An exceptionally fierce indie pop record.

Smother is an exercise in moderation, trying to find the precise balance between audacious beauty and emotional intelligence. The depraved encounters it presents are brash, risky, and just like its characters, always on the verge of imploding.

Freak Puke is at its very core a Melvins album: strange and abrasive, muck-borne and jagged.

Matching thoughtful lyricism with heightened arrangements, they're building on what they've learned, and all their efforts are clicking at the right time.

It’s definitely going to be divisive, this album – there are some who simply won’t welcome this definitive stride away from the electronic psychedelia that’s been the Boards’ purlieu for so long.

Though The Golden Casket shows Modest Mouse at their most accessible and tuneful, a creative shift that started with 2004's Good News For People Who Love Bad News, they return to some of the experimental aspects that defined so much of their early work.

Alex G’s ninth full-length album, is easily one of his most cohesive works to date.

It’s all meticulously crafted, but thanks to an easygoing dynamic, each track sounds somehow breezy and nonchalant.

Like those early EPs, Gloss Drop relies more heavily on complex rhythms and wonky melodies to get its point across.

There is real sorrow and feeling amongst all the fun and the record will hopefully see Hunx gain some of the attention that is way over due.

It’s a buoyantly hopeful album where Hyde gives a final wave goodbye to his darkest days before moving on to greener pastures.

Centres has the ability to both mollify and unnerve, and to think that most of it was assembled through sensitive means speaks volumes of Craig’s greater ambitions.

The talent, confident and imagination on display throughout this album makes it a must-listen, a chance to let your mind wander and to lose yourself in an incredible plangency of strings.

The strongest songs come at the very end, where Harvey most effectively puts us in the setting she's describing and has the melodies to keep us there.

At its worst, Go-Go Boots comes off sounding like Lynyrd Skynyrd. At its best, it stands as a testament to the unparalleled songwriting of Cooley and Hood and as a reminder of just how special this band can be.

Sun Airway conducts Soft Fall with a unique command, never straying from its drifting atmosphere even as it continually delivers a batch of catchy, highly replayable songs.

One could say that her impeccable use of space is what reveals a special intensity to her work, a musical style artists don't often explore as they near the end of their third decade release music. Orton hinted at it through all this time, even if you weren't paying close attention.

The songwriting is versatile but cohesive; every song clearly has its own place on Shrines, and each one has a strong hook, at least one beat or lyric you'll find yourself thinking over for a little bit.

Pretty Years doesn’t sugarcoat things just for the sake of it: the band is just as apprehensive about life’s everyday troubles, and it’s by holding on to a healthy sense of proportion that Cymbals Eat Guitars retain their quietly visceral power.

Leave Me Alone is giddy with joy, cackling with sun-drenched vibes and that captivating youthful energy, and it’s impossible to listen to tracks like Easy, Chili Town and San Diego without leeching off it.

As you listen, you can easily picture a campfire in a forest, stars in the sky and Laura Gibson, guitar cradled in her arms, mumbling her way through an upbeat breezy folk song that implies some inner sadness while at the same time being entirely optimistic and happy.

There’s a melancholic elegance in Amidon’s pieces that express nuanced forms of sadness, and as demonstrated in songs like Short Life and Pharaoh, sublime chamber arrangements spruce up those feelings of sorrow.

Music for Listening to Music to isn’t just a background pleasantry; instead, it may very well be the one that could move Goodman into the foreground of her career.

Visions is beautifully conceived and executed, musically, lyrically and thematically.

Maybe it’s not the showiest of returns, but instead, she proves that the toughest battles are the ones that happen inside us.

Tumor hangs everything together with dark and inventive layers of pain that never relent. After Tumor ends things with a glimmer of hope on Ebony Eye, we're enthralled with their journey, eager to see where they will take us next.

Battle Born, doesn't quite reach those heights [of their debut, Hot Fuss], but it comes close.

There’s no use putting The Twilight Sad out of their misery if they continue to deliver such a delightfully morose tapestry of color and vitality.

Sleeping Through The War is the embodiment of a gentle giant: huge in presence but unwaveringly accessible.

Weird Little Birthday is a superb debut, beautifully recorded, with everything in its right place.

Man Alive! fleshes out Krule’s song crafting abilities to make for a slightly more cohesive and concise listening experience, albeit, one that remains perplexing—and still has a killer bite.

It is broad in its appeal, yes, but it is miles deep in its longevity.

There's a playfulness to their genre-hopping tact, with Moffat fitting his often-loose prose to warped club beats (Bliss), folk twang (Molehills), and 80s-inspired soft-rock (You're Not There). Album opener Allatonceness is their best case yet for repping their label Rock Action, owned by post-rock pioneers Mogwai, bearing a beefed-up muscular riff that expands their sound with emotional force.

Are You Alone? only reveals itself more dependent upon the listeners’ own experiences, and since we’re dealing with heartbreak here, its potent message will never cease.

