He’s is nothing short of a chameleon when it comes to garage rock, and this is one of his most impressive outputs yet.

It's heady, bleak stuff, certainly, but the sheer ambition and, bizarrely, hint of liberation with which it's performed make it one of the year's most perplexingly life-affirming releases.

While flawed, this is still a very worthy record; a majestic realization of the promise shown by Chapel Club over the past two years and one equally suggestive of the what may be to come.

Sohn masterfully handles a crush of guitar and synths while a small batch of guests provide string embellishments, with Stella Mozgawa (Warpaint) playing drums on a few tracks. Primarily recorded at home, the lack of hiss or other background noise shows Sohn’s proficiency with her approach as well as the technical advances that machines have brought to music.

For existing fans of the group, it should come as a rewarding and affirming release; for those of us new to the group, it should act as a little reminder that there are plenty of ways to tell a story through music.

It's only after several listens that the album's wholeness clarifies. Because the tracks tend to be downtempo, reflective, and downright sleepy, it takes time and patience to realize Bejar is working like a good storyteller.

Dr. Dog's best effort yet.

It's the full-on pop record that Monáe had been hinting at for years, and though some of her stylistic choices may not age well--especially when she veers into trap territory - she approaches them with a kind of flighty confidence.

Keeping it abrasive and sincerely metal in execution is its strength.

While it’s clear from the off that COWBOY CARTER isn’t like any other Beyoncé record, it still very much is a Beyoncé album. And, despite country’s present-day popularity, it’s still a risky album which, if attempted by practically anyone else, could come across as desperate.

Rainier Fog has enough highs mind to comfortably recommend as a must-listen--a lot of this material is what Chains do best.

This album is a great one, and proof that the band are able and willing to develop and grow their music.

Infra is a pensive and deeply involving achievement, which rewards long after the credits have finished rolling.

For every low point there’s the unquestionable standouts.

This is the band’s most mature and consistent record yet.

Side projects rarely eclipse their protagonists’ main works, but Apropa’t is one radical departure that finds the players perfectly aligning themselves to each other so convincingly that it’s hard to imagine Herren looking back again.

He deconstructs pop conventions within the first five seconds in pom pom with a devilish grin, setting the tone for an uncompromising mélange of hissed art rock that ups the ante even further than the disarmingly twisted Mature Themes.

Their idea of a party anthem may be quick to please, but their unpretentious honesty and just sheer enjoyment makes a lasting impression.

While fans of Power and Fuck Buttons in general will certainly feel at home here, as there’s plenty of abrasion and distortion to go around, Animated features, frankly, some of Power’s catchiest and most memorable compositions to date.

Dissolution Wave is a phenomenal record with a broader appeal than you’d expect. If you like your shoegaze heavy or your metal atmospheric, you’ll love it.

Selecting highlights feels like a fool’s errand. Ballgame’s ballads (“You’re Not My Baby Tonight,” “Goodbye My Love”) soar gracefully. .... The higher-tempo numbers are equally effective.

While Woods may falter here and there, Bend Beyond stills manages to hold its own and then some. The Brooklyn-based band may have cleaned up their sound since Songs of Shame, but their signature spontaneity and amplitude come through better than ever.

Granduciel apparently spent hours going over and over tracks as they were developed from their demo stage into full blown band pieces, occasionally completely abandoning latter versions to return to the demos, and that was the case with album standout track An Ocean In Between The Waves-it looks like an inspired decision.

It's clear that Strange Negotiations is not a wholly secular piece, but Bazan is clearly moving in that direction.

All told, For Clouds and Tornadoes is a quality release from a musician that's not afraid to explore outside the usual methods to create extraordinary music.

here’s not one tired moment, no obvious retreads to be heard. It’s a solid third act, making good on the promises of (many) tomorrows.

while Roll the Dice's single-minded desire to evoke and capture the mundane and nightmarish may make In Dust sound like a rather joyless and difficult prospect, they fortunately still manage to include more than enough moments of bleak beauty to make it worth the repeat visits.

While the record isn’t perhaps as instantly impressive as Scale or Multiply, there’s much to enjoy on The Third Hand for an appreciator of the finer points of this thing we call pop music.

The earlier albums were hyper and hi-energy affairs whereas Jumping The Tracks is more measured and has a more constructed feel.

There's something seductive and illuminating about Stott's new music, something that transcends the terror being emitted.

This album has failings and successes; it all adds up to a highly commendable record, there's no doubt in that.

The album packs a lot of ideas—and songs—into its brief 33-minute runtime, preventing almost any song from overstaying its welcome. ... The result is some of their loosest, most fun work.

Flood is a musical and lyrical leap forward that delivers a multitude of rewards. That it ends in Donnelly’s strongest composition to date makes for literal icing on the cake.

They sound as involved as they’ve ever been, the fruits of considering a more improvisational and segmented approach to writing music.

The White Stripes continue to surprise and entertain simultaneously.

Many of Sauna’s strongest moments result from Elverum sticking to what he knows best, as well as being the most closely akin to his last two albums.

