Centered around their view of how we all connect, there's a familiarity in how the trio naturally links themes of nature and spirituality around the human condition—but it's the first time in quite some time where it feels like they're genuinely reaching beyond their loyal fanbase.

Their latest, the duo remain steadfast to that commitment with creamy, dancefloor-ready techno (Happy People, Will-o-the-wisp)—joyously documenting the anticipation before a night out.

The lyrics, like the trio's over-familiar vintage keyboards and melodic guitars, feel mailed in. On the other hand, the middle of Thin Mind hits a refreshing apex, starting with the fourth track, Out of Control.

Certain songs try to recapture their old glory, while others feel like an embarrassing pop ploy—but the most consistent feeling is pure disappointment. Even when Green Day is supposedly having fun here, they sound tired and overworked at best.

Even if Perdida does have a good amount of hammy lyrics and dull, strummy adult-pop, it's still the best music they've written since 2001's Shangri-La Dee Da. And, in many ways, is proof of why they deserve a fair shot at keeping the Stone Temple Pilots name active.

From overblown cheese (Questions) to overly pretty (Bluebird), some of these songs seem indistinguishable from each other. By the time reverb-soaked bongos show up here, you wish Nightfall sounded just a bit uglier.

The real problem is that the best ideas are outvoted by frustrating ones, leaving us with little touches like the short, yelping-like sound in the second verse of More or the distorted vocals that end killing boys. There are some good moments here, but even the best of them can’t help Halsey get out of her own way.

The Unraveling finds Hood and Cooley as fiery as they’ve ever been. If American Band proved that the Drive-By Truckers still had plenty left to say, The Unraveling shows that they can allow themselves a bit of fun in the studio while getting their message across.

Mind Hive is middling. Some tracks are engaging and perk up your ears, while others are flat-out dull and uninspired.

Even at his most open, there's still this sense that his character-driven songs wouldn't exist without revealing the backstory of his Canadian roots. His sentiments are more palpable and poignant, but his approach is as casual as always.

A 37-minute album that feels closer to feature-length.

Everything Else Has Gone Wrong is about getting through troubling times with grand gestures, projecting those emotions in the most outward way possible. And, coming back from that absence, demonstrating their steady growth as musicians with a joyful disposition that is contagious.

There Is No Year is one of the most disappointing follow-ups in recent memory. Knowing the group is capable of much more gives hope for a re-energized effort in their future.

It's a moving, eclectic return that longtime fans will admire—and find themselves surprised to discover them for the first time.

If you hear ten seconds of any given song then you've heard its entirety, yet you haven't experienced the song. It's that sort of an album.

I can’t say enough nice things about Tunes 2011-2019; there’s too much to love about this damn thing. I especially recommend it to those who aren’t very familiar with Burial and are looking for something other than Untrue to sink their teeth into. It’s a monumental snapshot of the “second act” of his career, and should be on all electronic music connoisseurs' Christmas wish lists. Prepare to get lost.

A group of veteran musicians who are committed to their craft, carrying themselves with stylish grace one crushing ballad at a time.

She heads into more accessible waters —on tracks like Down on Me and Confessions, Davis softens her pop-meets-classical mishmash with a mellifluous inflection that gives clarity to her self-empowering message. And like a memoir of sorts, she goes through stories that range from her birth to the present day.

Cotillions does have its fair share of bloat, though—at 17 tracks and clocking in over an hour, its instrumental parallels can often feel redundant once it concludes. Nevertheless, his recent "unplugged" projects suggest he’s found fulfillment carving his own path rather than overthinking how to capture the spirit of our times.

It’s still hard to truly get Leonard Cohen right, and Thanks for the Dance sadly sounds like an easy approximation of his sound.

Everyday Life may not be able to reach the peaks of Coldplay’s work in the 2000s or have the discipline of the mostly-minimalist Ghost Stories, but it shows a level of creativity, imagination and sheer enjoyment in making music that felt like it had been lost.

Invigorated and with more purpose, Oldham feels the wholeness of family and unity. Whereas past projects lived in a state of flux, Oldham now feels settled and at ease. It does sound like he's found the "lightness," after all.

Ffollowers of the band will notice how they sometimes hold onto their older tendencies (see: Microscopie, the title track). Nevertheless, the strides they take show how they're an asset to their new label—and not the other way around.

With each album in Cronin's catalog, he seems to grow in confidence and song-writing ability—and Seeker is no exception.

The result is an album that acts as an interesting diversion in Lindstrøm's catalog, and perhaps even a needed downshift, yet arguably doesn't live up to the epic achievements of his past records.

The only saving grace, pun possibly intended, is God Is, where West's voice genuinely cracks as he calls the Lord over a soulful sample. As you might imagine, the production overall is expectedly top-notch. But that's the slight upside to an otherwise tepid attempt at finding commonality with his devout followers—except that we never wanted West to come across as ordinary as the rest of us.