You, Whom I Have Always Hated is a beautifully punishing listen.

It would be rash to immediately start writing The National’s obituary, but this really does sounds like the band is preparing to wind down, for a period at least. It seems like we’re really no closer to answering that first question. Where do The National go from here? It could be a while before we find out.

Every weird twist and turn on The Chronicles of Marnia sounds like the work of a musician so effortlessly absorbed in her craft, so attuned to the expressive qualities of her music, that the internal logic of her songs is completely cohesive and idiosyncratic--and more importantly, really damn fun.

Fairweather Friend is a great record, a genre standout deserving of adoration and acclaim beyond the niche of specialist blogs and, let’s be honest, the No Ripcords of the world. Great songs are still great songs in 2024. If you like those, you’ll love The Umbrellas.

What Daft Punk have done on Random Access Memories could be seen as a methodically curated, musical museum of the future, rather than a conservatory for experimental collaboration.

Romance Is Boring is fun, knowing, astute, energetic and packed with vignettes of youth and love lost.

Pala is music for the here and the now, with a hedonistic samba swing and a cheeky smile – don't start worrying about tomorrow – after all, it's still a day away.

It's filled with memorable moments, digital pieces that are essential towards captivating very human moments without battering with the greater scope of things. It all makes this all-encompassing memory trip worth remembering.

Space Is Only Noise might occasionally overstay its welcome, but it's mostly an intriguing, excellent listen from a very promising young producer.

They have made a marked improvement from their 2009 EP, sounding more assured and confident. Every song is played with enthusiasm, and it makes for a blissful, hazy experience.

Perhaps there’s not that one killer single that will turn her into an instant sensation, and those are bound to emerge, but what she’s cultivating with Georgia holds more value: that of creating an essential body of work that is unaware of any imperfection, coming from a mind that’s overflowing with a glut of ideas.

So while Jagjaguwar may well release a below par record in 2008, Shots is not that record.

The eleven robust tracks on Entrench are memorable not simply because of their animalistic intensity, but because they’ve taken that energy and fine-tuned it into some expertly crafted songs.

It’s hard to deny that this record is driven by texture and aura, rather than directly relatable content and meaning. But if you’re like me and can totally get with some heady sonics, this one’s a gem.

His voice is an art form in itself, breathy and warm and aching with impartial soul. The track’s arrangements are stunning, from the sparse opener Plastic 100°C to the propulsive beat of Blood On Me, while the devastatingly beautiful, reflective piano ballad of (No One Knows Me) Like The Piano would stop the coldest of hearts.

Golden Triangle isn’t the second coming of anything in particular, but they at least know what they’re doing.

There’s plenty to dissect throughout Secret Love, whether it’s through stumbling onto its non-sequitur zingers or consciously untangling its deeper concepts. There’s no wrong way to approach it; it really works both ways.

Overall, it's nice to spend a little time sharing Kurt Vile's ongoing journey.

Swimming under the four-on-the-floors and blaring horns, the haunting vulnerability that defined The xx’s beginnings is as potent as ever on I See You. This time, it’s effortless.

Perhaps what makes this record so impressive is how, despite the elaborate layering of elements, it never feels muddied or overwrought. It knows exactly when to peel each layer back to isolate every drum kick and synth chord, like a miraculous sonic onion, so that every element is exposed.

Gorguts are no strangers to ambition, always pushing themselves to find beauty in the darkest, most sinister tales of our checkered evolution. What’s most surprising, though, is that we finally get to witness a cast of players who can actually give the ever-shifting Gorguts name the treatment that it deserves.

Bloom is a little over 21-minutes of relentless noise pool of percussion and clatter that’s somehow relaxed by the gently pressed piano keys that methodically pierce its surface, a contrast that rests the mind over the length of this track when it might otherwise induce anxiety.

Common problems and half-assed moneymaker tracks aside, Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang serves as another monument to the effortless style and cool of Rae, and establishes the Chef as the marquee member of the Clan.

On Hell-On, Case once again spins the roulette with a treasury of surprises, stimulating lessons that are complex, thoughtful and articulate.

Woods uses the strength of her vibrant band to mask her reedy vocals, a minor drawback in an otherwise enlightening offering that positions her as one of neo-soul's essential new voices.

Some of the naggier aspects of her music remain, especially her strained, prickly inflection, still somewhat forced and certainly an acquired taste. But all told, there's no denying that Valentine is a singular statement that is profoundly genuine at every turn.

Where Chapman excels where others fail is that he's endearing about his self-deprecation, often conveying truths that read as casual as his relaxed arrangements. He also likes intertwining astronomical reasoning and science into his contemplating, because why wouldn't he.

If Anything was good, but this is the work of a band who are well on their way to establishing themselves as key cogs in their category.

Over time, Morby should outgrow his occasional Dylanesque vocal quirks and redundant baroque embellishments. Still, Singing Saw will be remembered as a breakthrough moment from an artist who’s now more comfortable articulating his own visual language.