There are four reasons why this album is necessary: firstly, it will make any party you happen to be soundtracking sound very clever. Secondly, following the samples and contributions will open up a whole world of modern and traditional music from the Southern Cone to you. Thirdly, both live and on stage, tracks like Pa'bailar rock a squeezebox like you've never heard. And, finally, Ry Cooder is nowhere in sight.

Like a prestigious college, this band may receive more attention than it really deserves, but these art-punks truly have a lot going for them. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for anything this different.

By utilizing a synth-based soundtrack just as organic, emotional, and unadulterated as Welsh’s voice and lyrics, Impersonator successfully matches man with machine and gives each an equally powerful, equally human voice.

With all its shallowness and artifice, it can only ever be a guilty pleasure. But it is the most intense of guilty pleasures.

Whether it’s a one-off project or a fleeting affair for all parties involved remains to be seen, though for the time being, the band’s gift for impromptu creativity has served them well.

Sun Coming Down constantly engages and enthralls with an odd sense of humor, cementing Ought as one of the few contemporary post-punk acts that seamlessly merge frantic irreverence with feral intelligence.

The strength in Held lies in how it takes electronic modulation to a more challenging path, fully conscious over the fact that the genre itself benefits when it's more about the songs instead of serving as foreground listening.

But the band is grounded in humility, always playing against each other with a drifting timbre that’s inviting and likable. But tucked within their textural progressions lay deftly written songs that honor their long-lived inclination to remain emotionally and intellectually independent.

Songs like All Blacked Out and Chemical Freeze are suffused with melancholic ambiance, where descending minor chords provide a fullness to their otherwise spare arrangements.

That's quite a timespan, though, and it does mean that one minute you're reeling from the hormonal stench of a roomful of anguished shoegazers and the next you're surrounded by happy little Japanese girls wearing anti-gravity shoes and doing Steiner dancing with wafty pastel banners. But that's just as it should be.

Buckner’s songwriting, both in the arrangements and vocals, is laser-focused on the development and exploration of his scorched-earth aesthetic. Together, they project it with grace, refinement, and skill.

Snaith is able to hold onto his Caribou identity despite the new techno influences. His new album Swim reaffirms the supreme artistic capability that is Caribou.

It's [their] mastery of one's musical landscape, both sonically and psychologically, that makes Beak>'s take on krautrock so poignantly effective, with >> possessing the ability to lure in both fans and newcomers to the genre into its paranoia-fraught world of distress.

He has come up with a gem of a record, heartfelt and true, that hopefully will get him some of the attention he richly deserves.

A finely crafted collection of indie rock.

This is a brilliant and varied album, risky and excessive at times, yet compelling and open throughout.

This Is How You Smile feels like an exercise in restraint but not in a dull suffocating kind of way. What makes it work is how even as he continues embracing more conventional instruments and structures, Lange still leaves room for himself to tinker and experiment at the same time. For music so understated and gentle, it's almost startling just how powerful it's capable of being.

Wondrous Bughouse, with its epic sprawl and quaint curiosity, successfully captures through its music the idea that the smaller you are, the easier you’re dazzled and overwhelmed by the world around you.

It is precisely due to the band’s finesse that It’s Blitz! is so refreshing, despite being an old sound wrapped in glitter veneer.

Quiet the Room is a worthy addition comparable to Julianna Barwick's The Magic Place and The Innocence Mission's We Walked in Song, chamber folk reveries so entrenched in their own little worlds you can practically live inside them.

Despite the weak ending, Imploding the Mirage is a powerful album from a hungrier and more passionate Killers that have once again embraced bombast with fearlessness, aspiration, and confidence. You can hear the band prevailing over struggles and finding the joy in making music and being alive.

A beautiful and steady album about defying the roles others put you in and pondering what went wrong. It’s a heartbreaking project as well, peppered with upbeat but cutting songs. It may not be Loveless’s best album -- Real is impossible to beat -- but it ideally captures the indescribable greatness of her songwriting.

There’s a lot to take in throughout Wed 21’s richly layered and complex matrices, but in no way do they hinder Molina’s streak of keeping things minimal.

Just a Souvenir reveals itself to be a solid record, up there with the best of Squarepusher's work--as any good performer knows, you always leave the audience wanting more.

Little Joy makes for a fine, self-contained little album.

Balloon Balloon Balloon is not Slater’s best album of 2025—it’s probably not even his second best—but any record that evokes the snotty power pop of Guitar Romantic is worth investigating in my book.

Like so many posthumous releases, Infinite is a tricky record to critique. It’s not Mobb Deep’s strongest record, but given the circumstances, it is a triumph—and a fitting testament to their legacy.

The tracks evoke comparisons to artists like David Gray (“Pretty Flowers”) and Josh Ritter (“Heart In The Mirror”), which may provide a side glance or two but perfectly complement his high-pitched twang. Regardless, Meek brings his own flair to whatever he makes.