Our children’s children may not remember baseball umpires and humans that sang their own songs, but Bodega’s Shiny New Model makes for the perfect soundtrack to worry yourself silly about such things.

Best listened to sad and lonely in your bedroom, Pang is the perfect dance album for smart and sensitive boys and girls after their day’s journaling are done.

It’s beautiful, inventive, catchy, heartbreaking, addictive, and bursting at the seams with ideas. It captures a performer truly at the top of their game, throwing everything into a project so that not one second is wasted. It’s a record that makes you fall in love with music again, a record you feel privileged to experience and a record that imparts fundamental human truths.

Pt.1 was such an exciting deviation for Foals that it would be disappoitning if it proved just a mere detour on their way to producing empty, arena-sized rock. Here, they not only return to their formula, but ramp it up to dangerous levels. It’s brash, loud, and, ultimately, tiresome.

The transformative qualities of Spring reveal themselves with time and patience. What begins as a search ends with a confirmation of newfound clarity, where every location Cohen visits inspires new questions and new experiences.

It’s still haunting, and it’s still beautiful. It’s like a soundtrack to exploring some abandoned, centuries-old mansion in the middle of a desert, now filled with ghosts, lost memories, and cobwebs weaved around expensive furniture.

To an extent, it may sound like just another day at the office for Sunn O))). Nevertheless, this team-building exercise is still more compelling than whatever employee engagement activity your day job offers.

With Cry, the instrumentation has turned into self-parody, the production is a painful slog, and the worst lyrics are impossible to ignore.

The sheer joy behind each song here is what keeps You Deserve Love from the occasion sameness that you could find on The World’s Best American Band.

On In a Bind, she reaches for a more spiritual musical expression—taking a page from the mesmeric rhythms of Ali Farka Touré. She finds herself at ease, picking out an arpeggiated pattern flutter over a meditative choral showpiece. Less impressive, though, is how Tamko derails into the dreamy, meandering synth jams she seemed to be at odds with from the start. ... These mood shifts show Tamko at her more inquisitive, proving how far she can expand her reach while using her own resources. And it'll be intriguing to see where her ever-changing nature takes her next.

It's one of those rare, almost perfect follow-up, albums from a promising artist unafraid of taking her music to even more thrilling places without sacrificing what made it so compelling to begin with.

It’s an album without the excitement of the first Digital Shades without the correct tones and instruments to recall those pioneers, and in terms of quality, Junk is still a little better.

Even if Lost Girls often sounds like scrapped ideas taken from a larger project, Khan doesn't go too deep into nostalgia—still working firmly within a pop framework.

Relying less on atmosphere, tracks like Savage Nomad and Negro Spiritual reveal a rawness that balances his brisk delivery and minimal samples with renewed urgency. It comes with a caveat, though, as taking a more formalist direction puts the focus on technique rather than subject matter. And that's okay.

You can hear how she gradually tempers her busy thoughts, setting her mind at ease with a sense of renewal. And in her clean, unembellished melodies, reminding us that we can take our true selves whichever way we choose to roam.

On Heavy Lifter, Martin and Taylor continue to lean on each others’ strengths while also allowing room for pushing out prior boundaries. By expanding the sandbox, Hovvdy open up possibilities that promise more good things to come. If you’ve missed the duo’s prior releases, Heavy Lifter is a good place as any to get on board.

The result is an album of uncompromising vulnerability and rawness.

The Menzingers established themselves as a group interested in moving forward—even if they wrote about those high school days. Hello Exile fails to follow through on that promise.

Big Thief proves that it can feed your head, your heart, and your hands in equal measure. Like the musical giants of old there is nothing they can’t do, ably going from strength to strength. Two Hands serves as the band’s call to arms.

Dear Tommy may still be lost in the ether, and who knows when Jewel decides to complete it. But Closer to Grey feels like a fully-fleshed concept, and it should be considered the long-awaited follow-up to Kill for Love fans have been clamoring for for years.

The process of writing this album was personal and intimate, but the end result is a confident, bold debut.

The most striking aspect of Ode to Joy is how weary Tweedy sounds. From upfront political themes (Citizens, which wavers and rumbles with minor harmonies, lines about white lies, and distorted guitars) to thoughts of personal tragedy (White Wooden Cross), there's one clear conclusion: Tweedy is beaten down. But Tweedy is at his best when he's processing that exhaustion.

The tightest tunes here tend to be the mid-tempo ones, or the ones with the cleanest production.

It's a remarkably sharp pop record that retains her fascination with pop-culture iconography and the rosey simplicity of a post-war America where classic rock and blue jeans ruled and takes them to much deeper places. ... Think of it as an hour-long car ride peeling down the highway with classic rock blaring out of the radio and no real destination in mind other than where your impulsive nature might take you.

