Goldfrapp have spent the past decade moving back and forth between icy electro-glam and atmospheric balladry... [The Singles] makes a virtue of their range.

Beyoncé seized the powers of a medium characterized by its short attention span to force the world to pay attention. Leave it to the posterchild of convention to brush convention aside and leave both sides feeling victorious.

Coles Corner is unapologetically retro to the max but it works.

And yet, that Emeritus often seems more righteous than cynical or hopeless (the latter two are a bit soft) is a testament to Scarface strengthening his flow in age.

YOB’s latest record stands as one of their densest, so it's good that the band's greatest asset, their impeccable pacing, remains intact.

And Then Life Was Beautiful expands her musical range while deepening its emotional impact.

Walker understands her strengths as a storyteller, and on Still Over It, she’s at her most commanding when she sings for herself while evoking the pain of other women who’ve been hurt.

While folklore seemed to materialize from nowhere as a complete, cohesive vision, evermore is structurally akin to something like 2012’s Red, where the breadth of her songwriting is as important as the depth.

Memento Mori is not the hooded masterpiece of Music for the Masses or the hits cache of Violator. But it does signal that there are new ways yet for Gahan and Gore to at least approach their old magic.

On Lookaftering, it comes as a relief to hear not only how pristine Bunyan's delicate vocals remain but that she has retained her understated abilities as a songwriter.

While this record is sure to please longtime fans, it also works as a compelling introduction.

Jenny Lewis has reached her troubadour phase. She’s telling tales like never before, singing live in the studio while charismatically leading a band that includes elder statesmen like Benmont Tench and Don Was, not to mention cameos from Ringo Starr, Beck, and Ryan Adams (recorded before the allegations against him emerged).

For reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, it feels more satisfying than the last two records. That might have something to do with its tonal sensibility: While the melodic sounds are as wispy as ever, they’re slightly more harmonious.

Parker’s latest may be his first live album, but it’s also the product of a mad scientist, cackling over a mixing board. Time is dilated, curated, edited, and intercut, and the very live-ness of a concert recording turns fascinatingly, fruitfully convoluted—even when the artists responsible are four players participating in the age-old custom of jamming together in a room.

Thanks to its pared-down gear list and capricious flow, Levon Vincent feels like the work of someone left alone in the studio, sketching in real time with what's at hand and moving on. And that spontaneity gives it an even greater sense of intimacy.

Mirror Reaper simulates that totality of grief, but it also transcends its own function as a eulogy.

WOR$T GIRL is most successful as an argument for Slayyyter’s abrasive style, but the record also contains some of her most painfully and finely rendered human emotion to date.

For those who've been following along for a few years, this is a groundbreaking record that condenses and amplifies Ariel Pink's most accessible tendencies. But the brilliant thing about Before Today is that no prior knowledge of his catalog is required.

Parklive showcases Blur in top form, but live albums are about a little more than a band; they document a moment too.

Mise En Abyme hunts that sensation of flux and liminality, unearthing warmth in a landscape of paranoia.

Her writing is focused and concept-driven, often scaffolded around a single word or image. “Coffee” and “Kaleidescope” are lesser examples—not coincidentally, both are rather somber piano ballads—but “Picture You” is perfectly executed, conjuring drawn curtains and flickering candles in the bedroom where Roan fantasizes alone, “counting lipstick stains where you should be.”

Your Arsenal, unlike the previous year's Kill Uncle, sounded like the work of a real group--as indeed it was.... This edition comes with a slightly muddy but passable live DVD filmed at California's Shoreline Amphitheatre in October, 1991, four months or so after the concert that became the Live in Dallas video.

This is the band's most beautiful record, an expertly arranged blend of their acoustic old school country augmented by pedal steel guitar and bowed saws and sometimes colored by elements of mariachi, gospel, and rural folk.

An album that's full of drama, without the tiresome excess.

The problem here is that, while the guys are definitely on here, they're still nowhere near groundbreaking, and as a result, they rise and fall depending largely on Karen's delivery.

Unfortunately, the album is too top-heavy to be seaworthy, the back end full of Fugazi knockoffs and half a song stretched out to ten minutes in a forced attempt at a showstopping finale.

Phil has moved well beyond the often formless experiments of the early Microphones releases--this is still by no means a record to be digested lightly. And thank goodness for that.

Taking in Bugland’s spree of bright colors and surprise twists can feel like breaking a piñata onto the crazy-pattern carpet in the laser-tag arena: There is so much happening, and nearly all of it commands your attention.

It has a facing-the-beast quality of a punishing spiritual quest, as if Elverum steeled himself and left his house at midnight, barefoot, and just kept walking.

This album basks in the greenness of youth. .... There is a palpable maturity, however, in the production of her sound. While staying true to her earlier Afro-fusion works, TYIT21 taps into dancehall, Nigerian highlife, and amapiano, demonstrating an expanded range, restraint, and purpose for Starr.

It’s hard not to tumble into Crushing’s vast emotional depths and look past everything else that makes the album exquisite, but lyrics like this showcase just how clever Jacklin’s songwriting can be.

The thrills of The Path of the Clouds are far richer than most true crime fiction, but like the best examples of the genre, it leaves you breathless.

The record’s best songs, like birth, feel hard-won and revelatory—journeys that might take place on a single physical plane, but expand psychically outward, broadening the spectrum of beauty, personhood, and existence.

Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava stakes its claim as the band’s most agitated yet fiercely funky record.

Dance Fever is as propulsive as any Florence and the Machine album, but its momentum sometimes feels unearned.

While some will complain about Boards of Canada's failure to cover new territory, the rest of us will delight in what we see as a very accomplished album packed with great music.