Faking the Books... is to Tridecoder and Scary World Theory as OK Computer was to The Bends – a quantum evolutionary leap that, taken consecutively, quite takes your breath away.

Sucker is a one-two punch of wit and grit, as irreverently bratty as the lollipop Charli holds on the cover yet never impersonal, perfunctory, or insincere.

Reminiscent without sounding derivative, this is another fine effort from Tan.

Where before, sounds could often exist along similar planes, he's now added a multi-dimensional aspect, with Exoskeleton in particular.

With Fed, Liam Hayes seems to know that he has made an overly ambitious, maybe even hubristic album. He also doesn’t seem to care much about that, making it that much more appealing.

He has found his musical voice on Watch Me Fall, and while it may not be the best album of 2009, but it’s certainly one of the most enjoyable.

What's most striking is how effortlessly Bundick seems to construct each groove without compromising the complexity of his hybrid style.

Tramp isn't as seizing as Epic, its songs aren't as dense and unalike, its textures don't diverge in the same methods, but it breathes more, it quivers more, it shakes, it overturns itself, it rusts.

Conor Oberst's latest project has demonstrated his unmistakable ability to maintain continuity across an album while managing to quell any potential boredom before it begins to detract from the listening experience.

The result is a convoluted but accessible record that is perhaps Wilkinson’s best to date.

These remarkably self-assured ten tracks stand on their own with joyful inventiveness, as McGreevy tries to make sense of his past mistakes (Old Times) and alcohol-induced pseudo-intellectual babbling (Fit to Burst) through their joyous outbursts.

Salad Days is a testament to love at its most selfless and pure as much as it is the fear of holding on to it.

Sleep Cycle represents, and unintentionally so, a creative rebirth that goes against Animal Collective’s increasingly evanescent creativity. It took long enough, but the investment was worth it.

As much as The Deep Field concerns itself with Joan Wasser's considerable emotional needs, this is not a self-absorbed record. It's a big, open-hearted statement on the best way love in a world where "good living requires smiling at strangers."

What it loses in irreverence it gains in solemnity and seriousness, but this is still the Zahner-Isenberg of before, ruminating on his past with a conflicted conscience that threatens his every thought.

Ekstasis abounds with originality and depth; soars and sinks; expands and implodes; evolves and dissipates; crackles and breaks all within one cohesive sound.

What Freedom reveals is McMahon's ever-evolving tapestry, as it affectionally chronicles the human condition with candor and open-hearted curiosity.

On the whole, it's a smart and satisfying record. If she can achieve such mass appeal on an independent release, it will be fascinating to see where she goes if she agrees to sign with a label. Hopefully it won't trip up her laser focus on what matters: herself.

That's Real Estate. The composition is flawless, but the feel is mellow and meandering, subdued and slight.

Overall, a fine album, self-released or not.

Birthmarks' charm lies in its comforting familiarity.

FLOTUS is much more than another genre effort, where Wagner deeply alters his usual country bearings and gives it a new and unexpected orientation.

Even if this type of thing isn’t your bag, it’s really pretty irresistible and is worth a shot.

As it stands, Yo La Tengo has created a solid gold collection of nine tracks.

It's been a pretty solid year for electronic music thus far, and this comfortably sits with the best.

This may be his best rock record since "Born In The USA" (I think I prefer "Lucky Town"), but that’s not saying much. Frankly I suspect his heart is in the quiet acoustic stuff, but it’s still great to hear him pick up the old Esquire once in a while.

There’s a brittle vulnerability present in Viet Cong that triggers an innate sense of curiosity and optimism despite the downtrodden tone it adopts.

It sounds like this would all blow over like a weird, twitchy blur, but Quarterbacks’ hooks and songwriting chops are so incredibly tight and catchy that each moment feels like its own accomplished statement, despite typically only having a few seconds to prove this.

They're smart, clueless, and ready to take the festival circuit by storm.

Healing is a Miracle is an entrancing album from start to finish, and will be a gratifying listen for both long-time Barwick fans and newcomers to her music alike. Barwick’s continued development as both a soloist and collaborator resonates beautifully throughout this truly healing project.

In Love With Oblivion may only display grey intonations on first impression, but multiple spins begin to unfurl its ghoulish sense of atmosphere.

Street of The Love of Days is intimate and serene, sometimes pastoral, but there's nothing here that would make you miss the city, unless you hate bonfires and the crisp rustle of autumn leaves.

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.

Twisted Crystal is not pastiche, but it’s a stylistic reminder that music can be exciting, that pop music can be thoughtful and creatively liberating, and that being “catchy” isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For them, this magic is easy.

What It Means To Be Left-Handed is amply adorned with Pierce's distinctive improvisatory drum stylings, with each rim hit and snare taking on a melodic spirit of its own, whilst never intruding. His kit-work is a baffling contradiction of smooth and jagged, providing a solid backdrop whilst playfully interacting with dense acoustic guitar textures or washy post-rock atmospheres.