Because of the fractured, whimsical makeup of the album, it can become a bit frustrating for the listeners hoping to detect Half Pearl‘s beating heart. But listen close enough, and resolve is there beneath the rubble in the chopped jazz pop of “Wild Animals”, in which Liv.e struts to her own self-belief, untethered from other people’s expectations of her.

By linking up wuth the most expansive list of collaborators she’s tapped to date (BADBADNOTGOOD, Exaktly and Butcher Brown are among the producers), it also finds her weaving through arguably the most layered, fine musical backdrops she’s yet presented.

Keepers of the Light is as much of a singular expression of the hardcore continuum as it is an exploration of it, but maybe the best way to soak in its two and half hours is as a richly constructed sound world unto itself.

She’s a painter of sound, of mood. And one feels after listening to this document of searching textures, yearning melodies, and newfound sonic intimacy, that she’s only getting started.

These tracks are sparse but airtight, haunting but unrelentingly gorgeous, both logical successors to the stunning second half of Aerial and completely unlike anything she's done.

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.

New Brigade is over in about 23 minutes, and each second feels well worth your time. Though the band can get sloppy at points, perhaps even a bit repetitive, Iceage have crafted some very memorable tracks here; and more than anything, New Brigade shows that this band has much more to offer in the future.

While it isn’t horribly different from previous solo record Hundreds of Days, it does feel, overall, like her grasp on her tools is firmer, and her ideas feel a bit more refined and distilled here, like she’s reached a purer version of her vision.

He’s willing to stumble, befuddle, and outright offend – it’s all part of its creator’s flawed self, which is all but stripped starkly naked in front of us. It’s far too complex, far too searching to be wrangled in a simple review. I know this much: we’ll be talking about this one for a long, long time.

Musically, the deft fusion of the delicate and the hearty reflects Harvey’s thematic explorations; the production is full of strange quirks, whether found sounds or unusual effects that are sometimes inserted and not repeated. The effect is that the music feels both hazy and alive, evoking the Orlam world in its strange splendour.

It’s a topsy-turvy balancing act that she’s playing, but for the most part it’s successful. Clark flips between that groovy funk of the 70s, then back to her guitar rock days, and then, sure, she employs some more experimental and electronic moments that might come across as jarring to some. But it’s also just part of the brand that is St. Vincent in 2021.

The Overload has enough interesting touchstones, but unfortunately, how Yard Act aim to utilize them within their songwriting MO is still a bit of a jumble. Many of the sounds and textures don’t really add much expressive gusto to Smith’s thespian qualities, and I feel the group can cover a lot of ground here on upcoming releases.

We Stay Together is Andy Stott's second LP of 2011 and it's easily the heavier, more defined, and arguably better of the two.

Tunes are built slowly and satisfyingly, ebbing and flowing into oceans of ambient sound. Through these layers, though, shine frequent flashes of utter brilliance.

Gigi’s Recovery manages to portray a soul longing for healing, resisting its thanatonic urges, grappling with the reality of being born into a cold, loveless void, and somehow trying to accept being loveable. And it has the brevity to show us that, at the end of its 12 song cycle, the battle can be won, even if the war will never end.

This is a life-affirming album which is not held back by the restrictions of linguistics and the limitations that words bring, and it may be just what you need to lift you out of yourself in these troubled times.

It’s clear that every listener will read Midnights in their own way – the record is simply too rich to function as background soundtrack. It’s a blistering experience that demands commitment, concentration and deep engagement – it’s an artist banishing their demons.

Fleet Foxes have become a band who will not stop pushing, who will challenge themselves to avoid stagnancy, who will work with both their instruments and their minds. Because of that, the audience is able to reap the fruit and feast on it together.

Pompeii truly feels like a gesamtkunst rather than a collection of separate songs. The album reaffirms what makes Le Bon’s music such a useful prism to process thoughts and feelings that feel too immense to articulate within traditional means.

Haiti lacks a clear narrative. Still, this hardly harms the project. It simply constrains it to being particularly strong rather than transcendent.

Once again, Sternberg’s irrepressible, impossibly human spirit shines through the darkness. This is the ultimate power of I’ve Got Me: the majority of songs here focus on negative experiences, but the feeling coming out the other end of listening to it is one of uplift and renewed resolve to make something of one’s life. It’s what makes the album sound both modern and timeless.

