Villagers ought to be applauded for their ambition to heave themselves away from expectation, and then mourned for their lack of conviction which discards them back into it.

Graceful optimism suits him well, though in exploring this new phase, he struggles to properly articulate how his past behavior ultimately shaped his present.

Fading Lines does leave much to be desired in its implementation, though, but there are multiple hints here that suggest that this is only the beginning for de Graaf.

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.

Heaven may be one of the Walkmen's more detached efforts thus far. For a band that's been exercising their rollicking sway with a deft ear, it's a shame that there's only space for one real heart tugger, like in No One Ever Sleeps

Don’t get me wrong, Album’s best songs (Lust for Life, Laura, and Hellhole Ratrace) are utterly essential, but take these out of the equation and there’s really very little to get excited about. Unless you count the band’s back-story, that is.

Through the album, EMA never judges or grandstands. She takes snapshots of life outside metropolises, inviting everyone to look closer at those left behind in the outer ring.

The King of Limbs is very much a rhythm-driven album; skittering, off-kilter beats underpin the majority of the songs on show.

They haven't changed their sound much, but more of the same is hardly a problem when it's this enjoyable.

Everything about Arrivals points to it being a landmark release for both post-rock and IDM, two genres that seem to be well past their prime.

Largely magnificent.

Twins proves to be an excellent collection of over-driven garage pop scorchers that fully exhibit Ty's personality and passion for rock and roll glory.

The open spaces she works with are stunningly evocative, but her compositions are no less busy, a testament to how she’s based much of her compositional framework on a song’s underlying rhythms. It provides a strong feeling of familiarity for those who’ve followed Colleen’s work throughout the years.

Serfs Up! feels effortless for the wrong reasons--though Fat White Family's sheen of coolness and atmospheric moods almost hides a lack of songcraft, it's best suited as background music.

This is the year’s first great summer album.

This is smart, meditative music that needs the appropriate time to vest, where further listening provides new perspectives and details that weren’t as apparent at first glance.

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead is a triumph that will, like its predecessor, take years to unpeel.

The Universal Want's strengths lie in a series of inspired moments rather than it coming together as a satisfying whole.

The songs that make up Lazaretto are the most diverse on a White album since Get Behind Me Satan, and even more impressively, the songs themselves could stand alongside those on Icky Thump and Consolers of the Lonely thanks to the wonderful arrangements.... Of course, Lazaretto, for all the growth it shows from Blunderbuss, could never be as good as the work that White rattled off from roughly 2000’s De Stijl to 2005’s Get Behind Me Satan.

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

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.

On The Water relies less on the vocals than its predecessor. The music is more robust, adding more layers than the minimalism of before.

Chasny reveals himself to be a guitarist capable of an admirable level of intensity, if not pure technical virtuosity.

The album is a melting pot of so many brilliant musical perspectives, which could only be channelled by a band with a gleeful, wide-eyed fascination with the possibilities of their music. And they succeed in their knowing but expertly-delivered goal: to sound like no other band out there.

Ultimately, Powerplant is a hooky, candid and sharp-witted portrait of young adulthood that engages with adept effortlessness.

Even with the shifting styles under Nasty’s verses, this is the sort of explosive debut that is downright unforgettable.

Hints of regularity are often dropped before being snatched away from you in vaudevillian style. There’s an awful lot to be admired about Clementine’s approach, but it’s certainly not an easy listen.

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.

Outside of the soaring Retrograde, a prime example of how Pearl Jam has ultimately matured, most of Gigaton shows a band whose collaborative efforts and expertise can still resonate if they open their minds to the challenge.

If we could compare each of Fuck Button’s works some sort of dazzling spectacle, whether it be a firework display, a meteor shower, falling in love, or something of the like, than Slow Focus makes a strong case for being their most brilliant event yet.

Despite the album's likable, glistening production, though, the duo mostly chooses to dismiss the darkness rather than embrace it—emphasizing a pop veneer that is bold, bright, and, well, a little bit boring.

The Body's latest exercise in amplified bleakness, a blend of muck and misery whose existence almost requires a term stronger than “doom” to succinctly and conveniently explain it. To call The Body’s music “doom” is tantamount to calling the rapture an unexplained and coincidental spike in lengthy vacations.

A fuller, more measured affair, In Flesh Tones is an impeccable weaving of threads.

Throughout, I’m Not Your Man is a meandering undercurrent of predatory slyness, advancing with a slack but completely controlled swagger.

