Phantom Island is a beautiful album that occasionally misses the mark lyrically. The album’s big sound and intense optimism offer a lot of brightness to take in. But anyone listening to a band called King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard should not expect subtlety.

It’s the soundtrack of a summer; the music playing during first intimacies and turning 18. Anyone that isn’t old and cynical can embrace this sentiment, and maybe find a piece of themselves in this.

On Lifetime, de Casier not only manages to create a truly hypnagogic aura, but captured this elusive quality of oneiric purity and grace. It’s the sound of an existence beyond our own, prismatic and startlingly beautiful.

The surreal and whimsical electric guitar licks that slice through the track’s acoustic backbone achieve a sense of flippantness that foreshadows the thesis of I’ll Be Waving.

It’s a rewarding and fun listen – but it also magnifies the inescapable fact that Pulp, just like their audience, have matured.

Get Sunk is not a flawless affair – it sometimes still feels a little torn between emotional poignancy and comfortable adult defeatism, and some moments almost demand a more aggressive, forlorn brevity. But Berninger’s second solo effort is a rich and satisfying listen, evading the generic bland arrogance of The National’s low points.

Each track very much lives and breathes in a world of its own, all while coming together to present a cohesive feeling.

Despite running for over 2 hours, the album feels notably succinct, even concise.

Evangelic Girl is a Gun would be parallel to [David Bowie's] Young Americans.

Ambitious and heartfelt, Crooked Wing might have needed more time – or anger – to fully reveal qualities we manage to briefly glimpse only.

Metalhorse, like a carousel in the conceptual bedraggled funfair, spins itself in circles for its own sake. It’s honest about its origins and inspiration, but hurts itself by not seeing that it’s repeating itself as it goes on.

The Scholars doesn’t reinvent Car Seat Headrest so much as it lays them bare.

Yes, Mclusky are still here, but they’ve returned to the well balanced noise rock of their debut, My Pain and Sadness is more Sad and Painful than Yours, where things aren’t quite as thrilling as on Do Dallas and The Difference Between….

A significant experiment for woods. Lyrically, he’s as eloquent as ever, moving from abstract images to direct statements, from confessional rants to journalistic quips, from the troughs of despair to the apexes of mania. His use of multiple producers pays off, as well, helping to sustain a liminal space.

This kaleidoscopic vista is the album’s ultimate strength, arguing that all these sonic formations can be united within one band. Just as we, as individuals, include multitudes, so do Model/Actriz. In a world that is uniquely broken, they persist unwaveringly.

Overall, Noble and Godlike in Ruin is a wonder.

Corners are filled and silences left for dramatic effect. Sometimes the effect saturates, leaving certain numbers in the shadows of the grandest moments. .... However, some of the best moments come when Taylor sets aside the strings and choir, putting the focus on a driving beat.

A less talented songwriter would allow their music to collapse under the weight of such subject matter, but such never comes close to being true on Bloodless. Part of this is due to the compulsive replayability of these tunes.

With The Film, SUMAC and Moor Mother have taken an unprecedented approach, reexamining Afrofuturism through a deliciously dissonant and catastrophic lens, resulting in one of the year’s most essential listens.

The album is pleasant in every way you could want it to be, but it’s also a few truck stops short of their best and most memorable work. Still, it’s hard to deny it’s enjoyable to hear two friends play together and connect over an affection for a genre that was so formative for both of them.

In the end, SABLE, fABLE may not be the boundary-pushing album many have come to expect with each new Bon Iver release, but it feels like the one Vernon needed to make for himself – a kind of self-prescribed therapy.

Glory spotlights Hadreas as he mines this incarnation, its abundant beauty and messiness. He’s left a window to that alt-life open, however, and the winds from that realm gust through these songs.

Despite examining so many thorny questions pertaining to coming of age and the human condition, Big Ugly doesn’t sound half as heavy as one might expect. The fuzzy, twangy guitars and buoyant drumming provide a cushion for harsh truths, and Dowdy renders his characters in warm, light tones – even when their environment is anything but.

Incessant repetition with infrequent and almost indiscernible alterations in cycles is the key to unlocking the joy inherent in dance music, and Snapped Ankles utilise this recipe with aplomb. Not everything on the album lands fully, though. .... These are, though, minor quibbles on a record that begins to at least start to translate the total enigmatic elation that a Snapped Ankles live show can manifest.

She hasn’t fully ascertained how to recast her aesthetic without diluting her presence, but with Dust she inches toward reinvention. Mutinta’s a magician who’s expanding her repertoire, forging new alchemical practices. Dust is ultimately a “between” project; we’ll see where it leads.

