Ultimately, it's the divergent atmospheres and textures, the variety of the arrangements and the thoughtful song compositions by mastermind guitarist and primary songwriter Scott Hull that make Head Cage stand out.

The tracks are well-produced, but lack the soul to make a deep enough impact.

They balance killer musicianship and verbal panache with a bar-band mindset. Album of the year? Possibly, but that's just business as usual for Maryland's finest.

It's clear the Blaze are still passionate about the music they make, so listeners looking for an album full of songs like their earlier material are sure to be satisfied. Those looking for adventurousness and growth may not find all that they're looking for.

Having shown herself to be an adept garage rock frontwoman in recent years, Crutchfield effortlessly slips back into the role of an intimate solo bedroom artist on Great Thunder.

Ital Tek hasn't completely abandoned his beat-heavy sound, Bodied stands as a brave and inventive direction--something that sounds slightly familiar but even more alien.

Egypt Station is best when McCartney is at his most eclectic.

The sense on this wondrous and haunting album is that he's a man and a songwriter that lives to command life and forge new ways forward, disproving the merits of convention by simply reflecting upon how falling in line is not for him and, damn it, it won't have to be for his family neither.

Maribou State's new LP delivers a musical mosaic that stays true to the roots of downtempo, while exploring new ground through diverse influences and styles.

This is but another stroke of genius in a career full of them.

Though his skill is absolutely unmatched, homophobic references and overly misogynistic bars in 2018 do feel excessively out of touch. It's not his best or his worst--but, it's definitely what fans deserved eight months ago.

If they dropped the ambitious approach of 15 tracks and stuck with the most notable eight or nine, Let's Go Sunshine might have been a bit more consistent and interesting.

Although it may be impossible not to compare it to its most immediate predecessor, Weed Garden becomes, as a result, a quaint coda for those fans wanting a little bit more of Iron & Wine's signature sound.

It's clear that Dawn's songwriting is one of her many strengths, as Meet Me at the River is only too proud to showcase.

Fans just finding Alkaline Trio, perhaps via Blink-182 fandom, will undoubtedly enjoy this album for its prevalent, socially conscious lyrics, delivered like a paintball to an already bruised arm with the band's signature passion. Longtime devotees, meanwhile, will appreciate the way Is This Thing Cursed? calls back to earlier Alkaline Trio albums, and its mix of both nostalgia and originality.

The rockabilly melody and Southern Gothic themes reference an era of simplicity and provocation. The Devil Makes Three's lyrical analogies in Chains Are Broken are thought provoking emotional medicine.

This record is not a reimagining of the band or a fresh start. Loved is an exercise in moulding what KEN Mode has always been good at into a perfect soundtrack for these times of great political uncertainty.

Wild! Wild! Wild! was a spontaneous, live-off-the-floor recording, with some enthusiastic chatter left in after "It Came From the South" that points to the relaxed, fun vibe. But while it's tempting to say it's a rock'n'roll album about continuing to rebel as you get older, it's also a love letter to all the music Lewis grew up with.

Indigo pleasantly recreates the sounds of 80s synth-pop, making for another winning chapter in their discography.

IDLES turn trauma and anger into affirming lessons on Joy As an Act of Resistance, crafting a cathartic masterpiece that wears its heart--broken, but still beating--on its sleeve.

Calvi remains in firm control on Hunter, but she lets loose more than enough moments of bliss to satisfy.

Rainier Fog is more than just another Alice in Chains record; it's another step in the process of redefining their sound since their first comeback record, 2009's Black Gives Way to Blue.

Intentionally or not, Hynes has surreptitiously convinced listeners to deeply engage with his art; we're digging for the grooves, searching out the hooks while questioning our own habits and assumptions, as we look for our own meaning in the music. And there's plenty in Negro Swan.

The trick to With Animals is its brevity, as only two of the album's 12 tracks surpass the four-minute mark.

Interpol are far past the point of trying to recapture their glory days, but even their attempts to change things up come off as a mixed bag. Prospective fans and diehards alike are better off starting at the beginning.

