They’ve delivered a certain-to-be-beloved debut – one that separates itself from its peers.

The wicked atmosphere that they’ve crafted across Heart Under is worthy of celebration alone.

At heart, it’s all too modest, too fatigued, too lacking in ambition and attitude.

Post-punk bands tend to veer dark and brooding, but Dehd avoid that here, putting all of their energy into sunny anthems filled with dizzying coos, lighthearted hooks and charming rhythms. It all helps them bounce across the record and into our hearts for good.

These are pretty songs, but largely forgettable when amassed together, and though EYEYE is an honorable attempt at switching lanes yet again after a divisive fourth album, it mostly comes up short as a finished product.

Rentals is uniformly great, and each track boasts its share of both gorgeous instrumentation and lines that are alternately poetic and prosaic.

It’s all put together under one roof in a neat, unassuming way, made refreshing and palatable by his persona.

It preserves the trio’s history while serving us a matured Moderat. MORE D4TA is their cathartic work of loneliness and intoxication, indulging in a museum of sounds.

They’ve made the brave decision to remember what it’s like to feel and to breathe again, and it can all be heard in the stirring vibrations of Margolin’s words and voice.

With more questions raised than answered, Cain’s unusually ambitious and fully-realised debut somehow leaves listeners craving more in spite of its wonderful, exhausting, 75 minute runtime.

Even in his lost moments, like “A Random Act of Kindness” where he repeats “Out of time, out of money”, he searches out the hope while faced with setbacks and sorrow. It’s in these moments that Morby shines as that everyman – a role he has been crafted into through those various influences he holds up so high.

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.

As moving as those songs are, The Smile are more intriguing when they shift slightly further away from Yorke and Greenwood’s established palette.

After 11 tracks, this return feels well-earned, but it’s equally refreshing to know the next song we hear from Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever might not be so predictable.

Yeah, that’s a decent album. Flags towards the end, sure. Some rippers on there, though. Glad I stuck with it.

Van Etten gives us what is, quite possibly, her strongest album yet. And that sense of breakthrough, of sheer lift, is prevalent right from the start. ... There’s a powerful sincerity and confidence to her vocals throughout the record, as she weaves and bobs around her deceptively simple and emotive melodies, often hitting notes that sounds for a millisecond like they won’t quite work, and then suddenly, they do, as on the final heavenly note of “Darkness Fades”.

It’s retreading old ground and shouting at clouds, but also genuine and at times beautiful in its crystalline synth-pop nostalgia.

This is frivolous music best enjoyed as such. The trick to Sofi Tukker’s success is not to take them too seriously, even when they do so themselves.

Girlpool have finally escaped the contours of twee indie rock with their fourth album. It’s not your typical evolution; this record has always existed for Girlpool — they just had to begin to find themselves first. Forgiveness is a riveting glimpse into that ongoing process.

These 12 songs are denser in their instrumentation and production than Hatchie’s previous work. ... Regardless, the album is still imbued with Pilbeam’s established touches of enchantment and sensitivity.

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.

The record is about opposition: it haunts but soothes, it repels while drawing you in. As you listen, this unbridled exploration of sound will become part of your own dialectic subconscious rather than a soundtrack on your dancefloor. You have to listen.

Nothing here quite reaches the fizzy highs of something like “Come Together” or “Hey Jane”, and he can’t quite recapture the slow, sad, and syrupy balladry of past tracks like “Broken Heart”. But he can still kick up quite a storm when he wants to, and though perhaps a bit too streamlined for some fans, this is another fine album in Pierce’s and Spiritualized’s repertoire.

Despite being almost twice the length, It’s Almost Dry very much adheres to the wisdom of its predecessor: there isn’t an ounce of fat on the lean, mean machine that is the album, with every second aimed with a precise, sinister purpose.

Every song on this record is carefully crafted, and the way they’ve perfectly balanced the intimate bedroom atmosphere with the crystalline sheen of modern mainstream has created a set of unmissable pop pearls.

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.

The album’s overwhelming atmosphere invites you to pore over the tracks, to take in each detail the light reaches, then comb over them again for everything you’ve missed.

Tilt is the music they are dragging you onto the dancefloor for, and with most of these songs playing over the speakers, you’ll happily join them.

Tilt is the music they are dragging you onto the dancefloor for, and with most of these songs playing over the speakers, you’ll happily join them.

While it may prove inconsistent to some, the experimentation and exploration ensures the album remains exciting, as you never know what’s arriving next. If the intention of this album was to show a rebirth, it succeeds, as Banks seems reinvigorated and ready to fearlessly conquer the demons that dare cross her path.

This is music for the mercurial bunch in need of a break from their own chaotic lives, who need to experience someone else’s even if it’s momentarily. It’s something the genre was intended for, and bands like Duster will continue to provide it for years to come.

