Even if the highs aren't as high, like the rest of the reunited lineup's work, there really aren't any noticeable lows.

While there may not be a song to soundtrack an Amazon advertisement in this bunch, it'll work nicely to soundtrack bleary summer nights–probably for years to come.

The band continues such a music building process on EXPO. This time around the balance Ulrika Spacek create is between electronic and traditional rock instrumentation while at the same time keeping the complexity of the music at the level that makes music have a natural flow.

On Bitchitronics, Bitchin Bajas make the journey from unconscious creation to physical expression in a way that few of their electronic peers would understand. Brian Eno and Robert Fripp would approve, I’d imagine.

Mark Lanegan has accomplished something truly magnificent with Blues Funeral.

In The Runner, Boy Harsher deliver variety for new listeners and for devoted fans, something new so they can continue to experience the band live but safe behind the big screen.

Aisles doesn’t take many risks, but perhaps that’s for the best. Over the past decade, Angel Olsen has proven herself a more-than-worthy voice in indie rock, and a fun little aside from her album output is something to welcome.

It’s clear that OH NO will not be remembered as one of Xiu Xiu’s most stellar records. Yet, as usual with collaborations, it’s likely that each listener is likely to find their own tracks they ditch, just like different ones will stand out, given the varying degrees of artistic touches these additional musicians bring with their own aesthetics and histories.

It's big, open, cavernous, so much so that it feels like it could swallow you entirely, and so you let it because it's comforting, warm, and safe.

awE naturalE is at least a great, deep listen, and all that THEESatisfaction has done to challenge the listener warrants serious admiration.

Host is a consistent record in its drive towards freedom, and both sound and lyrics embody that. At times this really allows them soar, and at others there’s the struggle to go it alone. It’s great to see Cults taking risks and pressing forward, but more than anything it makes you long for their past.

Taylor takes that responsibility as a solo artist and runs with it, throwing everything and anything into the mix; there are the standard sounds you’d expect from him, but there’s also country, blues-based hard rock, punk and some rap-rock thrown in for good measure. And therein lies the issue with CMFT: rather than those disparate influences somehow mixing to become a whole, they’re left to stand on their own. The more you listen to CMFT, the more it comes across as ‘Corey Taylor does (insert genre here)’ rather than something cohesive.

The production by Yves and Lawrence Rothman wisely attunes to the 80s influences and sonic similarities, but it doesn’t force the band to live there. The recording exudes modernity with retro touches – not the other way around.

This record does indeed feel like a natural continuation of Sadier's previous body of work.

He’s fulfilled every promise made by Badlands and then some, and despite whatever depths of pain made such an eruption of shattered awesome possible, he’s managed not just one of the best albums of the year, but one of the most genuinely moving, as well.

It’s messy, it’s funny, it’s occasionally shallow, but it’s also thrilling, because it dares to treat those qualities as virtues. Carpenter knows the heartbreak is real, but the laughter is what keeps you alive long enough to sing about it.

Brun has such control of her craft, and that is made brightly plain across these two albums [After The Great Storm & How Beauty Holds The Hand Of Sorrow]. Which one you prefer will likely depend on which genre or style you have deeper inclination for, but taken together, they’re both excellent representations of an artist honing her tested and true style while also venturing out into new waters, easily proving just how capable she is along the way.

The Defamation of Strickland Banks is most certainly a success.

Like last year's A Frightened Rabbit EP, State Hospital lacks some coherency in style, but its brevity makes this less of a problem.

What an enormous room strikes as a means for Scott to prove to no one but herself that she can build her temple from scratch, embracing her inner non-conformist with steadfast spirit. Even within the sound of settling, Torres has plenty of charming things to say.

Usually, Blanck Mass records should be listened to at intense volume, whereas In Ferenaux is so densely packed and beautifully mixed that headphones whilst walking alone late at night are your best option. Trust me, you’ll thank me for it later.