After five or six songs, it has a sonic and thematic sameness to it that manages to work solely because of the glimmering moments when he allows other voices to sparkle and the high-quality production.

Short on hooks and obviously memorable moments, Songs You Make At Night is an album that excels in texture and dynamics instead, each thoughtfully composed song an intricate clockwork of whirring percussion and interlocking guitar and synth work.

This record is a far cry from a mocking treatise on performativity; it's strongly felt, unceasingly surprising and just a whole lot of fun.

Swapping out the distressed warning signal that slides in midway through with shrill synths that run the rest of the song, the adaptations across Woman Worldwide offer a live experience without the cost of admission, and a well-crafted look at some of Justice's best.

The narrative of Dance on the Blacktop is a hard-to-swallow reality check, but flourishes in the closing "(Hope) Is Just Another Word with a Hole In It." Nearing six minutes, the song is ambitious and rewarding. When Palermo's vocals and piano come to fruition in the mix, there is a sense of optimism, as though he might be smirking at his demons.

Where Wake in Fright felt lean and energetic, The Long Walk is bloated and tired, not so much a fulfilling, purposeful exercise as a slow crawl to nowhere in particular.

Powers has found the perfect balance between melodic sounds and a darker aesthetic, making his new creative endeavours come more into focus.

Ultimately, beatmaker Tommy "TBHits" Brown outshines the veterans, co-producing two of the record's more engaging tracks--"Better Off" and "Goodnight n Go"--which are inexplicably relegated to the end of the record. Those songs manage to accomplish what the rest of the album attempts: bringing a new fire to pop-R&B's familiar formulas.

Her tranquilizing balance of wandering purity and unconvincing bravery is intimately grasped and yet confronted with anxiety and disbelief that decorates her daydream-like prose in conflicting ways.

The result is a record that is powerfully alluring and timeless.

Baby Teeth's gentle delivery and textured production creates a world in which listeners have an opportunity for reflection, situating their own experiences within the band's storytelling.

For fans of Animal Collective's trippier inclinations, Tangerine Reef is a pleasant bit of oceanic escapism. For new listeners or anyone looking for the next "My Girls," this is decidedly inessential.

The album is all the more impressive because her words and music are meticulously calculated, expertly arranged and still filled with feeling.

It's an analogue oasis of the past that rejuvenates for the present.

They've still got a solid ear for dreamy, yet captivating melodies, but with the confidence to push their sound in new directions and see where it takes them.

With Dissolvi, Steve Hauschildt rediscovers his adventurous self while taking delight in the human element.

Whether Nicki Minaj is the rightful queen of rap is up for debate, but the album, despite having several songs that were more filler than functional ("Sir," "Majesty," "Chun Swae"), highlights her ability to adapt to an ever-changing sonic landscape.

Ultimately, Thank You for Today finds the Death Cab for Cutie of 2018 taking stock of their band, choosing to forge ahead by using the foundation of their back catalogue to harness their core identity and build upon it. The band's shared vision is clear, encapsulated in this collection of songs.

It's Foxing in a new shape, a first-hand witness of the evolution of a band that were really good just the way they were. While these changes may not be welcome with open arms, the thoughtfulness and artistry deserves a round of applause.

"Not Running" and the aforementioned "Little Death" have especially great arrangements, but it's a highlight throughout Future Me Hates Me, and anyone who loves British indie punks Martha for this reason should be laser-focused on this debut from the Beths. Future you will definitely not hate this album.

Baby Grand is a wide-screen, psych-pop gem that continues to realize his potential in rewarding ways.

Whether Miller is singing on those funk-inflected highlights, or rapping on them with a flow that's airtight to their irresistible rhythms, he sounds like a would-be chart-topper, not to mention one of the most versatile and accomplished hip-hop artists working today. He also clearly has pop chops to rival those of his former flame.

Fujita is a rare talent and Book of Life should announce him to a much wider audience as a vital composer with a unique voice, one I hope and expect we'll hear grow and evolve for many years to come.

For a short album--only ten tracks in 24 minutes--it doesn't take long to recognize the beauty of Bell House.