We have heard many albums about the pandemic and life within it, but this is more about about life after it; how to pick up the pieces of the lives we had before it and transform them into this new life that just relentlessly goes on. Vile’s music is attuned to the unrelenting progression of life.

With Erickson’s arrangements augmenting his tales at every beat, they become immersive emotional explorations. Not every entry is gripping, and their mileage will depend on how much time you’re willing to settle in and let them wash over you, but overall it’s an impressively graceful skip into a new era for the songwriter.

His voice is consistently stroking it throughout the 16 tracks, ensuring it’s one of his most revealing bodies of work to date. A true and honest portrait of a complex human being.

All the arrangements feel organic and overflow from track to track. Rossen’s crafted a purposeful exploitation of his emotions as always, but this time it’s fully under his control.

There’s so much talent and story hidden behind the mask, but this album isn’t Orville Peck at his truest.

Its fragmented nature is tied to its accessibility; each track stands alone on its own merits, albeit at the expense of the record as a whole. The more oblique lyricism allows for the possibility of wider interpretations here, where previously they have felt out of reach.

In many ways, it’s Wet Leg’s small imperfections that make it the perfect debut – an impressive, tantalising exploration of their core talents that leaves just enough room for improvement.

It’s far from a miserable affair, it certainly passes the time, it’s just hard to imagine how so much talent in a room didn’t arrive with something that didn’t feel so staid.

Their punk spirit is still there, but has been buried a little under the weight of heartfelt emotion, bolstered instrumentation and sugary harmonies – all of which work beautifully for these songs. Camp Cope have made an album for themselves, to bring some unity through honesty and self-expression. They can certainly be proud of that.

Past Life Regression doesn’t craft any new formulas for Papercuts, but it’s still consistent with what people have come to expect from the band.

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.

The fragmentation of characters, the dislocation and purposefully disruptive sense of a core musical identity on Warm Chris make this a collection of disparate songs rather than a body of work – for some this will be a boon, for others problematic.

Each track finds her motivation intact, with almost no trace of despair that isn’t equally met with perseverance. While it finds the singer consistently laid back, Gifted pushes forward constantly – displaying its creator’s unique resolve.

Labyrinthitis is Bejar’s best work since Kaputt. At this point, Bejar has several classics under his belt, so there’s no desperation here to create another one, but he manages to do it with ease.

Reborn often feels like traveling simultaneously to the past and the future in a larger-than-life overwhelmingness similar to watching a film in IMAX. It’s this complete immersion that wraps the record as a whole, rendering it as exciting as the newest sequel of your favourite superhero series.

This black abyss that Loop created is vast and infinite, and yes, even monotonous at times, but Hampson is shooting for the moon on Sonancy. He understands that it takes a rocket ship to get there – and those take time to build.

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.

An essential and enlivening record from start to finish.

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.

The tracks are still unmistakably Sonic Youth, but in a period where each album had a particular feel and tone, these tracks feel too disjointed to sit together too well.

Even with guests and layers stripped away, she can still construct ambient moments that stick in your head.

Sink into Me is possibly superior song-wise to Home for Now and at least equally cogent in terms of vocal performances. Going forward, however, Babeheaven might consider combining the matured skills of their latest work with the less self-conscious and more rangy aesthetic inherent to Home for Now.

With a little help from an impressive array of collaborators and producers that include heavyweights like Pharrell Williams, El Guincho and Frank Dukes, Rosalía takes clear and complete control of her voice by getting her ideas across without being too caught up in them.

The album’s strength is in its sheer breadth, its teleological scope, its grandeur without pretence.

Despite its minor detours, Crash is one of Charli’s better albums even if it will likely garner a polarizing reaction. She’s fully dedicated though, and it’s a testament to her commitment to crafting the big ‘sellout’ pop album, which she mostly nails.

For a bunch of old tracks, then, Frank sits together quite nicely.

Tana Talk 4 shows Benny the Butcher’s improving his rhymes, but doesn’t offer any more profound insight into the man behind the microphone – even as we return to where it all started.

Instrumentally the record feels like a flash in the pan; the first few bites are crunchy and moreish, but it does become a little dry after a while. At times this doesn’t matter because the lyrics hold you, but then again that’s like having half a slice of pizza; good, but not quite satiating.

Ho99o9 vividly express the anarchic impulse, conjuring the despair and volatility inherent to our postlapsarian age.

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.

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.

Whether her words come from personal experience or not, Yanya’s able to swell with empathy in ways few current songwriters can convey. It’s audible how she places herself within the circumstances of a song, maybe to feel herself, but in doing so she connects with her audience on a different level.

On the canyoning, Weyes Blood-sounding brooder “Not A Love Song”, she seems to find peace within her place in a corrupted world, realising the illusion that its violence inherent can be captured or neutered. Squeeze opts to bathe and contort in it with visceral theatricality.