Even the addition of pop icons to the Rome album can't allow it to rise above its previously stated goals. There is little, if nothing, wrong with Rome, but rather, it is limited by the confines it sets up for itself.

Unsure whether he wanted to create a sunny, party album, gangstafest, or a record of cool pop vibes, Rocky seems to have tried to make them all, and with minor successes in all departments, he sacrifices something stronger.

Articulation balances the sterility of machine commands with the vivacity and pensiveness of the human experience like few other albums in the field have managed. Just at the moment when you feel as if you know where the music is headed it skews in on itself and refuses to accommodate your whims, moving itself to more unconventional spaces in order to breathe and react with themselves, not the needs of others.

Each track on in|Flux has a soul and heart of its own.

God's Father is nearly two hours long, and it's actually good.

At times, the measured approach he takes on some songs falls short of supplying the momentum needed for each part to hit in the exact way he wanted, but for the most part, Sheff creates a landscape of gentle dynamics that grow until they release their stored energy through unexpected eruptions of kinetic movement.

White Rabbits have made a record that is truly their own, so much so that at points it hurts the record.

Though it may lack a song with the immediacy of something like "Girls FM," the tracks on King Tuff represent some of the best work of the career of a man who's hopefully just getting started.

It’s rare for an artist to be so bold and blatantly fighting their fears on a debut album, but Lady Dan’s bravery is what gives extra life and depth to her songs.

While it is hard to pinpoint anything wrong with Sound Kapital on a micro-level (and a great many people are likely to be happy with the collection), the resulting picture of Sound Kapital as a whole is one of complacency, making the album easy enough to like, but difficult to love.

Outrun is exactly what it aspires to be: a fun retro-pop-dance album for those who like to drive fast through cities at night, perhaps behind a pair of sunglasses.

Frank Ocean might have a gutsier pen game–and Usher more moves and Miguel more sex appeal--but 20/20 is easier to fall into a groove with than any of the best contemporary pop/R&B albums out right now.

An Argument With Myself is nothing short of spectacular at any length, crowning Lekman as one of today's most fascinating and gifted musicians.

For all its gorgeous expansiveness and new perspectives, it never comes together to be incisive or essential.

As an experiment, the album hints at expansion but it feels restrained, afraid to really push hard. Even still, Present Tense has a little something for everyone and is a perfect launching pad for the next one.

When Woman On the Internet isn’t fun, bold, or thoughtful (or all three at once in some parts), it’s reflective.

Overall, When Fish Ride Bicycles won't convert any naysayers, but for both fans and those new to the group, this is a tightly-crafted showcase for the unique sound and style of The Cool Kids.

Always grandiose and intimate at the same time, The Lemon Twigs have managed to perfect not only an uncanny reprise of FM rock (duly aided by producer and multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire Jonathan Rado), but also the type of excitement it provoked.

At first glance, Smalhans feels exceedingly necessary as reconciliation for Six Cups of Rebel, but it's quite a reliable document on its own.

The songwriting here is just not very good. And even when the referential tracks are fairly decent, they only would have been minor entries of their era. Shades of Madonna and Avril can’t disguise that there’s no distinguished personality here.

Self-Surgery is punchy and full of potential, but that’s mostly what it rides on. It’s a quick fix, but its depths are easily plundered.

While Personality is worthy of praise for its feverous energy and detailed, hot-iron arrangements, there isn't a lot to make the album really stick.

They’re still capable of brilliance (particularly on the opening and closing tracks), but too much of Mosquito is bogged down by tongue-in-cheek frivolity.

Anyone who considers themselves a fan of unvarnished punk should listen to OFF! at least once.

Whole Lotta Red has a vibe the same way a TGI Fridays has an atmosphere; it just rides a wave of different shades of lifeless trap, an endless TikTok dance in purgatory. ... The problem is Whole Lotta Red hardly ever gives Carti a chance to be real. He puts on vapid personas like ‘rock star’ and ‘vampire’ like he’s at Halloween Express. Tracks are Seinfeldian in their nothingness.