As the music fades in and out on the eight-minute closing title track, one can only imagine that boat in the water, the burning hot summer sun melting you down, and those slow but powerful waves washing you away. This is what it feels like to listen to Cass McCombs, especially nowadays.

Hannah is a culmination of everything Read has done up to this point and she delivers bittersweet missives through tender songwriting and a deft application of her strengths as a musician.

Smother may lack the proper drive of Two Dancers, but it succeeds in whittling down what has become Wild Beasts' motif.

While Artist Proof never quite lives up to the expectations of being a masterpiece, it is a great example of how the country rock genre developed in tandem with the folk scene.

He may do all of this DIY, but it comes across with more heart than a lot of the tourists of the scene, and it shows in his powerful lyrics just how far he’s come in this world.

The production on Good News is hardly subtle, and few of these beats would stand out on their own, but they’re effective at supporting her flows and keeping the energy going.

With this album, Curry wants to let the world know who he is and what he stands for, and the music is all the better for it.

This album is not served to us on a platter as a radio-ready hit record, and it is not made ‘for us’, but it gives us something better — the feeling of being a part of this music and not a mere recipient.

Sunn O))) rewards repeat listens as there’s so much going on under the surface. It’s majestic, euphoric, but also clearly not for everybody. But then you should never really trust the majority, anyway.

With Skinty Fia, Fontaines, D.C. continue to position themselves as one of the more emotionally broad-banded and nuanced acts to emerge from the latest post-punk wave. Soundscapes are evocatively sculpted and frequently galvanic, melodies and lyrics consistently enrolling.

While nearly everything else is still top tier pop music, but the Englishwoman leaves herself some room to grow. For now, Devotion is one the year's most promising debuts.

In its many guises, Classic Objects is that light, a profound statement from an artist bound by no traditions, and it is offered freely to those searching for all the questions they’ve yet to ask.

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.

Though his shouty, communal sound now operates as a fever dream reminder of days when sweaty bodies toppled on one another without the worry of infectious disease, his topical dissection of society on the mend has never felt more thrilling than it is now.

It’s rare to find a lyricist so honest and a vocalist so earnest, and when put into song it seems to Houck as if every word is vital and cathartic and necessary.

While New Long Leg basked in a chic trendiness, Stumpwork more soberly conjures the spectrum of 21st century life: our endless search for identity, our egoic highs and crashes, the ineluctable tedium.

Like all the best songwriters, Tomberlin doesn’t act like she has the answers to the big questions, but knows that simply by being inquisitive she will eventually figure out her own truths, and she’s passing that wisdom along with this record.

At its most transfixing, Recordings From the Åland Islands sounds like music that might naturally arise from the landscape itself. Tranquil, bleary, and languid; ambient and gorgeous, but full of detail that makes the experience feel personal to Chiu and Honer.

Old Ideas is not the man's latter-day masterpiece but its title is as bluntly honest as any you'll see this year, in more ways than one.

Topical Dancer is a record for literally anyone. It’s a tool as much as it is an escape hatch. Play this album for your grandparents, your parents, your children, your children’s children, and children yet to be born. For it’s a spiritual palette cleanser as much as it is a physical one.

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 the document of two beloved alt-metal worlds colliding to head-shuddering effect; a record of skull crushing intensity in places, with merciless riffs conjured up from the deepest abyss, which are counterpoised with quiet, ethereal dark-folk introspection – a mix that shouldn’t really work but absolutely does.

Glitch Princess is consistently inventive, disturbing, and timely.

Possibly the most intelligent album about love this decade, Water Made Us gently and disarmingly humanizes Woods while maintaining a me-positive stance.

Like its predecessor, Romantic Piano is soft and cosy, a small and dreamy soundworld to escape into for half an hour.

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.

Home Video is undeniably a Lucy Dacus album; one that’s a reflection of not only the rise of her star but of the ever-growing liberation that comes with emotional vulnerability.

