With Autobiography, Jlin shows she might be incapable of creating anything less than brilliant.

The added bonus is the way this release is inclusive of the familiar textures of more poplar electronics. It's wide open and intelligent, and comes highly recommended.

This is pop music designed to give you all the feels, and even with a disruptive pseudo-reggae track thrown into the mix ("Candles"), Future Islands prove that they can do it better than anyone else right now.

It admittedly spends a lot of time in a downer mode--a more light-amidst-the-dark feel would feel nice--but this sophomore effort remains affecting and affirming in its own quiet way

Thoughtful, relentless, arty and uncompromisingly queer, Fist City are a rough gem in the unforgiving expanse of the Rockies.

This indispensable and revelatory treatment is as loving and comprehensive as can be, giving us a sense of how Dylan and his various collaborators nailed down these spooky, funny, hard songs pondering loneliness, independence and the end of one's days.

Even though Post Self isn't exactly what was expected, it's a masterful release from two musicians who seem to be incapable of creating anything short of exquisite.

At 34, the New Orleans multi-instrumentalist is too young to have his work described in terms of a career peak, but these albums are so nearly flawless that it's difficult to imagine how he can get any better.

In the solid Late Night Feelings, sadness is more than an abstraction here: it's multifaceted, multilayered and mellifluous melancholy.

Sitting at a painfully short seven songs, the project is every bit as good as it should be; this is genuinely the reintroduction to both artists the world deserves.

Everything Everything continue to push their creativity and abilities as a group on A Fever Dream, shifting and adapting their sound while retaining their knack for melody, challenging rhythms and standout lyricism.

All American Made is provocative, charismatic and endearing, proving what many of country's all-time greats already seem to know: Margo Price is a legend in the making.

To say Black Origami is an album that grows on you with each listen is correct, but undermines the energy you feel upon the album's first listen. It's earthy and futuristic, complex and linear, dance-y and a total mind-fuck.

Like all of her best work, Akoma is heavy, mysterious and boundless. This is Jlin's world; we're just lucky enough to listen in.

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.

Paired with the dream-like, celestial quality of U.F.O.F., Two Hands shows Big Thief's loving view of the world can be immeasurably intimate and intangible, but also be bare-boned and brutally honest.

With thoughtful lyrics, infectious grooves and catchy riffs, Frozen Letter is sure to bring out the air guitarist (or drummer) in anyone.

Most vividly, Loud City Song evokes the easy, tingling drift of early Robert Wyatt.

Washington delivers an LP's worth of ideas, vision and passion into only six tracks and 33 minutes of music.

By far their most dynamic offering, Daughters have pulled off one of the great comeback albums and further cemented themselves as a band with such singular creativity that they're nearly peerless. It may not sound like the album you thought you wanted, but the open-minded listener might find it's precisely what was needed.

Life Metal retains all the traits that make Sunn O))) who they are, yet intertwined with a spark of unmistakable vibrance that lifts the spirit, even in the midst of such abyssal depths.

Angeleno, the triumphant debut from Los Angeles-based Sam Outlaw, is perhaps the best example of this old sound we've had in 40 years.

It's one of 2024's must-hear strokes of genius, crossing linguistic borders with its expression of understated, comforting beauty.

This is a record bursting with indecision and excess, but that excess is revealing; we're shown more of Shania's emotion than ever here. It's enough to make Now one of the best pop albums of the year.

He and his band are making truly tremendous guitar rock in a manner that is peerless in this era, and from anywhere on the globe.

Although political in nature, the feel of the record is unabashedly joyful and if Jama ko doesn't form part of your summer listening, you are missing out on something very special.

This is easily Austra's most exciting and fully formed piece of work yet.

It's an album that further solidifies his position as a genre-leading storyteller, and it will have you humming along as much as it'll have you looking over your shoulder.