Widowspeak are a perfectly enjoyable, if ultimately unexciting band.

It's another dose of what Dunn seems to be becoming a modern master of, while carefully trying out new textures.

Nothing on Sleepless Night necessarily surprises, but nothing disappoints either. For a band with 15 studio albums (and counting), we unsurprisingly don’t discover anything new about them here, but this isn’t the point. We’re just glad to be in their company once again; this, one feels, will never change.

the rest can be defined by its most insecure and self-deprecating moments. “Black Hole” opens the EP with what is probably the lightest of the four tracks, but rest assured, the other three deliver the depth and emotional resonance that boygenius fans have come to expect.

An Usher album that is good, but not great.

Bnny’s debut balances the calmness of the instrumentals and the emptiness conveyed in the lyrics.

Ultimately, it might not be a more serious album than anything previous, but Shangri-La captures the spirit of uncertainty and restlessness that 21st century modernity has created.

Nocturne proves that Tatum is firmly at the centre of the Wild Nothing universe, and around him orbits his dreams, influences and abilities, which seem to stretch out infinitely.

This is a record unanchored by the lofty expectations of previous releases. It’s a series of notes and remembrances, fond and mournful and often whimsical in nature, which provides ample evidence that the band still hasn’t fully excavated all the mysterious beauty that pop music has to offer.

Minks' devotion to mood and texture may seem redolent of My Bloody Valentine's foggy experiments, but By The Hedge isn't nearly as sonically challenging or heady as Kevin Shields's work. No, Minks have more modest goals as it turns out, their greatest inspiration comes not from the music of others but rather from within.

Both Ways Open Jaws will strike you as both new sounding and classic, as both fresh and rooted in tradition. Most importantly, it will strike you as a treasure, and probably, as the best album you have heard in a long time.

We got an album entirely thrown on the shoulders of the cub, and like a growing king, J. Cole actually pulled it off, but scope, cohesiveness, and focus couldn't help but become somewhat lost in the disarray.

It's both the sleaziest album of the year and Diddy's intricate fantasy world of mistreatment and vindication presented as a bizarre mass.

It's the producer's most immediate album and tightest display to date.

The young choristers’ bright, buoyant singing brings an airy freshness to this singular set of synth-laden art-pop songs, a well-suited sonic palette for Jenn Wasner’s thoughtful musings on contemporary life.

Barn is a really solid Crazy Horse record, definitely in the upper third of Neil’s output over the last decade or two. There’s a lot of joy and atmosphere in the set, and while some of the tracks here might be a bit too typical of their genre tropes or Neil’s past, they also bring with them a timeless, warm sense of identity and perspective totally unique in the current music world.

People Who Aren’t There Anymore was not written as a reflection but a documentary of the emotional processes the band members were going through at the time. The meaning of the songs will continue to change for the band over time, just as they will for listeners.

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

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.

With Passage, Exitmusic has turned in one of the more ambition, evocative, and engaging efforts of 2012.

one hand on the steering wheel might not have any clear missteps (though the jagged pedal twang filling the empty space on “violence” wears a little thin all too quickly), but it may take some time to warm to. Some offerings are more instantly likeable than others.

Indeed, Ancient Romans is a mostly good record that ends on a terrific high note; here's to hoping that Sun Araw can maintain this momentum on the future, instead of falling back on the reliable old drones he's offered us so many times in the past.

It's unlikely that the album will be a big hit, but the best songs will grow to have a life outside of Feel It Break, on dancefloors and party playlists, which I'm sure is something Stelmanis would approve of.

Simply as an album, this is good stuff, and nothing can take away from that, it's only hard to forget how much more the man who brought it to you is capable of.

This new release does function better as a cohesive work, but oddly enough they seem to have restricted their musical vocabulary even further.

Sometimes these lyrics are a bit stifling and confusing to place in context, but once more, these songs become something more due to Turner's impeccable vocal melodies.