If In The Morse Code Of Brake Lights isn’t remembered as the peak of The New Pornographers' work, its heart is squarely where it needs to be—and is still head and shoulders above most of the choices we are presented with these days. Electoral or otherwise.

Perri needs to lean into the experimental nature of his work—take more risks, and avoid being so laid back that his ghostly melodies have all the impact of a polite, good-natured apparition.

In many ways, Memory poignantly conveys how time has caught up with the Vivian Girls. It may look into the past, but the trio are not the same anymore both creatively and personally—and the time they took apart to explore other avenues works to their benefit. Armed with a deeper understanding of those trying times, and each other, the trio moves forward—and live in harmony with it.

Devour is best experienced from front to back. Shifting from Chardiet’s possessed screams (Spit It Out), to the dial-up-modem-from-Hell (Self-Regulating System), to grotesque static (Deprivation), Devour is shockingly sublime, like some warped, morally corrupt gradient. What’s equally mystifying is how textured and thematic these songs are, subtleties and surprises that are only revealed through brave, dedicated consumption.

On an album where Taylor nakedly reveals his most pressing moments of despair, it’s only in the album's handful of brighter moments that you wish for maybe just another small taste of the darkness. Taylor manages to flip his career-long look for the silver lining by acknowledging the pull of the worldly can only be put in a tidy little box for so long.

Inspired by B&S leader Stuart Murdoch’s read of the novel, the soundtrack thankfully veers more towards the bibliophile than the head-banger. Two B&S classics are re-worked, including a spritely updating of the perfect fitting I Know Where The Summer Goes as well as more of a straight read of Get Me Away From Here I’m Dying.

Cottrill's clear songwriting focus gets bogged down with mellow, listless ballads that sound pleasant—and not much else.

There's a lot to ponder while listening to Powers' dynamic and exuberant contours, coming from a band that's adapting to life's changes with piercing directness.

An overwhelming sense of fun pervades First Taste, as further epitomized in a couple of wacky drum solos that are so maniacal they'll bring a smile to your face. All in all, Ty Segall's obviously having fun as a result of being chiefly interested in entertaining himself.

There's nothing particularly grating about their gentle, country-pop stylings—most of which deal with themes such as nature, gratitude, and fleeting time. And these are all worthy topics to explore—except that every song sounds so gosh darn wholesome that it's as if they discourage against any deeper introspection.

Yorn loses some of the album's momentum as it progresses, too enamored with its stately flow—but just like any troubadour who calls L.A. home, he still writes some of the most tuneful folk-rock this side of Laurel Canyon.

The 70s soft rock inspirations hit the hardest on two of the most interesting cuts here, Far From Born Again and Bad for the Boys. The two tracks combine a jaunty, easy-listening sheen, with lyrics in the former that discuss sex work positively, and in the latter, that talk about the reckoning of abusive men.

House of Sugar is just as bewildering as Rocket, even if Giannascoli is too much of a tunesmith to keep things too abstract. He's a cunning songwriter who will take on a challenge whenever an idea seems to complex to untangle, even if his tender side will always be there.

A very good album and only a very good album. Don’t expect it to linger like Jay Som’s last, but do expect it to keep you company as these waning days of summer transform into fall.

He embraces a lush, widescreen sound with such vigor that even he can't keep up with, causing the album to lose some momentum as it settles into repetition. But Hunter's biting social critique is the focal point from start to finish, revealing his more vulnerable self in the process—a bold reinvention that should follow whichever direction he chooses to take from here on out.

There's no doubt that Kline’s abundance of sharp ideas and approaches will lead her down some other paths, but Close It Quietly’s full-band approach yields an embarrassment of eminently listenable indie-rock gems.

Sadly, the difference here in 2019 is that reaching the end of This Is Not a Safe Place—listening to the whole album—is not as rewarding as it needed to be.

If 22, A Million could come off as sometimes cold and always anxious, then i,i is the warm flipside, with songs that float and flutter, that call for resilience rather than resignation. ... This record finds power in its collaborations.

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.

Coming in at 26 minutes, Twelve Nudes doesn’t hang around and, by design, is a much more modest record than Transangelic Exodus. It rarely matches the highs on last year’s effort, but paired together, it suggests Furman is the midst of a prolific period.

Lover is a plethora of things: a Taylor Swift genre sampler, an argument that Jack Antonoff is her best collaborator, a continuation of her problem with lead singles, and a collection of great synthpop songs, but the best part of it is that Taylor seems like she’s never been better. She’s unburdened by love, and that explosive happiness makes itself present across this record.

Fear Inoculum already feels like an event—It's the kind of grand statement that will equally delight and confound, where Tool allows themselves to highlight their technical prowess with uncompromising integrity. Though the lengthy tracks convey great character and complexity, it's best to experience its ambient soundscapes and strapping guitars with a full, uninterrupted listen.