Fossora is an incredible and vulnerable project that refuses any easy categorisation. Björk’s dives into sonic obfuscation have never once eclipsed her refusal to be anything except open-hearted and honest. Her power is in how she allows herself to feel and let these emotions guide her artistic expression.

The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers is June’s strongest whole document so far; it has such a crystalline, atmospheric take on her favored genres that it seems to exist both within and without the confines of those styles. Her singular, moving, astral take on songwriting appears fully formed with this album, and it’s as exciting as anything to see a promising artist truly deliver.

Multitudes is a lovely listen from front to back, and her most sonically and thematically consistent album ever. However, it may be a little too deceptively simple for its own good. The fact that so many of the treasures of this record come in the smaller details and choices is fine, but it does mean the album takes more time to sink in as a result.

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.

Yo La Tengo feel more alive on This Stupid World than they have in years – which isn’t to say that their more recent efforts were lacking in any way. The songs here just crackle and spark with an innate energy and unpredictability not heard since 2006’s I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.

Where Music Has the Right seemed grounded in the real world (albeit a twisted recollection of such) and Geogaddi straddled the line between Star Wars and The Sandlot, Tomorrow’s Harvest finds the duo launching their sound into Lovecraftian orbit. And it sounds terrific.

Strange Mercy is the lonely next door neighbour who could be just as popular if only you took the time to get to know her. Instead she is left to turn introspectively, which might not produce quite so brilliantly chromatic stories, but they can be just as – if not more – compelling.

From the opener to the closing track, a listener beholds an oftentimes savage and rivetingly textured spectacle.

Dadub have crafted an LP with depth and subtle yet grand-scale dimension, adding another excellent release to the Stroboscopic Artefacts canon.

There’s something ungraspable about their music: referential yet original, derivative yet prototypical, memorable yet oddly irretrievable. Ponderous yet transcendent. A listener is invited to encounter the assorted boundaries of their own preferences, biases, identity – to let those hard lines dissolve.

Summer has created a phenomenal album that is top-tier confessional R&B. Every painful angle of relationships is explored right to the bone and her blunt honesty is wrapped in boppy production and satisfying melodies. She may still be over it, but listeners will not be over this project for a long time to come.

Not everything on evermore truly works or lands satisfyingly, but it’s all part of a creative process that is producing some of her best and most surprising work to date. And considering portions of the world are still dealing with lockdown and are isolating ahead of returning home for Christmas, it still certainly feels like the best “worst time” to be making music like this.

It is Depeche Mode’s most self-aware album in a long time – and their most memorable. At 50 minutes and 12 songs, the album is lean and humble, paying respect to the band’s past while also returning to the tension that made their best material so enjoyable.

The resulting album is one that is deceptively simple, a send-up to the aggressive cultural awareness of old-school rap on the surface, filtered through a hundred different post-apocalyptic scenarios, musical and lyrical.

Ocean Roar [is] a truly proper follow-up.

The album is suffused with atmosphere, and is full of intriguing narrative ideas, compelling lyrics, and some of her most well-observed stories. Ultimately, though, it ends up coming off a bit too staid and stuck in its own yawning landscape to truly take off.

It’s taking what is inherently a complex form of music – and is still highly technical in the hands of these players – and makes it into something for all to enjoy. It’s the kind of album that ‘purists’ will possibly scoff at for its accessibility and poptimism, but you get the feeling that Thackray wouldn’t want them as fans anyway. All she wants from her listeners are open ears, open hearts and open minds.

Dogrel showed Fontaines D.C. could make a great post-punk album; A Hero’s Death shows they have more than sub-genre affiliation on their minds.

Little Oblivions doesn’t so much feel like a step to a higher point as so much as a stumble that Baker has made to look as graceful as she can.

With Nymph, Shygirl brings another original voice in the mix; good luck hearing a record that portrays sex in similarly tactile, authentic and effortlessly cool fashion.

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.

Were it not for the aforementioned instrumental pieces, then it would be hard to recommend Voices unless you were in a particular mindset. While the tapestry of it all is undeniably magical (strings, voices, electronics, and the aforementioned details all woven together seamlessly), the high points are when Richter demonstrates how a sweep of his hand can evoke floods of emotions in the mind.

Moffat’s storytelling is utterly masterful throughout, tragic case studies abounding.

