With a solid emotional through-line and a few sonic surprises, Cinder is a musical novella, whose narrative compels you to its last luxurious line.

Protomartyr has raised the bar high enough for any bands to follow, so high that most won’t even know it’s there.

The result is that rarest of prizes for a band that’s hit 25 years old: a record that stands not only as a genuine step forward in their body of work but also as one of their very best, an album as harrowing and transportive as anything else they’ve done.

The Bad Seeds have not made a record this ambitious, well, ever, and the results are rewarding, thoughtful and challenging.

Make no mistake – the beats are still rigid, dabbling in taut funk and squelching electro as much as snotty punk moves and glorious polyrhtyhms. These nine songs, however, ring with a clarity of purpose and a true intent that was previously altogether lacking, presenting a far more cohesive image of Murphy and his many strengths.

It feels like Bejar's comfortable with himself – relaxed even – and that feeling saturates the entire album. It's a confidence that makes Kaputt the best Destroyer album in ages.

5 is Town and Country's most beautiful, flawless actualization of the goals they’ve been working towards since 1998, and paradoxically, a near-complete rethinking of them, as well.

“Nonaah” is the perfect vehicle for the trio of Vijay Iyer, Linda May Han Oh and Tyshawn Sorey and a stunningly vibrant distillation of what sets the group, and this album, apart from so many others. .... There is no one composing with Iyer’s blend of sonority sequences, those harmonic exhortations and rebuttals that slide in and out of focus with the veteran’s complete grasp and easy grace.

The early material is interesting, if only to hear how "Web in Front" and "Wrong" were fleshed out on Icky Mettle. But it's the album, and The Greatest of All Time, that are the real draw here.

It isn’t always as loud or as exultant as her band’s output, but it is rivetingly intense, whether at full rock strength, in dance-ish, trance-ish electronic mode or at a whisper backed by a small orchestra. ... The album is simply what it is, take it or leave it, but take it. It’s magnificent.

Don’t be put off by the glossy patina; there’s a lot to hear on this record, as repeated listening makes plain.

And this one, too, is as sardonic and soulful, as hilariously outraged and superbly tuneful as any rock-pop record you’ll hear in 2018.

In a year that will feature not just a new long-player from Lennox's Animal Collective but also a box set's worth of rare material, it may be hard to surpass the haunting, blissful pageantry of Person Pitch.

It's tempting to spend hours excavating metaphors and translating references on a record this complex and interesting, but Destroyer's Rubies also works well as pop.

Welcoming and unique, this is one of the best debuts in recent memory.

The 'Line now possess a maturity in their songwriting that most indie-rock stalwarts can only dream of.

Last time, the surprise was that after 20 years of hiatus, the band was just as good as ever. This time, they're even better, more cohesive and confident, louder and funnier, still learning from life and each other, and using that experience to create ever more compelling music.

Another essential album in Dry Cleaning’s discography, and the first great album of this young year.

All Time Present is a guitar players album, but more than that, a songwriter’s work.

Try to label what Newsom does in a sentence or two, and you just tie yourself in knots. Have One On Me will do little to change all that, and so the only clear point of reference is her own previous work. Beyond that, though, it’s enough to say that it’s her, and if you loved "Ys" as much as this writer did, you’re probably going to love Have One On Me also.

While most of Slow Riot and at least parts of Skinny Fists shine through from a distance, much of what makes this album great is its painstaking detail.

Back-to-back tracks recorded years apart seem inseparable, and some of the recordings here are the strongest the band – or anyone else – has ever put to tape.

The album is full of the small noises and cosmic visions that encapsulate life, death, microbe and universe, a tick of time, like a chord, both stark and larger than itself, establishing and destroying its boundaries. This all-in-all unity gives the album astonishing power and a uniquely familiar beauty.

A musical tour-de-force, and probably Sleater-Kinney’s best album to date.... If it lacks the immediate appeal and accessibility of One Beat or All Hands on the Bad One, it feels more mature and meaningful than either.

For the most part, Cannibal Sea differs little from The Long Goodbye: the elements that made that album successful – tight songwriting, precise arrangements and elegant performances – are once again employed with aplomb.

Grinderman 2's variety and complexity never feels like a reach, and doesn't keep the album from cohering beautifully.

A gorgeous, fully realized expression of her potential.

It wildly exceeds the expectations generated by Malkmus’s first solo shot.

I'd be surprised if anybody, in any field, drops something this potent in the next nine months.

To put it simply, Ali and Toumani is a quiet, intimate, timeless record; a transcendent expression of cultural pride, deep friendship, and above all, breath-taking musical colloquy.

Now, rather than trying to replay his roots and influences, he’s incorporating them as threads in the in the tapestry of his own rich, distinctly beautiful sound.

There probably won't be many albums in 2003 that will combine images, sounds and deepfelt emotions as well as The Violet Hour.

Taken as a whole, Brothers and Sisters is a remarkable piece of work. It easily outclasses the two previous Jurado/Swift collaborations, and makes a strong opening bid for one of 2014’s best albums.

