With Umbilical, Thou toe the doom-metal line re the inevitability of suffering/the urgent need for defiance while rummaging in an expanded playbook. The band flirt with songs and song structures, writhing, per usual, in a hellish din, Bryan Funck exuding immeasurable discontent.

Think of Endless Now as a sturdy yet slightly uncertain move forward, but a step in the right direction nonetheless.

This all makes On&On Blumberg’s most accomplished and also his most mystifying work to date.

This record is a perfect soundtrack for any drunken destruction party, tantrum, or any other moment of great primitivism.

At times it feels maybe a little too familiar sonically or compositionally, but all in all, The Land, The Water, The Sky is a potent portrait of a musician who only gets more impressive with each release.

It manages to take inspiration from a grab bag of styles and still create an unified, singular end-product. Earnest and unburdened, Time Bend is a staggeringly bold statement for a debut album. It would, indeed, seem as though we have not seen anything yet.

Pharoahe Monch crafts an LP that not only serves as a protest to the United States' handling of the conflicts in the Middle East, but stands alone as a more than competent hip-hop 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.

These 12 songs deal with death and loss – themes that have never felt so tangible for so many. Yet, Field Music pull off this balancing act for one simple reason: this was their very gift to begin with.

Maybe the way the album begins isn't supposed to put its 10 songs into the context of a live show, but certainly it ends the way you'd presume a Wye Oak show to close down: reflectively, with the audience's appreciation at first silent in captivation. Then, though it might not be audible on Civilian, well-deserved applause.

It makes for one of the most challenging yet rewarding techno oddities of the year and we get the priviledge of seeing a producer honing his craft into something especially unique and cohesive.

RTJ4 is every bit as explosive as one would have hoped, and whatever it lacks in diversity it makes up for with strong writing. It’s a record born out of generations of racial tension and almost four years of near-dictatorship in the USA.

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.

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

It’s a rich tapestry of sound, message and meaning with multiple layers to unpick with each listen.

While Just Give In / Never Going Home benefited from a nuanced lyrical approach, any sense of Hazel English’s musical tentativeness is completely gone on Wake UP!.

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.

With All Bets Are Off, Tamar Aphek has crafted an impressively eclectic project, forging elegant balances between minimalism and maximalism and coalescing her affinities for a variety of musical styles.

The Golden Age of Apocalypse is a great album that shows Bruner utilizing all of his bass wizardry.

Even though there are only three tracks here, and a total of approximately 12 minutes of music, Lout represents some of The Horrors’ most expressive, uninhibited, and memorable work – a potential indicator of what might be an entirely new trajectory for this band, including, perhaps, their best creations yet.

Her eighth studio album may be her most ambitious yet, but that added weight can lead some songs to run too long or feel overstuffed. She may still be trying to find the right balance between her larger soundscape and storytelling, but Home, before and after is an exciting evolution that feels both old and new.

On World’s Most Stressed Out Gardner, Chad VanGaalen indulges his inner experimentalist more than on its more recent predecessors, albeit with the same giddy, goofball disposition we’re used to.

In many ways, it is a sort of a musical retrospective of what the Notwist have done so far, both lyrically and musically – though the electronic aspects are a bit more subdued in favour of energetic, brass-imbued indie rock gusto, which suits the messaging.

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.

A honed songwriting approach from Rankin seems to fuel Blue Rev, with only a few songs inching beyond three minutes. This excess-trimming approach makes Blue Rev the leanest the band has sounded, but also makes it their tightest work to date.

A Color of the Sky is now a beautiful summer record, perfect for consumption during long-awaited family reunions and Saturday brunches.

Sonically, Jenks and his crew opt for a simplicity that borders incidental music, a soundtrack to his existence as quotidian as the city streets. A familiar mixture of soulful jazz, jazzy soul, and beats that range from distorted snares to spartan R&B have one goal: stay out the way.

The music never gets in the way, and works pretty much perfectly to help the songs ebb and flow, and to heighten the best moments.

Three Mile Ditch is living proof that lightning does indeed strike the same place twice — and sometimes with a vengeance. Rumours of their death have been highly exaggerated, as The Wytches have never felt so alive.

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.

At only eight tracks, Badlands is a short album, but it packs plenty of ideas into its brevity.

nature morte is a wonderful, difficult album that requires patience and indulgence. The rewards are huge, though.