Wicked City proves that Jockstrap have nothing if not range, and secures their place as one of the UK’s most intriguing new bands.

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.

Outside Closer weaves an oddly distinctive set of roundelays between the Air-like poppiness and cheery melancholia of the negatives and the Massive Attack jams with The Clash in Reykjavik melancholia of winter 72, concluding with two of the most depressing songs I’ve ever heard.

For a band where constructing songs into rocket-fueled crescendos is their biggest strength, too often does A Black Mile to the Surface fail to take advantage of any momentum it builds, often taking the wrong fork on an ascent to a splendid finale.

Ambitious, varied and unquestionably fun, this is one of the most joyously unpredictable records of the year.

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

On Your Own Love Again is a record about that struggle with transmuting feeling into expression. The grand themes of the album are heavily understated but, well, that’s kind of the point.

As snobbish as that may sound, you have to lose yourself in Wavering Radiant to hear and feel the big picture.

If they are willing to try out different moods and feelings, while still using that winning formula of tones and instruments, they could be a great band. On Mordechai, Khruangbin gets one step closer.

Lovesick Utopia is fairly lightweight and doesn’t grab the attention in the way that most of the other tracks do, and while Keep Moving is accompanied by a great video (co-produced by Wilson herself), it comes off as an imitation of a Jessie Ware track. These are minor complaints though, as the long period leading up to this record—not to mention the time afforded for additional audio work due to the coronavirus pandemic—means Wilson has had the space to hone her sound and deliver upon the potential her earlier releases promised.

At times danceable and thoroughly emotive purge.

Lenses Alien is a thick, abundantly ornate listen that overawes as much as it enthralls.

Dark and sonically cavernous, Marshall's fourth release as King Krule fills the innermost spaces of his soul with glacial rhythms that vacillate with tension and release.

This music is intensely free, ecstatic and original. But make no mistake - it’s very, very hard to listen to.

It kicks ass.

It’s an occasionally uplifting, but mainly standard, declaration that suggests they’re currently experiencing a transitional phase as songwriters.

By no means a feel-good record, Travels With Myself and Another is rich with enough black humor, sharp perspectives and tight muscular music to make it one of the best rock albums of the year.

A lean 35 minutes, the whole of In Spades eases us into Dulli’s gripping and emotionally fraught accounts, offering a noble reason for us to feel some sympathy for him after letting go some of his defeatist guise.

There certainly isn't a lack of beautifully crafted, well produced music on this release, but if you're looking for a full plate of pop-inspired power ballads, stick to the last two discs.

After you shake off the initial conceptual strangeness, Brill Bruisers builds up to a breathtaking whole.

These are tracks that are built for individual consumption across a myriad of online platforms, so the composition of the album perhaps lessens in importance. Nevertheless, a couple more from the darker end like Free Woman' and Replay would achieve a bit more of the blend I suspect she was going for. Chromatica has its moments, but it isn't an album to play on repeat.

While it is more realized than previous effort The Stand Ins, Okkervil River is showing potential for new direction more than they are showing versatility.

Despite some flaws in its execution, Biophilia does succeed in pushing beyond the already established album-singles-videos model, and the creation of a digital experience to compliment the music feels like a natural progression in the way that music is packaged and consumed.

They simply combine their voices and come up with something unique in the process, which they’ve achieved. I’m interested, though, in how far they take their sound before it reveals any potential lack of versatility.

Listening to a couple of tracks in isolation is fine, but taken as a whole, the record feels airbrushed to the point of predictability. Pleasant, of course, and well assembled, but devoid of the spark that characterised their earlier work.

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.

It's a brilliant, mainstream indie rock album from a band who have for too long operated on the margins of, for want of a better word, the 'scene.'

Hold Time is a wonderful, wistful collection of songs from an artist who has really started to hit his stride.

It bears to be dissected because it is pretty much all over the place, even if what they wanted to achieve could be stored inside a magical pot of gold.

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.

The "perfect sounds for the summer" tag might cause a battle with The Thrills, but I do believe The Tyde have a fighting chance.

What Makthaverskan lack in variety they make up with a passion that cannot be quenched, and the dreamy undercurrent it carries throughout is filled with a shot of optimism that is undoubtedly contagious.

The Unseen in Between should be the album where he steps out from the shadow of his contemporaries and establishes him as one of the most reliable singer-songwriters of his generation. His heart is in tune with that of a wanderer but his songwriting is firmly in place, ready to come out of obscurity.