To the Sunset is relatively brief, but it marks a substantial--and very successful--shift for Shires towards a progressive, literate and ambitious blend of rock, folk and pop music. It may also just be her finest album yet.

For all the internal nuance of the record, Devotion is primarily an album built on the invisible ties between us, shifting between shades of love, rupture and unsteady silence. In the sparseness of its haze, Devotion feels ephemeral.

The tracks contained on Filo Loves the Acid are altogether enjoyable rhythmic excursions for fans of both Dozzy and acid techno alike to listen and dance along to.

Astroworld shows the evolution of Travis Scott as an artist and is his most refined, imaginative, and rage-worthy project yet.

This loose, spilling energy does not translate to a lack of moment-to-moment intensity. On "Cop Dream / Black Eye (True Story)," Spider Bags let loose with a thrashing blaze, guaranteed to conjure up mosh pits wherever it's played. The record also features some of the band's most indelible imagery.

The Nature of Imitation is a prime example of an established artist brilliantly redefining and redeveloping their sound to the highest degree. It's also a prime album.

The album offers a little something from every listener, which includes pop-centric songs ("Shrine") bass-heavy bangers ("Era"), an anthemic ballad ("Atoms") and one pleasantly surprising ambient interlude ("Run For Your Life").

The sounds and textures contained here will not be surprisingly new to anyone familiar with Hauff's previous work, but regardless the sum of the album's parts is an entirely satisfying whole, sounding at times like the sound of a machine collapsing in on itself, but not before letting you have one last dance first.

Dictator is a strong release that touches on a lot of the elements of System of A Down's final albums without too many of the quirky moments from those records. Still, it comes across as the comeback record that could have been huge but never happened.

Chesney's folk-pop Songs for the Saints is a charity album that although compassionate and kind, carries few memorable and catchy country tunes.

Molina once seemed poised to become a reliable purveyor of sticky throwback pop. But absent the visceral thrill of his early work, or anything new or profound to say about grief and heartache, Kill the Lights offers little more than the sum of its influences.

Harlan & Alondra feels like an older album in the same way that Buddy gives the impression of rappers from the past, but when you add in modern day energy, the album becomes very special.

Varied in style, but with a unified vision, Family Portrait is a big success for Ross From Friends, a very personal and authentic piece of work.

The Switch, in its entirety, is full of beautiful resonances.

In some ways, it feels like a more subdued, mostly instrumental version of Mess, one where they cycle through moods and shift textures but rarely heighten them beyond their initial parameters. Still: setting mood has always been one of Liars' strengths, even if 1/1 feels more like a curio than an essential part of the canon.

Her songwriting and lyrics are truthfully captivating and fascinatingly realistic.

Devouring Radiant Light is like the James Bond of metal albums--it's mature and well-composed, yet lethal enough to be badass. It is an aggressive middle finger to anyone who doubted that Skeletonwitch could make it with another frontman.

Free of filler and definitely worth repeating, Hive Mind is the Internet we know and love, but tighter and more refined.

It's a leap of faith fans of Forma's recent work should definitely take, and anyone with an interest in classically minded live electronic ensemble work should follow on through as well.

There is less attention paid, it seems, not to the writing, which is often clever and quite sharp, but to the performing of the writing against the virtuosity of the instrumental performances. The balance puts the album unnecessarily on edge. All that said, this is one of the better examples of what post- or progressive bluegrass can do.

There is a timelessness to this record that's as connected to the electric jazz pioneers of the '70s as it is to today's best fusion players.

She experiments with more melodic sounds, but has kept her roots too, such as her heavy flows and funky productions that are perfect for the club.

Like Funkadelic's 2014 comeback First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate, Medicaid Fraud Dogg is a sprawling listen, and a few tracks, like the tedious "On Fire" could have been trimmed.

The transition between blasting drums and metal riffs on "Blot" from Automata I into "The Proverbial Bellow" is surprisingly smooth without feeling like there is any disconnect between records. Overall, splitting up the release made it much easier to digest a full Between the Buried and Me album, which is never an easy task.