Not everything works in Love Chant. He tries to sound self-serious with his stream-of-consciousness rambling on “Marauders,” but instead, comes across as artfully silly. Still, it’s just one of the many fun detours that Dando takes throughout the album, one whose existence—given his history of substance dependency—feels like a small miracle in itself.

While the remaining members, a power trio now, haven’t lost any of their edge, they’re channeling it with renewed energy.

Listening to their accomplished new EP, So Much Country ‘Till We Get There, I’m reminded of both Big Thief’s earlier work and Friko’s wonderful Where We've Been, Where We Go from Here.

For the most part, Birding follows the Cocteau Twins template to a tee, seemingly daring listeners and critics alike to find a better descriptor than the all-too-obvious ‘ethereal’. But deary are smart enough to inject some variety, which they achieve by incorporating heavier, almost explosive passages.

Of This Earth, like most Shabaka Hutchings albums, dating back to Sons of Kemet, requires full immersion. On his third LP, the jazz polymath takes you on a musical journey that requires both stillness and stimulation.

Sexistential is urgent, direct, and strikingly concise.

Sometimes, as on “Pure Sticker Shock,” the emphasis on open space can drag. Let’s just say that there’s a lack of punchy anthems, but as tracks like “Votive” and “Ballad of the Last Payphone” demonstrate, the supergroup’s brand of tuneful melancholy remains intact.

Creature of Habit is another respectable entry in her increasingly understated and overlooked discography.

I find myself increasingly drawn to both instrumental works and music that rewards patience and active listening. Sidings is a bleak delight.

Their burst of creativity comes to life in a lively tapestry of moods, both musically and thematically, but they make sure to balance the fun with genuine sincerity.

Consistent, assured, and suitably varied, Brink is a very impressive debut from a band with a bright future. Confuse them with Scouting for Girls at your peril.

DISCOMBOBULATED is an idiosyncratic record, overflowing with eccentric charms and a uniquely British (in the best sense of the word) personality.

Ratboys have always sounded like an indie rock band comfortably integrating country elements alongside their core sound. On Singin’ To An Empty Chair they sound a little too comfortable at times.

There’s a quietly accomplished record waiting to be discovered by those who are prepared to approach with patience.

While Transmitter doesn’t sound like a late ’60s artefact, it still sounds like Clarke—a refresh rather than a revolution, and a perfectly satisfying one at that.

If there’s something that holds back the album from even greater heights, it is its overly familiar ambiance, which at times resembles the sweeping film scores typically associated with indie country-western dramas. But that doesn’t in any way diminish Horn’s songwriting, filtered through a warm and pensive haze, which becomes more distinct as her career progresses.

A sumptuously produced record with an enviable hit-to-miss ratio, Middle of Nowhere delivers more than enough drama, humour, and sparkle to solidify Musgraves’ place on the country music throne.

There is no sense of fatigue here. Alongside Sebb Bash, ELUCID sounds reinvigorated on what is essentially a more traditional Hip Hop record than Revelator—and, if I’m honest, a better one.

So, Living Human Treasure is hard to love, but it’s not unlovable. There’s a smart, inventive band at work here, with the potential to rise to the very top of the current class of post-punk acts.

She leaves enough open spaces to invite some speculation and creative faculty, but by all accounts, this is the story she had to tell during this period in her life.

B’lieve i’m goin down is further evidence of Vile’s conclusive authenticity, and his position as one of songwriting’s most understated commodities.

Though Darnielle skillfully furthers his compositional approach in In League with Dragons, there are times where his unbounded, bookish wit gets the best of him.

It’s refreshing to see an EDM producer balancing his more hedonistic impulses with genuine artistic ambitions, especially when it’s done with such a consistent energy and purpose.

It’s a solid record; put it on and forget it.

They make enough changes while doing what they do best to avoid getting pigeonholed, which is more than we can ask for from a band that’s about to start a third milestone.

In all this album won't be world changing. The Vaccines are not "the saviours of British rock and roll" but What Did You... doesn't need to be. Instead it's inviting and well observed more than anything, a triumph typified by Post Break-Up Sex--a sublime sketch of that insensitively cute idiom, all guilt-ridden and relatable.

The truth is that No Joy is unadulterated, all-surrounding sound.

It's difficult to judge a soundtrack separate from the production. But even without the visuals, Lazarus is still worth a listen or two. The performances range from solid to great, and the covers of these classics are often fresh.

Aloha have created an album with a strange feel, Home Acres is dark but it’s not cold. It’s a humid album that aptly demonstrates Aloha’s greatest strengths, but also highlights their weaknesses.

Overall, One Kiss Ends It All is a little uneven but still an enjoyable piece of cosmic pop, and once you get past the occasional stutter, there is a lot to take from this one. If only every day could be Saturday.

Despite occasional moments of album filler, Delays have still given us an album with at least three slices of timeless pop.

Sky Full of Holes, the band's fifth release, doesn't stray from their foundation of fitting rhymed schemes amidst archetypical power pop chords.

If APTBS have fallen off your radar in recent years, then this is the one worth reintroducing yourself to their work.

While his music has reached new heights of production and depth, his penmanship remains pedestrian.