The Beggar is a challenging listen over its two-hour run time, but the sonic soundscapes SWANS create throughout deliver what the band set out to do; juxtapose the beautiful and grotesque while stretching out their droning sound to the breaking point.

In the end, Lloyd Cole makes the title of On Pain sound ironic. It’s as if the eight tracks and thirty-seven minutes are intended as an antidote to the psychic turbulence pervading the world at large in 2023.

It is revelatory that on such cuts–like the rest, ranging from five to eight minutes in duration–Metheny employs his instincts as much as his technique. The delicate balance of those two elements is nothing less than remarkable on Dream Box.

Cable Ties use their intriguing mix of punk, rock, and post-punk dance vibes with an assured delivery throughout the powerful All Her Plans, breaking out to a larger audience with committed songwriting, driven playing, and compelling vocal styles.

Gov’t Mule’s willingness to step outside its collective comfort zone here is clearly not without its shortfalls. Still, that very courage augurs well for the celebration of their thirtieth anniversary next year.

The album opens with the tone-shifting, unsettling, pessimistic “Obscenery” which sees modern love as unsentimental and everything doomed around grunge-laden guitars, random classical violin breaks and crashing drums; interesting ideas which never fully lock-in. Better is the driving, straight-ahead rock of “Paper Machete” complete with an excellent distorted solo, the angular “Emotion Sickness” that deploys a catchy FM radio-friendly hook, and “Negative Space” which juxtaposes sexy grooving bass during the verses and big clanging noise breaks for the choruses.

The album is eminently funky. That sound works well for a while but begins to wear thin, rescued in the latter half by tracks such as “Concrete Mind,” “Not Gonna Waste My Love” and the superb closer “It’s Alright,” which do the best job of depicting LaVette’s endearing, pour-it-all-out and leave-nothing-on-the-floor-vocals. Of course, there’s a side benefit too – Randall Bramblett is likely to expand his number of followers as a result.

While the album boasts numerous contemporary jazz and innovative artists, it’s a mashup of many Black music styles. This writer gives the edge to R&B and African-tinged tunes but there’s so much to digest here that we may hear it a bit differently each time it plays.

Heaven Is A Junkyard marks the most powerful and personal album from Powers yet.

Trying on outfits/styles, genres/sounds is all second nature for Lewis and while there are clear country touches throughout Joy’All, Lewis manages to make them her own, evolving, writing, and singing with a sense of palpable happiness and freedom.

Ambient yet dense, Space Heavy is an album that requires multiple listens to fully grasp, with each listen revealing a new layer of abstract rock that makes the album such a bold and enticing sonic step for Archy Marshall.

The band found the perfect balance of what they know and what they hope to become, making O Monolith a considered sophomore effort that proves Squid’s placement as one of the most exciting bands in years.

Lyrically, this is mixed but has its strong points. Few write with his kind of insight. Yet, musically it fails to generate enough sparks with most of the songs stuck in similar mid-tempo modes. The true ballads are strong.

Despite coming in at 16 tracks – normally a bloated affair for an album – the band’s tendency to careen from one song to the next at breakneck speed, keeping most tracks to about two-and-a-half minutes allows Rancid to hold the listener’s attention until the very last distorted chord rings out.

Bunny deserves credit, like each Beach Fossils album, for challenging an aspect of Payseur’s process, even if it was less effective this time around.

This man long ago taught himself to recognize the lasting value in a good song and here, over the course of some fifty minutes, he deftly applies those lessons to an unusual range of his very own.

Her artistic identity is on full display with each individual talent reaching a height we haven’t seen from Bully, and it appears there is no ceiling to hold her back.

Along with bassist Alan Anton, the band’s lineup has not changed at all since their 1986 debut and, thankfully, though they’ve grown as musicians and songwriters over the decades, the core of the band’s sound is the same as it ever was.

Folds is past aiming for radio airplay and mass appeal and focused more on creating experimental songs that appeal to his creativity. And sometimes those moments of inspiration take him back to the beginning and sound a lot like he did when he first started out.

Cleaner and lighter than past efforts, The Murlocs Calm Ya Farm is their best full album yet as the good time sounds flow like free wine at a late-night afterparty.

They sound even more urgent now and, of course, Lanois’s production values have further enhanced the band’s captivating sound.

The slow tempos are fine in doses but that novelty wears off quickly. More variations in tempo would likely work better. When we get to the closer “It’s All in the Game” it just seems that Rickie Lee is stuck in that molasses-like groove. She’s intent on being a torch singer and she’s damn good at it although it takes plenty of hutzpah to take on the Great American Songbook.

Showcase[s] improvements from the highly publicized 2019 album, Metttavolution while seeming humble and curious. Rodrigo y Gabriela have never cowered away from the challenge of funneling their influence and experiences into one solid format but on this new album, they took their traditional style of doing so and implemented a sense of urgency that gives the album a certain zestfulness that is infectious.

So unassuming an offering it may very well sneak onto more than a few ‘Best of ’23’ lists, this LP certainly deserves such placement. Its forty-some minutes contain more than a few of those deeply stirring moments only truly great records possess.

This meeting of varying experiments is at the core of Wait Til I Get Over, Jones is able to challenge himself while still keeping the narrative of the LP intact, an expedition that could’ve given us countless results. What we got was an album that sits in the middle ground of the past and future, toying with the present in order to give the listener a full experience rather than a simple collection of songs.

That! Feels Good! nimbly catapults Ware from being beholden to What’s Your Pleasure?, to cementing herself as one of the most agile and important dance artists working today. ... A punchier and more immediate album than What’s Your Pleasure?, slicker and far funkier, but equally iconoclastic.

His soft voice and natural sense of melody give these songs enough musical prowess to keep up with the best while still seeming innocent and green to the world around them. Maltese’s vulnerability makes him one of the more relatable and pure artists working today and his fourth album further proves that we are far from hearing the last and best music Maltese has to offer.

Taj has a one-of-a-kind personality. and the arrangements are solid in what potentially could be a great album. However, although the background vocalists are not on every track, their presence on enough of them mars the album. For whatever reason, they just don’t match the vibe and are incompatible with Taj’s vocals. His phrasing and Simon’s arrangements are the real pluses.