their most enjoyably experimental.

It's not all the hits, but as they run through "Just Got Paid," "Heard it on the X," "La Grange," "Tush, "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide," and "Legs," it feels like they are -- but there's still energy and a palpable joy in how they launch into a groove or extend themselves in a jam and it's still a wonder to hear Gibbons solo.

Working Men's Club dig even deeper into their black disco ball aesthetic, crafting an album full of acidic electronica that straddles the line between atonally robotic industrial music and dancefloor-friendly post-punk.

The artist born Jung Ho-seok delivers emotional depth and irresistible energy. Backed by rowdy production, his aggression, raspy delivery, and tongue-twisting bars take center stage, showcasing the rap-focused perspective that he brings to the BTS formula.

Rushing through in a cloud of distortion and broken snares is fine, but a little subtlety goes a long way to making a band stick around longer. Beach Bunny and Lili Trifilio seem built for the long run and it will be fascinating to listen to them grow.

Entering Heaven Alive feels of a piece with White's previous work, yet the ideas are synthesized and executed in fresh, inventive ways, suggesting that the ungainly Boarding House Reach was indeed a transitionary album to allow him to do music that's as relaxed and vibrant as this.

A lush, sophisticated, and otherworldly project from its earliest days, Nightlands ultimately takes on its most panoramic rendering yet on a track list interspersed with brief, wordless ("Blue Wave," "Song for Brad") or lyrically concise atmospheric pieces, such as the cricket-assisted "Greenway."

By turns frustrating and engaging, The Other Side of Make-Believe is decidedly uneven, especially coming after the frequently great Marauder. Nevertheless, it offers plenty of mood and a little bit of innovation from a band still revealing nuances to their sound 20 years after their debut.

Fans looking for more of Fake It Flowers' sass might initially be disappointed, but Beatopia's quiet confidence and well-rounded musicality feels like Beabadoobee is laying the groundwork for a long and varied career while remaining true to herself.

Highlights include the Carly Rae Jepsen-esque, synth-washed jam "No Problem" (with Felix of Stray Kids) and the frantic sing-along anthem "POP!" Front-loaded with the immediate, pulse-pounding fare, IM NAYEON closes with a trio of sensual and smoothed-out tracks that would make early '90s R&B girl groups proud.

World Wide Pop is flat and uninspired, overdone and undercooked, and filled with dubious choices.

Mallinder's vocal style on this album is far removed from the unhinged paranoia of early CV, sounding much more reserved and shadowy but not vulnerable. This suits the music perfectly, as the rhythms energetically unfold without reaching any sort of climax but are too busy and engaging to recede into the background.

Here she fronts a septet with dreamy acoustic guitars, shimmering layers of percussion, and a sweeping flügelhorn, putting the tune to rest as if it were her own. If You Will is a revelatory exercise.

Jazz Codes is one of Ayewa's most ambitious works yet.

While Serpentina manages to add some fresh highlights to Banks' catalog, it never veers too far from her established formula, for better or worse.

One thing The Versions does have in common with tribute albums is that virtually none of the remakes are preferable to the originals, but it rarely fails to fascinate.

While the rest of the record never quite reaches that level of instantaneous pop gratification [as "Silk Chiffon"], Muna still turn in some of their better songs from there while also taking their sound to new places.

It's an engaging delight that will grow on old fans and likely win Flasher plenty of new ones.

Whether you prefer the slightly more organic vibe of Toast or the cleaned-up Are You Passionate? will depend on your personal relationship with Young's massive catalog. For fans of his early moody rock or the rough-edged brilliance he always locked into with Crazy Horse, Toast will be a clear favorite more than just an interesting companion piece.

The whole album is pulsing with both those elements [energy and emotion] and comes across like the group's most important album, only without the kind of pretension that kind of thing often entails. It's more that Formentera captures the warring emotions, steady fears, and crushing uncertainty of the era it was made in and delivers it all wrapped up in triumphant and true songs that one will want to spin again and again.

Down Tools shows Mush can smooth down their surfaces a bit and still sound challenging and subversively witty, and as long as they do, they'll be worth hearing.

A special work, Loggerhead is among the most necessary albums of its time.

Found Light is recognizably the work of Laura Veirs, but with a freedom and sense of creative possibility that hasn't always been part of her music in the past. It's an engaging new chapter in the career of a gifted songwriter.

I Am the Moon: I. Crescent is dazzling in concept and execution. Tedeschi Trucks Band embrace this narrative with ambition, and expose its lessons with creative imagination, emotionally intelligent songwriting, and mind-blowing musicality.

In between "Confession" and "Float" is the sharply contrasting "The Hour," whose haunted, fingerpicked folk and mournful vocal draw on troubadour tradition. Everything else falls somewhere in between, and somehow, from its pastoral opening title track to its glistening rock closer ("Willow's Song"), Sound of the Morning makes sense, through acknowledging struggle and uplifting with a gumption and determination that's reflected in its design.

The live performance here by the Ensemble Intercontemporain (a group that once upon a time would have had little to do with Reich) is sharp, and the Salle Boulez at the Philharmonie de Paris serves the work well acoustically.