The building of momentum from beautiful or ominous minimalism into cathartic, sweeping heaviness is remarkable.

A gorgeously euphonic skull-crusher.

Two Ribbons is neither the sound of Hollingworth and Watson paralyzed by these varying levels of grief, anger, loneliness and guilt nor them pretending like everything was or is okay. It’s almost incidental that this is also their best album and one of the best synth pop records of the year. ... Two Ribbons is the kind of great record that you kind of wish the artists never had to make.

No easy listening feat by any stretch of the imagination, Scott Walker's The Drift will provide critics and general music fans with talking points for the next 10 years. It is, simply, a work of staggering emotional sentiment and complexity that few will be able to match.

Not only is Ilana Moctar’s best record, it’s also one of the best Saharan records to reach Western ears, and an early contender for the most exhilarating rock record of 2019.

This is, undoubtedly, one of the most beautiful records of this year, and its very indistinctness forces you to go back to it over and over.

Jones and Taylor were only recent regulars in Monk’s orbit, but both align well with his designs and the drummer’s hard-driving sticks goose the music repeatedly. The leader plays with his usual marriage of advanced angularity and idiosyncratic energy, balancing the occasional ensemble uncertainties with a string of strong solo detours to which the band gladly defers. ... Nearly any Monk is Monk of note, but “new” Monk of this nature deserves the encomia it’s sure to engender.

Ultimately, Cornelius has shown that he stands alone when it comes to future pop, and the results are an exceptional pleasure to hear.

Desperation may prove to be the best rock record of the year.

If he's not making his most important works of his career, it may well be his best.

From Here We Go Sublime is fantastic all around, and it’s all the more effective for its restraint.

A magical collection of songs where the lyrics, instruments and voice somehow blend perfectly, matching each other moment to moment to tell the same story, set the same mood.

This is what makes Earthquake Glue such a startling arrival. You don’t simply listen to it out of obligation, but instead because you are compelled to return to it, again and again.

There’s the sparklingly Beatles-esque “Daddy’s Gone,” the bright, Mellotron-laced “Evening Star Supercharger,” and “The Scull of Lucia” is reminiscent of Radiohead’s “No Surprises,” with a naïve, music-box feel to its melodies. It’s in Bird Machine’s heavier moments, though, where the album really hits home — and the loss of a unique artist is most keenly felt.

Psapp's music is so beautifully complex that upon first listen it might seem a bit haphazard or amateurish -- with all its bells, whistles, whizzes and whirrs -- but after repeated listens, the oddities take on a precise purpose and fit perfectly within the melodic structure.

To Rococo Rot's Hotel Morgen is seductive and suggestively sculpted; romance music for people with unforced, natural, and charmingly contrary style.

Atkinson, like other environmentally conscious composers such as John Luther Adams, Raven Chacon, and Liza Lim, creates an ecology when they create a piece, an environment they populate with sonic significations for their own meditation, and more so for our beleaguered world, its remaining beauty, and its tiny place in the universe. A favorite of 2024.

Forster produces some of the most direct and affecting songs of his singular career. ... Forster’s observational directness and simple language are always in service to the deep feeling in his songs and few better imbue the quotidian joys of domestic life and the power of memory with such poetry.

Filled with an ineffable spiritual longing and a fractured sense of alienation, the album packs an emotional punch and a dark intelligence that sneaks up on you after repeated listens.

The Cure emerged from the studio with a grand late-era statement, full of maturity and melancholy, but with an appropriate sort of wisdom.

Though short, The Window Is the Dream is a perfectly formed and bewitching album that offers both immediate gratification through its measured performances, plus plenty of depths to explore as its themes gradually reveal themselves. This one will be sure to feature highly come the end of the year.

Occasionally masterful, frequently evocative, and consistently lovely.

It's so satisfying when a band is able to subtly re-invent its sound, as Keenan and Cargill have done here so well.

The result is one of the most formally radical indie records in recent memory. It also happens to be Dirty Projectors’ all-around best, not least because it most closely recreates the kinetic force of their live performances.

It's a fantastic body of work, as vital and fresh-sounding now as it was when first released.

Elephant Eyelash is fantastic, an indie rock record that nicely balances absurdity and directness, pop hooks with stoned weirdness.

Fleeting is therefore more intimate even than your average American primitive album, with the sounds of nature adding to the authenticity and naturalism of the music as opposed to intruding upon it.

The combination of synth, loop techniques and no-joke instrumentalists playing wild and unconventional rhythms is totally over-the-top, but that’s exactly what makes this album so dazzling.

Even at their most spacious, these songs are taut and well-crafted pieces of music. Previous Modern Nature outings showed that the band can be expressive and daring; with The Heat Warps, they’ve proved that realism can be just as intriguing.

The record paints The Concretes’ personality in richer detail without giving up one iota of their distinctive spookiness.