When you’re known for crossing into multiple genres over the course of six albums, consistency is an easy thing to lose track of. Lonely People With Power however, proves Deafheaven are a group that stays the course and keep delivering that signature sound they’re known for.

There’s a lot going on here, and Benefits have refused to stand still in the face of increasing media attention. Whether this works in their favour with their core audience remains to be seen, but there’s a boldness – and contrarian flippancy – that should be applauded. .... When Constant Noise triumphs, it absolutely soars.

The album is a grower. There’s few songs here that resembles each other, as the band cut it at nine tracks. The sonic interests of the past albums are clearly visible – it could even be argued that this is the best sounding album the group has produced in the 14 years since Skying. There’s a rich compositional density in the individual elements and production values, which build on each other to form complex art pieces.

One wonders how the band would navigate longer, more involved compositions. For now, we can enjoy their succinct yet impressive debut, as they raise the hardcore bar, mixing fury and a penchant for well-informed experimentation.

It never quite reaches the potential of a fully-formed imaginary future world, as Future Sounds of London managed so effortlessly decades ago. It’s a cool and exciting album, but it doesn’t dream of electric sheep.

One of her strongest collections of songs yet, a finely-hewn and blushing jewel.

It’s flashier, louder, a little more daring in places, yet also somehow more hollow and faceless.

It’s a bold and fearless descent into deliciously chaotic party that is simultaneously heartfelt and hammed up. The project is eager to satisfy fans from all eras without necessarily resting on the laurels of those.

After the muddy emotional quicksand of her previous album, Fohr has found an intoxicating clarity that abandons orchestras for beats. Recorded mostly at night in a basement-studio, the album exudes the limitless, animalistic jungian energy Pan stands for.

BANKS still surprises and delights with her unique lyricism, emotive vocals and direct assessments of those who have hurt her alongside herself as an individual. Still, many tracks are damned short and feel like they are lacking necessary bridges to reach their full potential that this album feels quickly consumed and fleeting when we want to stay inside these songs a bit longer.

The project is full of snappy, polished pop-R&B songs that never go too far astray in quality but can be a repetitive experience when considered as a whole.

The constant references to New York City reveal not refinement but a perpetual fish-out-of-water state, of being handed the marshal’s baton by accident or circumstance and then pressed into service. The agony over him trying to control the message of his personal life is washed away in the descriptions of a man ostensibly standing in the tide wearing a soaking-wet tuxedo.

Thankfully, the pairing [with Adam Granduciel] is largely successful and allows Fender to shrewdly side-step expectations for his Seventeen follow-up; resulting in a mature take of arena rock and the most sonically cohesive Fender album thus far.

Club Shy Room 2 is possibly Shygirl’s least cohesive project, but only because it shows so many facets of the artist’s skillset in its brief 15 minutes. She is sexy, she is bossy, she is fun, she is alternative, she is pop, she is the life of the party.

Yes – this is possibly Aoba’s best work. Music incomparable to anything else, beautiful and eternal.

It’s a record that captures The Murder Capital at their most raw and uncompromising – alive in the turbulence, unafraid of what lies within and around them.

Despite leaning into a slightly different, more openly bold anthemic sound, the album is consistent with what may be expected to come from the band. Per usual, each lyric is written with clear intentionality. Where the band has gone astray and allowed themselves to drift is in the instrumentation.

Rarely Do I Dream points more to the intersection of pop and mysticism. There’s less immediate hook appeal but more depth. These tracks brim with heartfelt sophistication and aesthetic refinement. The album is a resonant and crucial next step in Powers’ pop odyssey.

It’s an album that holds power found rarely these days – up there with Joy Division’s Closer in terms of transgressing the boundary between the macabre and ethereal, uniting music to dance to with spiritual experience, marking the twilight divide of utopia and dystopia.

1991 is, in this final form, equal to the early EP material of Slowdive in its nocturnal, hazy glory, with Greg Ackell and Paula Kelley exchanging lead roles. It is confident in its psychedelic, abstract explorations, aided by the immense, groovy rhythm section of Chris Roof and Steve Zimmerman.

The result is the rawest and truest set of songs in his career to date.

This is You & i are Earth’s best strength: its intimacy, its cosiness, and its unabashed adoration of its subjects.

While the 80s loom in 11:11’s background throughout the album, on “Silhouette” they manifest as a modernised Debbie Gibson or Exposé. “Stay Home”, on the other hand, relies on a cymbal-heavy trip-hop referencing beat to underscore its blissful sensation. Finally, the bookend arrives: a neat and tidy ending to what had previously been a happy mess.

It’s weathered, but in a beautiful way. An experience that only improves the more you nestle within its inviting, open corridors, it’s as memorable and kind-hearted as anything in Oldham’s catalogue.