I'll Tell You What will keep listeners on their toes, as the album is both immersed in footwork but also pushes against its boundaries, frequently dropping the signature drum machines, working with droning synth, crossing vocal samples, and generally taking left turns just when you think you've got a hold on a track.

We can't help but hope that after eight years, he may have tried something a little more off the beaten path. That being said, fans will surely enjoy more Torske in their lives, and Byen is Bjørn Torske at his most idyllic.

The 18-song offering is a cohesive masterpiece.

The Pool feels a tad disconnected to qualify as one of the year's major releases. There's a kind of connective tissue missing; the groove is there, but it lacks flow.

Where Longstreth once isolated each of his artistic tendencies, he now seems more willing to let them occupy the same space, rubbing up against one another to create something altogether unique and truly joyous.

Here From Where We Are is an album born of the desire to make genuine music, and the end result is a moving, blissful album that shows just how far Pariah has come in the past six years.

On Power, Lotic shows that there are no boundaries and no blueprint to their craft, both musically and conceptually.

While Northern Chaos Gods unmistakably sounds just like Immortal, one can't help but wonder how amazing of an album it could have been had Abbath been involved to complete the phenomenal trio that Immortal once were.

The fact that the album kinda sounds like so many things, very few of them usually adjacent to the genre, sits at the crux of the album's aspiration. Ordinary Corrupt Human Love is a critical reminder to card-carrying loyalists and new inductees alike of their own agency; that it's potentially revelatory, not sacrilegious, for the spectrum of black metal to include things outside of its purview.

With the release of their 16th album, All That Reckoning, the Toronto group craft something simple, passionate and visceral.

Not an album you'd crank up at a summer patio party, but a quietly compelling work.

There is a sprawling synthesis in the groove-tinted, riff-centric jams that will have you waiting to see these guys live.

Such concerns about the pitfalls of contemporary life are well-worn and Uniform Distortion largely retreads these coordinates. The excitement of this music, nonetheless, is its undeniable kinetic energy, as James laughs through his lyrics and bounds over his riffs.

Fans of Wolfmother and Pallbearer might see this as the second coming of Sabbath, if they liked more At the Gates. But those who are looking for a bit more fuzz won't find it. Melodies, not distortion, drive this album.

Themes for Television works as the perfect translational piece between Windswept and the much lighter, more traditionally ambient followup Digital Rain, despite actually arriving in the wake of the latter.

Cohesive and well structured, Freddie is a clear standout for the season and quite possibly, the year. And Gibbs didn't have to rent out the Louvre to do it.

Hardly Electronic is a mature and polished album from a band confident enough to let their influences guide their sound without overshadowing it. Longtime fans will obviously snap this up, but anyone with an interest in classically-minded pop arrangements and great songs will find much to like on this unexpected gem from the Essex Green.

All in all, The Now Now feels fresh and present. Gorillaz have performed a type of sonic reset by stripping back their cast of collaborators, yet it exemplifies the strength of the songwriting at the group's core.

Drake aims to come out stronger, more focused and more righteous than ever. ... He goes hard at addressing his industry ops on Side A, and it's full of the effortlessly cut-throat Drake we've come to love. ... Drake gets all the way into his feelings on the second half of Scorpion.

It's a heartening LP, both because of the top-notch, life-affirming beats throughout, along with the renewed vigour in the voice of a man who clearly takes nothing for granted now that he's on the mend.

High As Hope is a welcome chapter in Florence + the Machine's career. Welch is writing reflectively but with a firm rooting in the present; singing with clarity about life's biggest questions as she and her fans continue to figure it out side-by-side, in both the loud and quiet moments.

K.T.S.E. is a strong start with an anticlimactic finish. With a bit of additional time and effort, it could have been so much more.

Essential is a strange, adventurous and ultimately enjoyable collection of half-finished, fully realized songs that could only have been crafted by artists as musically brazen and tenured as Soulwax.

Satisfying as both a sophomore effort and streamlined pop album, I'm All Ears establishes Let's Eat Grandma as a band that need to be heard.

Chaney moves with ease from nearly operatic to contemporary and casual and sounds equally at home.