Her vision of R&B is unfiltered and uncompromising. At her most modern, she is advancing her genre rather than watering it down for current tastes. Things her songwriting could only hint at in the work of others are here in full, and they make for a beautiful end product.

The album is all about big and big is what you get.

Cenizas is easily Jaar’s most experimental work, one that steers him far from his significance tied to dance-driven excellence. It exudes a different kind of excellence; though there are no hooks nor beats to catch listeners in his web of brilliance, Cenizas’ sonic allure and complete diversion into sounds rarely explored makes it Jaar’s most compelling project yet.

A fairly unique record that shape-shifts through electronic tones all while giving us a clear view of her inner monologue.

Scoff at them for being a bit too obvious with their name but Fuzz and Fuzz deliver the garage rock roar we’ve come to expect from Segall and Co.

Sonically Song For Our Daughter offers up a familiar feel, which is no doubt from the return of producer Ethan Johns (co-producing alongside Marling here). His touches feel light, but help add weight where necessary, be it with the greater presence of strings or the additional percussion (which never seeks to take the attention, regardless of how busy it is).

On her sophomore effort, Monsters, Kennedy doubles down on the eclectic nature of her music, offering up a lengthy set of songs that range from experimental electronica to a capella ballads.

It plays to their strengths in most places and often challenges them to retain the will to be original and innovative in their established modus.

As one of the most polarizing records in their extensive discography, this release is sure to divide certain fans, especially those who were disillusioned by the relative inaccessibility of Embryonic. For listeners looking for a noisy and thoroughly experimental album, though, The Terror is just what the doctor ordered.

For all of its well-intentioned flaws and near-immaculate production, this record hums with a life of its own, confident in the abilities of its creator.

It's the kind of record best fitted for when you're unsure as to what to listen to or when you've got an autumn or winter evening to yourself.

A Beginner’s Mind proves the two are not only capable of making beautiful music as a duo, but bodes well for their solo work to come — it’s yet another captivating plot point in their overarching narratives.

Granted, as they’ve smoothed out the rough edges a bit, some of the rugged immediacy has been lost, but they’ve more than make up for it in a newfound sense of lively rhythmic interaction.

Overall, the album occurs as less incendiary than previous work (with the exception of the opening track), DBT at least temporarily setting aside their polemical blowtorches, instead mindfully venturing into vivid inventories of their own lives, choices, and karmic trajectories.

Quite simply, Plumb is how pop music should sound.

With Again, Lopatin captures the numbing clutter and volatile emptiness of post-digital, post-humanistic life: the silence that chokes, the clamor that drowns. And while these aren’t original themes (numerous artists have explored these polarities), Lopatin’s response seems notably relevant and largely his own.

There is an efficiency to this album as a whole, a clear sense of purpose and direction which cannot be claimed for many of their albums, which tend to wander in a beautiful haze for however long it takes.

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.

With repeated listens, even the least of the songs still reach for that relaxing, carefree Best Coast vibe, but the feeling takes more work to achieve compared to the immediately lovable, attention-demanding nature of their entirely natural, easy-as-pie debut.

It requires an open mind to absorb so much in one single LP, but whether you're looking for sing-along choruses, meandering instrumentals or just a damn-good listen, all three boxes will surely be inked by big fat ticks by the time the disc stops spinning.

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

Ultimately, Grace/Confusion is a production best staged in the theatre of your mind.

House of Woo suggests an artist who’s still coming into his own without being afraid to play chameleon at the DJ booth.

Now, clearly, the group has momentum on their side and seems locked into a promising direction. On the strength of these six songs, it now seems fitting to resuscitate those declarations.

Prophet is both eclectic and balanced, and the powerful imagination behind it makes it easier to forgive the occasional overindulgence.

There may only be 26 minutes of material in Book of Curses, but the amount of unsettling ideas and reflections of modern disenfranchisement are more than enough for it to leave its impact.

Arrangements shows the band as a whole accessing a new sense of purpose and creative liberation, planting another flag in the crowded postpunk landscape.

An inveterate realist, J Mascis isn't one for romanticism, and there's not a wealth of it to be found on Several Shades of Why.