Could Glutton For Punishment have been more strategically curated? Perhaps, but this is an ambitious act. And sometimes you need to be commended for what you attempt as much as for what you achieve.

On Never Exhale, DITZ sound like they’re running on a treadmill at maximum speed, and in a bid to keep up, stumble into knee-jerk turns to some less-than-exciting tendencies perpetuated from their first release.

It would have been easy for songs to have come out overwrought and overproduced here, but instead we have a record of community, of gathering friends around to sing, play with, and support you.

The Bad Fire gives plenty of more ground to walk with and more layered depths to explore. It’s likely to stake some real estate in plenty of rotations worldwide, for those hoping for a follow up to 2021’s As The Love Continues that delivers on the same level. It’s ready for you.

As long-term fans are treated to a new classic that can both match and expand on the greatness of her previous work, new fans will be treated to her genius at its most accessible.

The 10 tracks that make up DÍA‘s streamlined 33 minutes and 47 seconds channel that volatile orientation honestly, not forcing itself into a deliberate linear sensibility.

The narrative arc – so expertly disguised when the album started – yields a release with surprising character and soul.

In a world that coerces you to doomspell yourself to bed-ridden misery, I’d like to manifest some positive thinking here: Who Let The Dogs Out has all the ingredients to break that aforementioned loop and move the needle further – with each track managing an infectious balancing act between cheeky humor and righteous rage.

At this point, for better or worse, this is what we can expect from the band: shades of what came before, a glint of the glory days, and a workmanlike determination to soldier on. Kapranos admitting he’s got the fear, it seems, doesn’t change too much.

It is achingly beautiful and uncompromisingly hardcore. This might be too much to take, or too painful, or too frightening to you. But don’t worry: it is happening to everybody.

Even if GNX may be regarded as a “lesser” entry in Lamar’s mighty catalogue by many (if there even is such a thing as “lesser” in brilliance), it is a love letter to black culture. It never dodges a punch, never compromises. It’s both as far from the mainstream as a rap album can be, yet Kendrick’s most populist work. It’s a muscular and physical record, occasionally reserving the right to be as however banal as it wants to be, right before turning around and tearing into the culture.

The two divergent halves of the album never intermingle and propose two very opposite visions for what Underworld aim to achieve, yet there’s not really a single bad track here. Still, the tension remains, and can never quite dissolve.

It improves on its predecessor, is chock full of quotable lyrics (“I’m three words away from absolutely fucking ruining your life”), and even where it stumbles, it still manages to pick up the pace soon after. Perhaps best of all is all the ups and downs Gartland captures.

Tension II is a fun continuation of what has been Kylie’s renaissance since 2020’s Disco album. It is not wholly without flaws as stated above but still manages to solidify that Kylie will always be someone we just can’t get out of our heads.

Rediscovered domestic happiness imbues Night Palace with a newfound ease, which has yielded his most diverse and longest record to date.

Being an EP of three full songs, the whole affair is very scant and acts more as a teaser, and it’s not like every choice works perfectly; the endings of the songs, in particular, feel a bit unceremonious, and the songs themselves could have likely been developed a little bit more. But by revisiting the original getup that helped put him on the map, Vernon reaffirms what many may have forgotten amidst all the wizardry: that all he really needs is his heart and his guitar.

It’s imposing, ominous, and enthralling in equal measure.

With The Great Impersonator, Halsey deftly wields the enticements of pop, all the while exploring ageless issues regarding self, suffering, and the pursuit of wholeness.

Patterns in Repeat is another short album that feels like a glimpse into Marling’s household, a slice of her own domesticity to track her first years of motherhood. It’s another gift, for her child and her listeners, but more assuredly for herself.

The record is in no way a fall from grace of drop of form. It’s the uglier, more poetic and brooding cousin of the debut. A proof of sheer willpower, yet still a transitional work of a band growing comfortably into their future.

“NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD” is gifted with a uniquely poetic emotion that combines deep mourning with strength and willpower. Compare that to the aura of an album like F♯A♯∞, which is characterised by an apocalyptic sense of dread and hopelessness. This present tone is complex, and deeply intentional.

For a collection of semi-throwback electronica, the first half of the album feels very accomplished and prêt-à-porter. It works: the AI doesn’t get in the way, the tempo remains fairly steady, and its minimalist nature makes for a very tight package. “Over Now” starts the second half as a reminder that this is Caribou and unfortunately lets the air out.

Overall, it’s a wholly engaging listen, texturally varied, and probably her most consistent record to date. Nearly every turn here, nearly every transition, feels right.

In the end, SOPHIE the record is a fitting tribute to SOPHIE the artist because of how well it highlights the ways in which she can never be replaced.