Glitter and Doom doesn’t include a pocket-sized Waits who sings and dances atop your candelabra with a pawn shop marimba, but it provides you with the tools to imagine such a sight.

Overall, it's a successful return, and a record that demonstrates the success of their debut wasn't a fluke and that The xx truly are masters of musical alchemy.

Desire is most memorable as a collection of amazing verses. Not only is there not likely to be better rapping this year, Desire is the kind of album that reminds one of why emcees matter and just how much they can do.

With any other protagonists this project could become sickeningly twee, but Vile and Barnett deliver every lyric, no matter how ridiculous, with absolute sincerity. As they close with a stunning cover of Belly’s Untogether, it’s difficult to be cynical about something this utterly charming.

Weiss is a smart, heartfelt performer whose stories rarely veer into overwrought territory, though the lukewarm acoustic fluff that occasionally lingers throughout Standards bogs down an otherwise affecting and perceptive listen.

A lot of this terminology may sound familiar to the Mogwai devoted, but Every Country’s Sun does signal a change in attitude and confidence, and there’s no more convincing argument than that.

Their initial EP documented a band that sounded ready to take on the world – but the follow up just shows that the journey may take longer than expected.

The band’s blinkered aspiration to create a classic again produces an album that is enjoyable but hollow. In that way, at least, Pressure Machine is a Killers album just like any other.

Certainly few guitarists playing today evoke the kind of mad intensity on display here, but like the Comets on Fire, the whole package rarely comes off as good as you think it should.

a record that is both this good and a display of a band with so much more to show us does not come along often.

This album is nothing short of a miracle.

Cooler Returns plays out best if you go with its flow. Musical flourishes, references, and inspirations abound, but if you let yourself get lost in it, there is a lot to enjoy and not too much to worry about.

Ultimately, Something Worth Waiting For is an album of good songs with some sequencing and balance issues. Its problems have nothing to do with quality in the traditional sense, but Friko will need to temper some of their maximalist tendencies if they want to seize the indie rock throne.

It sounds at once old-fashioned and contemporary, undemanding but clever – a joy.

The fact is there are just too many smart, well-written songs on this album to get hung up on the messy sound.

It's a heavy theme to handle, but thankfully (or perhaps to its chagrin), most of these topics go unnoticed if you submit to its simple guitar-pop pleasures.

Tracks like Silver Timothy and Silver Joy showcase what Jurado does best, crafting songs that despite being a bit gloomy are beautiful and heartfelt.

It’s a sharpening of the ideas introduced on Addiction to Blood, performed with clipping.’s classic graveness which only supports how scary this album can be.

Restarter is still quite a strong sludge-metal album that can stand strong with many of their peers, but it’s sad to see them sacrifice much of what made them stand out so strongly from them in the process to merely become one of them.

While Anoyo's showcase of Hecker's ambient textures, paired with Gagaku, is organic and interesting, it feels like a retread of ideas or an assemblage of scraps from the recording of Konoyo.

The Achilles’ heel of this record isn’t the songs themselves but the production: drums throughout are blocky and distracting, guitars are washy and lacking personality, and the aforementioned synthesizers rarely fit the songwriting.

Tomahawk has since its debut defined itself and Patton provides enough of an anchor to carry the band through lamentation (I.O.U.) and noir-ish narrative (A Thousand Eyes) in addition to its heavier output, which make up the album's best moments.

Now We Can See is very much a record about vision, death, disease, perspective, and, er, turning into a fish (?) but its great expressive anchor is the elated desperation that gives punk both its wickedness and its promise.

Half Free is both a revelation and a breakthrough, one that finds Remy elevating her songwriting panache while carrying a certain mysticism that seems grounded in both plausibility and commonality.

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.

When they let loose, like on the more intricate Bell Wheel, Darcy reminds us why he's such a compelling vocalist when he shows a more playful side. While they have their songwriting down to a science, Cola could elevate their craft with a little more disruption.

Yesterday and Today is a brilliant sequel, one that retains the strongest elements of its predecessor whilst bravely pushing forward into new territory.

There’s something hauntingly beautiful about the way these tracks morph and evolve over their fairly short lifespan.

Ultimately, a surprisingly successful mood piece, there’s a lot of fat to cut through--but this actually becomes one of the album’s more winning attributes.

There are areas of the record where moments become a bit looser and less infectious, but generally this is a strong debut.

Akron Family II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT isn't a big departure in that respect, but it is a more polished affair than any of their previous attempts: most of the songs seem to follow a more established structure than the wayward jams of old.