Their best full length yet.

The album hones a clear message about how society is marred with malicious leeches and false prophets, but it’s just one side of many--most of all, this is Spoon mostly letting loose their perennial white funk, kinda square but almost always rhythmically enticing.

At its weakest, the album is merely boring with the lamely typical Can't You See, an album opener of distorted rumbling and vocals so low you'd strain to make them out. Arguably worse than a bland track is that the album actually offers some hope for a reasonably enjoyable experience.

At times it can be strikingly absurdist, the benefit of a frontman who knows how to insert humor naturally into the dourest of settings. But Higgs also loses sight of his own lyrical virtuosity when keeping with the band’s regurgitated precision-playing. Everything Everything continue to convey their bottomless ideas effortlessly, chained to the rhythm, even if their dizzying dance is beginning to show signs of fatigue.

Holiday Destination is Shah’s third LP, and is her most accomplished effort to date--superbly executed with an ability to make an austere backdrop insatiably compelling.

Down in the Weeds is at odds with itself—where the band balances music that is ambitious in scope with some of Obert's most nakedly personal work. But just like his complicated and sometimes narcissistic persona, there's a good argument to make about how his over-the-top approach perfectly suits him. That aside, Oberst and his cohorts' generous offering does take them on new, unexplored territory while remaining true to his wry prose.

Be it through incremental shifts and changes or grinding genres together to hear what comes out, Wye Oak know their influences in and out and work skillfully to blend them or highlight their differences as the song calls for it.

As cumbersome as this album can be, its unapologetic excesses baked into its track length and Haino’s sometimes grating vocal, the zero-constraint approach at the core of this mutually beneficial creative merger is compelling.

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.

Burst Apart is a passable follow-up to an incredible record, but that's all it is. Passable.

Stapleton’s writing is solid, but his vocals, arrangements, and instrumentation imbue most of these songs with something remarkable.

Even if this record isn't perfect, it's clear that she will become an influential figure in high-brow electronic music.

X’ed Out is unmarred by any narcissistic disposition, or pretentious or elitist demeanor, but it makes no creative sacrifice. Bravo.

Admittedly, R Plus Seven is a challenging album, one that doesn’t quite unravel itself on an immediate listen. Yet for all its complexity (of which I’m still trying to comprehend myself), it never comes off as ham-fisted or impossibly inaccessible.

We know better than to call Push The Sky Away Nick Cave’s best album, but if you want a portrait of the artist, as an artist, the album qualifies as “essential” even by the strictest definition.

They may have been marking time slightly of late, but let your fears they'd never rise again be dispersed; this is the best Fall album of the century bar none.

Bambino is a record that is kaleidoscopically colourful, staying in charge of a viciously artistic wall chart of sounds and turning it into something impressively cohesive. In the groovefest that is Need a Little Spider and the deliciously sleek Double Dutch, there are some downright bangers on here for good measure.

The album’s title suggests something close to perfection, and 99.9% isn’t too far from being the ideal electronic record.

The Man Who Died avoids the stigma of outtakes releases because it’s an ideal entry point into one of the most distinctive, fascinating musicians of our time.

New Leaves may tackle some subtle rites of passage - small in scope but difficult for most men to deal with--but they’re approached with such delicate grace, it’s hard to question that this may be Kinsella’s finest hour yet.

These delicate people really know how to solidify a pretty picture, especially when they offset their lovin' spoonful of virtue with some muffled resonance. This time around, the Kings are downright cheating instead of tirelessly studying to make the grade.

On the surface, Haiku Hands is a party record, but dig deeper and it becomes a powerful testament to female friendship and the power you feel when you’re supported.

The entirety of Redemption sounds as morose as his parched rhymes, with an effective backdrop of bleak bass drones and minimal synth lines, but not as much when he attempts to slow down his delivery. Stick for his soul-bearing lessons, even if he treads on familiar and worn-down musical paths.

These are songs that mostly get to the heart of the matter with open-hearted directness, and in balancing the coarse with the refined there’s a clearer sense of what Scott wants to find even if she struggles to understand the conditions that affect her most deeply.

Taken as a whole, Monomania is arguably their most imposing, and by far their most courageous, proving that Deerhunter have a frontman who’s willing to open up his soul to fit the demands of the stage.

His songwriting style remains largely unaltered: eloquent, abstract, stream-of-consciousness rambles, tiny bits of which manage to lodge themselves in your brain. But his talent is most apparent as a composer.

Most of Short Movie lingers over energetic yet contemplative sounds, which Marling then pairs with her voice, an instrument as soothing as it is commanding, and every lyric is delivered with a kind of conversational cadence that hints at a slight curl in the corners of Marling’s lips.

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