Neighborhood Gods is a potent, enticing, and, yes, elusive project.

There is much one could say about how this EP compares to Rossen's past projects since that's all he's delivered to us, but he deserves more than that after accomplishing a great EP by himself.

The album's relative indie rock minimalism stands out in stark contrast to many other bands who feel that this kind of straightforward approach is either too uninteresting or too tied to certain years in music.

Clocking in under 30 minutes with only nine tracks, Cool Dry Place is a lovely breeze of a listen, and truthfully, a nearly flawless record. Except for a couple of moments of autotune and lo-fi weirdness, Kirby generally plays it safe, musically, which leaves one wanting a tiny bit more from a talent like herself.

What makes this record work isn’t just its ambition — it’s how cohesive it is. Every image returns. Every metaphor resounds.

For such a prolific, genre-blurring artist, we are lucky as listeners that all the pieces Ryley Walker’s set up over the past decade could coalesce in such a fine, tight 40 minutes.

What we’re given is 10 songs in just under 34 minutes, one of Veirs’ most efficient and direct albums.

At its best, the album strums out a stark moment, like a voice calling for help. ... Where a little bit of focus is lost is when Karijord becomes almost incantatory with Dessner’s words, repeating phrases with ambiguous meanings but not coming out the other end with any greater sense of purpose (“April”, “October” and “November” in particular).

Yes, The Ballad of Darren is Dad Rock. Fairly enjoyable Dad Rock, true, and still a record hundreds of bands can only dream of making, but one that would likely fall by the wayside if anyone else had made it. Is this bad? Not really, and if anything, it proves that Blur can transition gracefully into old age.

While much of Lindeman’s recent work spotlights her knack for lush arrangements and declarative statements, How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars accentuates her nuanced artistry, including her gift for vocal and sonic restraint and lyrical precision.

If anything, Apollo Kids is the biggest reason to get excited about Ghost in years; putting out a seemingly rushed disc, he's outdone much of his recent work.

This is a high point in his already illustrious career; a labyrinthine and ultramodern take on hip-hop that will likely age like a Cabernet.

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.

If, as the artist himself has recently hinted, Kaputt really does mark the end of Destroyer, then it succeeds as a triumphant swan-song.

By the time Once Twice Melody reaches its closing moments, it sounds like the band are taking a well-earned victory lap in a career full of wins.

Nothing here sounds random or haphazard at all, but rather an almost perfectly concocted pop/rock with some gorgeous harmonies to boot – whether it is the opening title track, mid-album highlight “Fire And Gold” or closing “Your True Enemy.”

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”.

One often loses a sense of location and chronological time, transported into a sublime realm, Blunt reveling in understated craft, melancholic freedom, and undiluted authenticity.

The trio delight in taking risks in a way that few rock bands on a major label do, and A Celebration of Endings is a wide-ranging record – even when they’re operating within an accessible framework.

Together with longtime bandmates Jason Narducy (bass) and Jon Wurster (drums), Mould has created his strongest album since 2012’s Silver Age. Their chemistry soars on the wild tracks “When You Left” and “Racing to the End” as much as on the somber closer “The Ocean”.

Some songs are easier entryways into the band’s world than others, but the album leaves the greatest impression when listened to from start to finish. With all that time to develop over the years, Another Sky have finally found their voice with a debut album that’s fully realised and utterly engrossing.

Unpredictable it is not, but taken as a study of sound and mood, it’s kind of perfect.

The project as a whole, despite its unabashed expressiveness, is characterized by subtle restraint, particularly on the part of Chubb. Flirting with histrionics while employing a semi-confessional MO, she largely avoids collapsing into hackneyed postures or melodrama.

It’s anything but disappointing.

With Phasor, Lange navigates an important rite of passage, testifying to life’s glories and anticlimaxes. He’s become an unflinching realist without sacrificing his curiosity, his capacity for wonder.

Surviving as they have, Hiatus Kaiyote sound livelier than before. Every inch of Mood Valiant drips with love and togetherness for the band, with no single contributor stealing the show for very long.

In Standard Definition is possibly going to be far too weird an album for some, but those that are curious about what d’Ecco has to offer should definitely go on this zany musical experience.