Although this may not be what all Sigur Rós fans were hoping for, standing on its own, Odin’s Raven Magic is a gorgeous, moving piece of neoclassical musicianship, performance, and composition.

Based on the strengths of The Dreamer/The Believer, it's simply nice to hear a resurgent Common back on track, doing what he does best, even if he's not the

With repeated listens though, the tracks on Versions don’t entice you back again and again like the ominous hook-laden tracks of Stridulum or even the wide sound palette of Conatus do. Versions is probably best for those who were there at the Guggenheim concert.

It's sharp songwriting, strong, emotive vocals, and unostentatious attitude lead to three of the most unassumingly replayable pop songs of the year.

It remains a frustrating record, though, since it does show Tegan and Sara attempting to pull away, ever so slightly, from the sickeningly shiny days of “Closer”, but they get in their own way in their efforts to be edgy or forward-thinking.

Totem is a challenging listen, but it's one of the most creative and exciting debuts I've heard all year.

Imperfect it may be, but as a concise and focused return, its is an unequivocal triumph.

The lyrics, though straightforward at times, come from a place of genuineness and vulnerability.

Dum Dum Girls always know exactly who they are, play on their own strengths, and leave the audience fully satisfied and happy to come back for more. Simplicity rarely sounds this good.

If I don't revisit it, (and I might not, because it wasn't exactly mind-blowing), I appreciate it for at least being a pleasant listen.

In a catalogue as rich with esoteric bangers as Bat for Lashes’, a work this defined and heartfelt still is a striking gem. A hushed secret, it has more to offer than just that.

Regardless of the energy used in the moment, Lindstrøm and Thomas create music that feels at home in many environments. This is particularly relevant as 2020 nears its end. Listeners can make of III what they will, whether that be slowly dancing along in their rooms, or laying back and taking the music in, waiting for the world to start up again.

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

There are stretches, most notable the middle third, where the impulse to experiment obscures the user-friendliness, but nitpicking like this detracts from what we really should be acknowledging.

The change-ups between choruses and verses are less rote, and along with Goodman's ability to write good hooks, there isn't too much that gets in the way.

Telas continues to display his determination to explore completely new realms, even if that means sacrificing moments that immediately jump out, like a beat or a hook or even a repeated melody. This is one for the intrepid sonic explorers, unafraid to enter a world that doesn’t cohere to any structure they’ve known before – and if you go in with that mindset, there’s plenty to be unearthed.

The key is to receive the album in the spirit in which it was intended: as an escapist distraction during troubling times. Your enjoyment of Garbers Days Revisited will depend, to a significant degree, upon how seriously you take it.

Make Believe takes the listener from the same point A to point B as Santogold, but has no qualms about taking a completely different route, which is both more scenic and more difficult, but ultimately feels more fulfilling.

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 sensory overload she tends to serve up will continue to confound many – even if this is her most accessible and celebratory record to date. Needless to say, her presentation of what she describes as “gender euphoria,” provides the perfect blueprint to a more healthy, embracing, and confident exploration of the concept and conversation of gender and identity in popular music.

With Valtari, the band has returned in some ways to the sounds it made its name with.

The majority of Hands of Glory is devoted to covers, though, and while Bird already has plenty of fine covers in his catalogue ("Don't Be Scared", "Trimmed + Burning", "The Giant of Illinois"), his efforts here are something near enough lacklustre and uninspiring.

A bracingly personal listen, As Long As You Are is as impactful as the follow-up to Singles should have been; it’s the sound of a band taking control.

Ca$ino doesn’t mark the moment Baby Keem becomes easier to categorize, but the moment he stops needing to be. Baby Keem has arrived, no less fun but clearer to his audience.

Reflective by nature, it might not have been her expected next step, but is nonetheless a beautifully delicate album that benefits from repeated close listening.

The effort put into creating the dark atmosphere is gratuitous, but in the context of the album it works perfectly. Add to this the fact that every song carries a killer hook and you have one of the must-hear albums of the year.