Digital Roses Don’t Die is a subtle, occasionally lightweight, jaunt through the realms of K.R.I.T.’s affections and motivations.

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.

Limbs is an arresting portrait of that mental state, one which is equal parts hopeful and harrowing. While each element has been particularly, even painfully, placed to present a certain image and mindset, there’s plenty of space left on the canvas to project one’s own thoughts and feelings, which is exactly the kind of engagement that an artist like Forsyth hopes to garner.

Anthemic, emotional, powerful – The Tipping Point is a very good record.

Outwardly, Gang of Youths’ third album is one about grief – specifically the grief stemming from the death of Le’aupepe’s father. But more than that, it’s a moving and deeply personal exploration of the innate flaws of the human condition; of failing the ones you love despite your best intentions, and of falling apart and beginning the slow and painful process of piecing yourself back together again afterwards.

God Don’t Make Mistakes is a complete body of work, Conway’s best to date, and one of the best rap albums to come out in 2022.

This band are making aural marvels that are sporadic, reactive, and organic — disguised inexactness that will have listeners frozen in an undeveloped state, merely connecting on an emotional level that can hardly be rationalized.

On Life On Earth, marginalized voices are amplified and given credence. Segarra is the kind of potent lyricist who can flesh out characters and scenes with just one or two lines, paint entire panoramic worlds within the succinct space of a song.

Metronomy’s Small World shows us exactly what it’s like to take it easy but still deliver have a rewarding experience.

PREY//IV sounds like Crystal Castles, but it isn’t a copy of their three albums. This is how they would have progressed, taking influence from FKA twigs and Arca amongst others.

The production by Hollow Comet is bright and clean, and the instrumentation is tasteful — almost too tasteful, sometimes verging on a lighters-in-the-air radio pop sensibility. ... Regardless, Shamir has delivered arguably his finest album yet, by engaging with his pain and his curiosities about life, and giving us the privilege of bearing witness to it.

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.

While B FLAT A is unflinching in depicting stark realism, it also proves to be decisively light-hearted and generous in its unburdening from the absolute strife it inspired. What a thrilling, refreshing band.

This is a worthy comeback for the singer that is fun, catchy, bright and ultimately another addition to the canon of necessary, escapist music we need to forget the world’s impending descent into madness.

There are bright spots on Spoon’s 10th album, which indicate that Daniel’s bargain with Lucifer can still inspire him and his band to deliver the goods. It’s just that for now, it appears to be only a strong EP’s worth.

The Dream doesn’t feel like a failed attempt at reaching new heights of popularity. It feels like a lot at once, but in a way that makes one want to give it another shot.

Empath’s Visitor is the stunning follow-up most young bands only dream of creating.

She will turn heads with Tongues, and we would all do well to listen intently.

It’ll be hard to outdo this 20-track masterpiece, but at this point it’s impossible to bet against them.

There’s a constant fluidity, a continuum of becoming throughout IRE, and the band stubbornly, almost gleefully, refuse to return earthbound.

Glitch Princess is consistently inventive, disturbing, and timely.

This is pure sonic poetry, a titillating psychological adventure that takes patience and perseverance to appreciate. Let this album wipe away your memory for a bit. Indulge.

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.

It’s a great American psychedelic record that retains an outsider perspective. And in that, a decade of ambitious exploration has finally paid off.

After numerous lineup changes, this album feels like Ackerman’s hitting of reset button has finally worked, and the project is continuing down the intriguing path started last year resulting in a hell of a comeback album.

This overall reduction in the reliance on guitar riffs allows for greater flexibility of sound, and as such BCNR wring out more staggering peaks of emotion from Wood’s lovelorn words.

The whole is not as majestic as its parts, including the often very evocative lyrics. But on the record there is little left of those initial spiritual ideas itself, and the creative drive of the opening salvo won’t carry onto the second half. And that is a shame, as the album’s individual highs suggest greatness.

Despite Laurel Hell‘s unevenness, Mitski’s persistent vulnerability makes her music inherently beautiful and honest, reminding us all of how primal and painful the experience of being human is.

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.

The music feels traditional, yet modern and accessible.

Her pen excels in etching out the intricate wonders of the emotional spectrum in a way that shows an advanced progression of both musical and emotional maturation. Three Dimensions Deep is a wonder, and I’m sure we’ll be pointing to this album when we look back to what point the world knew Mark was a star.

Though the nature of Covers makes it slightly scattershot, and nothing quite hits the heights of some of her past covers, it is decidedly more engaging and diverse than her last album, the lowkey-to-the-point-of-disappearing Wanderer.

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.

While it’s not breaking any new ground or causing any philosophical contemplation, it’s highly doubtful that the album is trying to be more than what it exactly is: a collection of songs about dancing your way out of the complications and snares that so often accompany love.