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.