Beyond the Door isn't without its filler (particularly on the back half) but considering how its 11 songs breeze by in around 30 minutes, the weaker songs are easy to shrug off and forget. It isn't one of those albums that finds the band pushing the limits of its riff-filled overdriven bubblegum pop, either, but it's just as satisfying as any of their other albums.

The only real issue that Shura faces on forevher is that the record can be too much of a good thing. The psychedelic grooves that back the project can almost be suffocating, not allowing melodies or choruses to flourish on tracks that feel like a huge hook could bring them to perfection.

She follows her curiosity with abandon, deconstructing pop modalities with space and patience—from the strings-drenched chamber jazz (For the Old World) and the warped avant-garde of the title track to campfire folk (Spirit in the Eye of the Fire King,") her wildly eclectic, though sometimes distancing, choices sound familiar, yet completely their own.

The duality of hopefulness and dissolution she presents is intoxicating (with droning, ethereal soundscapes that are chilling in their stillness, to boot).

Heaven is Humming is not only a surprisingly potent post-hardcore tonic for this era, but portends great things for GOON moving forward.

Though the album's theme is fairly inconsequential, more appealing as a one-off project for diehards, their prog-folk experiment breathes new life into a band that had seemingly lost their way.

Still, true to their L.A. roots, they can't quite abandon the love-stricken cliches taken from their eighties influences, from revisionist West Hollywood glam (Heartbeat Away) and Bomp! records-inspired rock (Rebound City, which sounds like a homage to 20/20's Beat City) to tight, driving rhythms (Real Life).

Although it runs a bit too long and some songs blend together, Bird Songs of a Killjoy is a heartwarming and enchanting listen. It’s as far from a killjoy as you can get.

What's absent about The Center Won't Hold is that it presents a powerful and necessary premise, only to find out that there's not much of a message behind it. Sleater Kinney sure have a lot to say, but overall, they don't end up saying much.

Some good ol', serviceable rock ' roll always goes down easy, but with The Hold Steady, we know they're capable of so much more.

So much of Iz just blends together into a balmy, gelatinous goop of trap-flavored maquettes that could’ve come from anyone, let alone Big K.R.I.T., someone who I have always looked towards for quality bangers.

Craft's vocals feel like they were sent through a french fryer, cooked to a crisp. The result is, like the music that backs him, a voice that is merely functional, an approximation that falls well short of its influences. Craft's first album had swagger— hopefully, he gets it back.

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.

While their more reflective and even pop-oriented moments keep the double album catchy and worth revisiting, this new avenue also affords a clearer view of Baroness' Achilles' heels, which are a propensity for predictable lyrics and an occasional Foo Fighter sappiness. But those flaws aren't terminal, and for the most part, Baroness takes us on a thunderous langskip ride through angry seas that is as addictive and thrilling as their past output.

Granted, the band's debased, arhythmic songwriting sounds a little obnoxious, if deliberately so, but they sure know how to translate their disarray into compelling expressionist noise.

Tracks like Nina and Part III give some motion to the album's swaying ebb and flow, while the intricate contours of Ghostride highlight how they craftily maneuver texture and groove. Nevertheless, there's also a hidden complexity behind Jinx's playful variations.

Much of Patience is visceral and fierce, but it is also skillfully melodic (think of Hole's Live Through This, or even Celebrity Skin), the result of a band that approaches pop constructs with abrasive guitar sounds.

Through the years, the band has sculpted their sound into full-fledged metal, and as the burly, serpentine tracks Arteries of Blacktop and Full Moon, Black Water attest, they incorporate palm-muted riffs and Sabbathy doom with much aplomb—even if the latter closes the album with delicate, melancholic guitars, saying goodbye to their departed loved ones with gentle compassion.

One of his consistently best albums and the one that perfectly captures the restless creative spirit that continues to push Yorke beyond his comfort zones at a time in his career where other artists would likely be happily settling into theirs.

It's a new start for an artist who many had proclaimed early retirement. And even if he hasn't cheered up, his return does feel consistent with his downtrodden nature—and we can only listen as it all unfolds.

There’s nothing new here, but it’s a strange feeling of someone else repeating back what you’ve probably been thinking. Tempest acknowledges she’s not saying anything revolutionary, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth saying.

Bandana is one of the most satisfying rap records I’ve heard so far in 2019.

The duo's closeness shows in their competent performances, and "Let's Rock" is faithful in intent and execution. But it can also come across as a cheat—it's easy to fool anyone that you've done something worthy when you undersell it.

On a song-by-song basis, this is a consistently solid album.

The band fills U.F.O.F. with a rich tapestry of textural tones, almost to the point of oversaturation. It's so embedded in their songs that they somehow get lost in their creation, filled with awe and wonder (and some healthy pretension).

It's a familiar, though still firm, return.