The songs reverberate stronger than those on the group’s more recent albums. Yet at the same time, Stiletto isn’t as epic as Girl with Basket of Fruit or Ignore Grief, and it’s not as varied as Fabulous Muscles. It feels at times like an experiment to imagine a different Xiu Xiu; one that find themselves on the top of year end lists, that are played in rock clubs, that reside in New York and wear shades. In this gesture, they’ve become more approachable, but also more distant.

Working with whimsicality as much as grief, Sparhawk reinvents himself, exploring inner landscapes and imaginary worlds, all while having a bit of fun.

Real Deal, suggesting an attempt to impress in the face of doubt, is the sound of a band recognising and overcoming their own shortcomings, while maintaining what made them great in the first place.

While there are moments where he undeniably soars, the overall demise feels down to a simple trajectory problem. The calculations are off, and as a consequence Ishibashi has found himself tangled in his own creation, being swept up by the wind, and dropping the grace he once emanated aplenty.

Five Dice, All Threes is so rich, in cross references, in musical allusions and callbacks to prior Bright Eyes songs, in ideas and notions and statements that it’s impossible to grasp them all.

The end of In Waves is bound to divide listeners who will cotton to the connection between dancing and the simple joys children experience, and those who will (especially on the second listen) tire of the rote positivity, like a yoga instructor whose constant instructions to breathe are detracting from the breathing. Regardless, as pieces of a whole they fit the restorative nature of In Waves. Jaime xx needed an answer “why” and the response was “yes”.

It is, in every way, a transgressive, brutalist piece of art. In its unbelievable size and musical scope, it holds unnerving power, channeling the mind of someone suffering from this infliction Berdan sought to capture in disturbing forms. And yet, it also instills hope. It shows the artist willing to open up and reveal himself.

To say that the band still have a bite to their sound might be a little unkind to a group of men who may not have most of their own teeth these days, but Rack is testament to the need to grow old disgracefully.

While the mixes on Manning Fireworks are studiously crafted, Lenderman’s presence largely enrolling, and his guitar acumen undeniable, the set’s overall gestalt is naggingly emulative. Lenderman, as compelling as he can be, rarely transcends the influence of his forebears.

It’s hard to say if it is necessarily ‘better’ than its predecessor, but Endlessness is yet another incredible, standout record from arguably the most gifted jazz musician her generation has seen so far.

You may be wondering why you’d ever want to listen to an album that is so overrun with desperation, which is a somewhat valid concern. But there is an alchemy to what Spirit of the Beehive do in their unique sonic approach that makes their depressive messages not feel self-pitying, but genuinely human.

Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman and MJ Lenderman are featured on several tracks, as is indie rocker Ella O’Connor Williams (a.k.a Squirrel Flower). Yet their presence only enhances and never overshadows the trio’s music.

Each track holds its own and proves that Wunderhorse is indeed a force to be reckoned with in the world of indie-rock. They exhibit considerable yet humble strength in all regards of vocals, lyricism, composition, and orchestration.

It’s great, urgent music. Sad and enticing.

New fans get a wonderful introduction to a fascinating discography, and existing fans get a project that will leave them both pleased and eagerly awaiting the next move of a star that can seemingly do it all.

A solid and polished record, a beautiful collection – not one to outlast time, but to chronicle its passing nature, and the melancholy released from that realisation.

Realistic IX is a wonderful record on many levels, just don’t say it’s shoegaze.

To the Ghosts both romanticizes life and love while also providing a reality check that is much needed and somehow manages to be jarringly comforting. The album showcases all that we have come to know and love about Cults, while also allowing them to explore other sides of their creativity.

Aghori Mhori Mei is Billy Corgan’s return to his true passion, a fully formed and cohesive work that sounds like an actual Smashing Pumpkins album without resorting to self-references.

everything still worries me is Ozard honing the skills she’s been showing off over the past few years, but before long she’ll have to step outwards, make bigger steps, and take more risks

There’s something to be said for burning bright and fast, but with the limp arrival of Y2K! it seems this room went dark long before we were able to leave the party.

This is him using collective dialogue – with a large cast of varied characters – to have fun. And it’s infectious.

Delivering their most ambitious and longest album since 2010’s opus Romance Is Boring – and doing so while maintaining all the hallmarks that have made them such a beloved force.

Simpson’s voice is more resonant than ever, his melodic sensibilities on full display. Over eight songs and 41 minutes, he forges sublime and heartfelt work, evoking the epic poles of experience: loneliness and belonging, forlornness and gratitude, faith and doubt.

The album’s only other real fault is that an unnecessary number of interludes for such an economic LP (runtime: 36 minutes) creates a sense of disjointedness. However, My Light, My Destroyer remains an unmistakably gorgeous listen created by a musician attuned to perfecting lilting melodies like few others are.