Springsteen gives us the E Street Band at its rawest. The songs deal with loss and perseverance, but the arrangements make them sound like anthems.

Her work is built around the truths of her perspective, not just that each song and its themes resonate with her, but that every tragedy offers nuance to life. Zauner has given us her strongest album yet and so far, the best album of the year.

His fourth solo effort but first for ANTI-, the album like those before it is an unpretentious affair, filled with plenty of sly, smart humor, packed with underdog energy.

Only God Was Above Us is more than another Vampire Weekend album, it is an amalgamation of their storied career and experiences wrapped up in a fearless take on what their genre can become.

This release has cemented Howard as a must-hear artist as the wonderful sonic collage, soaring vocals, and insightful lyrics all come together winningly.

Bleeds is a full cathartic release for both Wednesday and the listener, as the band creates a jam-packed tracklist that sheds raw honesty, imaginative imagery, and artistic maturity over warped distortion. The band is performing as if writing and recording these songs were the only way to differentiate dreams from reality.

There’s a pop progressiveness coupled with an old-fashioned loneliness. It sounds nothing at all like Presley, but he lived in and understood those two worlds and might have appreciated the chance to bridge them in the way that Howard has here. ... Her distinctive vocal timbre is the twine that keeps Jamie wrapped-up tight. Not many artists can make loops and electronic sounds feel authentic, but Howard is more than able to keep them feeling warm and natural.

The stories hold interest at least the first time through, but Boone’s voice has us continually returning for more.

By shaving off their more experimental edges, the group can fall into a few middle-of-the-road soul-pop numbers, such as the dancefloor-ready “Sitting In The Corner”, the hand-clapping one-note “Ooo-Wee”, and the string-laden “Nothing More Lonely”, which all deliver a professional, if tame, Fitz and the Tantrums vibe. The dynamic “Seagulls” is better, mixing keys, clean guitar strums, and a dynamite trumpet solo around the effortless, head-bopping groove and Janeway’s vocals.

The power, pain, and suffering of the original Delta blues from perhaps its singly most important innovator is here to be appreciated in better sound quality than it ever has. ... This is Son House at his peak, this is one to savor and cherish. It will likely become his legacy recording.

It’s the sound of The Sadies that we’ve enjoyed for over two decades now. The band and the producer are proudly calling it the best album that the band’s ever made.

The duration of the record is ultimately out of proportion to its considerable depth of feeling. These dozen tracks all boast impeccable audio, but the clarity of those sonics, the likes of which earmark all recent Neil Young recordings in recent years, is less significant as a commercial selling point than as a direct correlation to the purity of emotion within the music.

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.

As a whole, 12 is both a triumph and a work in progress. It showcases James Petralli’s evolution as an artist willing to adapt, experiment, and push boundaries, even if the results occasionally feel uneven.

Clearly, this is the crowning jewel of Hurray for the Riff Raff’s catalog, and surely their most honest, cathartic songwriting.

Lydia Loveless’ Nothing’s Gonna Stand In My Way Again is a cathartic release without a strong resolution, as the journey is the focus, staying strong through heartbreak, mental stress, and much more.

It is utterly mesmerizing that Gabriel can still find new and unique ways to present his art to the world and the double mixes of this album only add to the nuanced mystique of his approach. Dark-Side or Bright-Side, these 12 songs are full-body experiences with cascading melodies that pull you in every direction. i/o cements Gabriel as one of the most innovative and daring artists of his time.

This milestone reimagining of the last studio effort by the original four-man lineup is an emphatic final punctuation on R.E.M.’s long-term personal statement of chemistry, one which to this day remains altogether rare in contemporary rock and roll.

Big Thief have taken the seeds of introspection that we caught glimpses of on Masterpiece and which showed up in a strong minority of tracks on Capacity and zeroed in on that characteristic, building an album around that subtlety of expression.

It all adds to yet another triumph for this singular artist, a preeminent voice of our times whose command of vocal and musical dynamics is the perfect complement for both her straightforward and oft ambiguous lyrics.

Javelin is a poignant snapshot of Stevens’s journey to this point in his career and pushes the boundaries of his art to their most jaw-dropping and potent. Javelin is another technicolored and honest feather in Sufjan Stevens’s hat, a feather that feels freeing and warm as the artist gives us some of his best work in years.

The difference to these ears between Happiness Bastards and A Pound Of Feathers is a clear, harder edge, and more importantly, the Robinsons smell success and are fully invested in the band. That hunger is palpable as the heavy songs throughout A Pound Of Feathers kick down doors announcing The Black Crowes are fully back.

The album is spare, economical, and certainly dark in places but there’s a glimmer of light too.

There are not many musicians who could present an album with such a wide sonic palette. That is a Wayne Shorter characteristic that Blanchard and these two ensembles deliver on brilliantly.

The 7th Hand reveals even more of Wilkins’ artistry, deeply embracing Black music, citing his elders, and in so doing, demonstrating a stronger commitment to the spiritual aspects of channeling improvisation through a higher power than heard on his first effort. He further cements his growing reputation as one of the strongest contemporary forces in this music.

On Teeth Marks, we see an artist working through that coming fully into their own and with the confidence to tackle love in a compelling and refreshing way, along with the many joys and scars that it leaves in its wake.

Pure energy, passion, and joy ring throughout, as “Elijah Rock” is one more case in point that shows that James Brandon Lewis can make a tribute album sound as original as possible.

The dynamic and thought-provoking tracklist is just as restless as the lyrics Puscifer wrote for Normal Isn’t, creating a marriage between the ethereal and reality.