The album is lovely. The band as currently constituted has chops, and mixes highly polished songwriting and arrangements with select extemporizations.

Whether it’s the lengthier, arpeggiating climaxes of “Gene Pool” or the shorter, more reflective burbles of “Burst of Laughter,” it feels like they haven’t lost a step.

Solar Motel is Forsyth’s most traditional album in recent memory.

These New Puritans play it smart, but in service of an earnest query rather than their own smartness.

Barry Adamson, formerly of Magazine and The Bad Seeds, has released his most commercial-friendly album to date.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an overarching concept. It doesn’t matter one way or another. It’s a gallop from start to finish. Blue Record is going to be hard to top.

You’ve got death and exaltation, followed by a sly wink at rock history. Not a bad set of tools for making smart, defiant music.

Le Bon’s production approach has shifted her musical universe far from the brittle, guitar-driven sounds of earlier, post-punk indebted records like Crab Day (2016) towards a distinctive sound that seems to reach backwards and forwards simultaneously. This feeling of being held in suspension characterizes many of Michelangelo Dying’s most affecting moments.

Rage, speed, and math are still here; but there’s a cinematic scope and a real attention to mood and texture that’s new.

Like any good ongoing collaboration, theirs is already moving beyond its initial definition, gone past the novelty of lutist and filmmaker into something more enduringly interesting.

A colorful, evocative dream-pop record.

The sound is harder, more precise and altogether more of a sock in the gut.

Hayter’s voice admirably performs that complexity on Sinner Get Ready; it’s a beautiful instrument that will fill you with terrible woe, and then terrible wonder.

Silver Age is a very good album, one that recalls, in all the right ways, Mould's best post-Hüsker work, and in particular his Copper Blue.

Now You Are One Of Us is worth checking out for its amazing production alone.

The band sounds more at home playing these than they do on the Invisible Hands’ two albums, and the empathetic accompaniment of guitarist Cherif El Masri and organist Adham Zidan contributes immeasurably to this project’s success. Despite being recorded in Cairo and Seattle between 2014 and 2017, they sound more like they were done on the set of a spaghetti western or live in Nashville the day after Bob Dylan recorded Blonde On Blonde.

The team of Weitz and Shaw have a camaraderie and collaborative spirit that shine through in these recordings, and the individual tracks taken together reveal multiple facets of the pair’s friendship. Working apart, but spiritually together, these two reflect platonic love in musical form.

A graceful, thoughtful, utterly modest triumph, wrapping its twisty modal melodies in layers of fuzz and convening a junk shop orchestra of synths, drums, keyboards and, occasionally, harpsichord to fill out their fragile contours. Like all good pop, the songs have an emotional ambiguity.

It's the unexpected emotions that Canta Lechuza can unearth that stand as its greatest achievement. Lange's most complex compositions here make fascinating art from contrasting moods, and it's that complexity that, ultimately, make this album worthy of return.

For a collaboration that could've easily become a Cocoon of styles and persons past, The Orbserver in the Star House plays surprisingly spry.

The album certainly leaves you with a sense of dislocation and déjà vu, as if hearing musical avenues open, meander deliciously, then abruptly slam shut. It’s disorientating, surprising, at times deeply funky, and often very beautiful.

In a world where electronic music is omnipresent, Laurel Halo succeeds on Chance of Rain in creating a distinctive voice, one that never allows the listener to settle into a sense of security.

On Sleepwalking Sailors, Helms Alee finally feels bigger than the sum of its parts.

Thematically, with three songs inspired by a graphic novel, one inspired by a tv show, one re-recorded deep cut and two covers, What Heaven Is Like is a bit scattered. Sonically, however, What Heaven Is Like is Wussy’s most cohesive, best sounding album to date.

The version of Low that helped define a subgenre remains recognizable throughout, but their sound has expanded.

An intriguing and often lovely album.

The songs often seem made up of sharp, conflicting parts, that come together at angles, fitting into the spaces left by one another.

The result is deep, it's broadly imaginative, it's tightly focused, and it's utterly essential.

SUMAC’s evocative and powerful playing hits you in the gut, as a physical experience, even as it motivates an intensely meditative mode. This is terrific music, in all relevant senses of that term.

Using simple piano motifs and minor key strings augmented with electronics and voice, some kind of peace is an album of delicate beauty. It is beguiling in the way it shifts focus between the general and specific.

By keeping everything in proportion, she's made the most easily approached record of her career.

It's not as gratifyingly raw as 1983 or as paradigm-shifting as Los Angeles or as self-important as Cosmogramma, but it's more expansive and refined taken in one sitting.

In some ways The Waiting Room is remarkable for hitting a number of classic Tindersticks checkmarks without ever feeling like it’s, well, going down a list checking them off.

The Purple Bird, recorded in Nashville, is one of his most committed forays into the genre — musically of a piece with the rich, twinkling chops of previous releases like Greatest Palace Music and The Best Troubadour.

Mark Sultan breathes fire into genres that, in most hands, only gather dust.