This tendency that Williams has of interweaving her inner emotional climate with the breathable aura of nature was on magical display through last year’s debut album, I Was Born Swimming, and it’s something she hones further here.

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.

Don’t Be Dumb won’t replace old favourites. But it is, in its own sprawling way, a reaffirmation of what makes Rocky compelling: his appetite for risk, his curation of texture and collaborators, and his refusal to smooth every rough edge.

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.

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.

Filled with drug-addled bangers and overcast slow-burns, each track on Starz is cut from a single cloth that veils the ever-evolving future of cloud rap, beginning with the explosive “My Agenda”.

This is a mini-album that does exactly what it’s meant to, in exactly the time that it takes to do so.

This is a good record, but I can't help thinking that The Low Anthem are on the verge of something great.

On the heels of the brilliant My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and the misunderstood Recovery Minaj follows in style by putting out an album interested in both hip hop and music that simply sounds great.

It may demand time and focus, but for those interested in a hip hop album that seeks understanding rather than any immediate gratification, this is a quiet, restrained, and uniquely giving world.

The record listens more than it announces, observes more than it persuades. In a musical theme that rewards velocity, Scott offers duration, attention sustained long enough for meaning to settle.

Pinned up and thoroughly artistic, Field of Reeds is affecting, but it’s also hard to get genuinely excited about.

the record does manage to impress despite being vaguely familiar and prone to flights of guitar fancy for no other reason than it can.

It’s a shame there are a couple of tracks here that don’t quite meet the quality of the rest. ... Where The Loneliest Time works best is in its ability to provide sheer, plain honest fun.

Viagra Boys have successfully captured a side of the working class that demands empathy, and it’s their strongest statement to date.

For all its shortcomings, Watch the Throne is still damn good.

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.

Mark Reign of Terror down as a fairly successful, but ultimately transitional work.

Rolling Golden Holy exudes a communal, back-to-basics charm. The threesome operate within an eternal country-folk formula of less-is-more that fosters a sense of instant familiarity.

Rhinestones might not make it on most publications’ year end lists, but it is the sort of record that will be cherished and rediscovered by those who need it for many years. It’s the kind of music that, when you meet somebody for the first time and they share their appreciation for it, could signify a kindred soul.

A new album from a new artist, with an old sound newly restored, think of this as a letter of recommendation to you, dear America.

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.

There’s no predicting what genre he’ll take on next or how far his frightening productivity can go, and by delivering albums this spirited and melodically rich, with no signs of watering himself down when he’s already 10 releases deep in one year, Romano earns the trust to follow him anywhere.

As his catalogue continues to accumulate faster than just about every other artist out there, you can feel him growing more confident in himself and the ideas he bases his music on. Parallax can't help but feel like a win for this cause because it symbolizes growth more than out-and-out excellence.

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.

You'll find records this year of greater agency, but you'd be hard-pressed to find one that renders pleasure with such poignant lightness, control, and willful attention to difference.

While a more harder-edged and rougher sound certainly could have upped the ante a bit and helped the songwriting talents of Brian Fallon reach a wider audience that would most likely have required an entirely new band, and this is after all "only" a side-project--but it's a very fine one, worthy of attention from both newcomers and already converted.

There’s no point on Atlas Vending that feels wasted, no meandering or time-sucks; it’s just pure adrenaline rock expertly produced and delivered piping hot.

Villagers may not hit the feels like All My Friends Are Funeral Singers did, but it’s nonetheless a prime example of an impeccable songwriter still operating at a consistent high.

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

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.

His voice soulfully conveys the journey in all its deviations and obstacles unflinchingly while still providing listeners with the means to immerse themselves and bop their heads along.

The music feels traditional, yet modern and accessible.

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

Release definitely sees Pangaea staying ahead of the game, voyaging without hesitation into unchartered territories while keeping a foot in familiar UK bass strains.

While it's not as subtle or as elegantly constructed as Beast Rest Forth Mouth, this record has a kineticism and momentum that Beast lacked.

Not since Everything’s Fine has Quelle Chris sounded so surefire and determined. He wears beats with flair now, and lyrically he’s in top form, moving like a chameleon behind the mic and in front. Deathfame is easily the best solo outing for Chris so far.

What makes Collapse Into Now so satisfying is that it isn't a return to form so much as a realization that the band R.E.M. are now isn't necessarily a bad thing to be.