They manage to cut down some of the weight of the sung pieces, casting them in a more unique light, while giving San Fermin much needed tension and even a bit of violence.

There’s little of Future’s jadedness. If in the past Thug has made everyday experiences seem chaotic and formless, his achievement here is distilling the murky waters of young love and lust into vital, undeniable pop.

There are a few dull moments, like “Conventional Ride,” which explores how it feels to be the object of other people’s sexual curiosity. ... Any Human Friend reaches its high point with the quietest song.

Nested in Tangles is so powerful because it’s about what comes after those mommy-and-daddy issues—about enduring, as she puts it in that prelude, “fault lines that were never my fault” to become something better.

Juxtaposing elegant chamber folk against the discord of lives out of balance, it’s musically more delicate than even her soft rock models.

Eschewing pretentious unpretentiousness for unguarded passion, strict 77-82 influences for the classic rock stop on the FM dial, calculated instrumental inadequacy for guitar solos that are less technical flaunting (looking at you, Malkmus) than skillful, noisy exorcisms, Ted Leo makes a sound filled with so much authentic abandon, the British mags probably can't handle it.

X 100PRE reveals an artist both proud of and unafraid to tell the truth about where he comes from.

The Age of Immunology better highlights the individual personalities and nationalities that inform the group’s unique alchemy.

Few people would dream up an album as endearingly obtuse and gleefully dysfunctional as Yellow, let alone have the skill to realize it.

There’s so much musical and personal inspiration colliding at once, you can feel the passion even when you can’t quite crack it all.

More than a side project or a solo moniker now, Is It Going to Get Any Deeper Than This? joyfully cements the Soft Pink Truth’s era as a band—and one that throws a hell of a party.

trip9love…??? is tender as a bruise, the kind of bruise you press down on now and again, just to confirm that it still hurts—and to take secret pleasure in the ache.

Memorable tunes and unforgettable phrases erupt like brush fire over the course of 47 minutes, the mood migrating at a moment’s notice from insouciant nihilism to full-blown rage to radical empathy.

While there are a few selection missteps overall, the first disc in particular makes for a great initiation to the Radio Dept.'s previous work. And that there is the opportunity to re-introduce this long undervalued band is something to cheer in itself.

Brisk, 47-minute runtime aside, Post Self is a daunting listen, as well as an essential one, even by Godflesh’s sterling standards.

As tempting as it is to imagine Baker fully unleashing in one direction or another, the studiously crafted messiness captured here still feels like a compelling next step.

Coquelicot, like most Of Montreal albums, is at times sublime and lovely, at times infuriatingly catchy, at times simply infuriating, at times overly twee, and at times seriously fucking scary. What sets this record apart from its predecessors, though, is a level of intricacy and detail that Of Montreal have never previously attained as a band.

They're still doing what they've always done, but Fantasy Empire is the best they've done it in a long time, and the new sheen makes everything seem magic again.

Like Punken before it, Brandon Banks is a major leap in craft and style as well as refinement of his self-image.

It’s an accomplished record that, given the variety of Jordana’s catalog, feels short on surprises; having mastered the nuances of production and songwriting, she’s still finding ways to make her voice ring clear. Yet her melodies are dynamic, her ballads immune to adolescent melodrama: the toughest hurdles are behind her.

There’s nothing reserved, nothing toned-down about this record. Though she seldom sings above her speaking register, it’s the proverbial strength of Shygirl’s voice that gives Nymph its undeniable power.

Fascinating as it is to hear the full text of these articles aloud, the prose doesn’t have quite the same supple musicality as previous Richter sources like Franz Kafka’s journals or the letters of Virginia Woolf. After a few times through, the primary text of Voices starts to take on the rigidity of an employee conduct handbook from HR.

The album is her most accomplished, arresting work yet.

“Denver” drags on for six relatively static minutes, while the limp synth pop of “Athens at Night” never quite matches the wooziness of its imagery. Fortunately, Milk for Flowers’ third act is its richest.

Abrams’ music moves through time gracefully, adjusting to the demands of when and where it is performed, and who’s involved. The awe that his music channels lies in its grasp of mutability, tracking subtle changes in repeating patterns—whether from moment to moment or year to year.

More than any previous Spiritualized album, however, And Nothing Hurt feels like a mere set of songs, an accessible group of tunes that may be painstakingly constructed but are only casually connected.

As Days Get Dark embraces the old misery-loves-company adage by wrapping Moffat’s wounded words in Arab Strap’s most accessible and near-danceable songs to date.

Alive and inspired, WARM is a different type of reinvention--as daring as Wilco’s early landmarks but more subtle and sustainable. He’s not trying to break your heart. He just is.

Cloaked in reverb and atmospheric keys, it doesn’t quite bite, but it does gnaw. Even in his new role as free-jazz bandleader, Taylor’s work is strongest when left unresolved.

Though there are pockets of brightness, the melancholy of Kenny Segal’s “contraband” and Child Actor’s “phone screen” are Neighborhood Gods’ prevailing mood. .... On this album’s paralyzing second half, he slips in and out of sometimes wildly disparate vocal modes to communicate that flickering dread. When he recounts a dream about a seemingly omniscient baby, he does so in a regimented syllable pattern that feels, uncannily, like a downward spiral.

Vesper Sparrow, Ellis’ follow-up, is more focused but just as deep, a prose poem rather than a dissertation.

As immersive and deep as the lake around which it revolves, Meshes of Voice adds a new dimension to the output of both its makers.

Aaron Dessner helps Laufey change wardrobe (on “Castle in Hollywood” and “A Cautionary Tale”) to lean into less mannered storytelling. But formal dress suits her best, at least on this set, which is the fullest expression of the Cinemascope songcraft that’s got her selling out arenas.

Rossen brings to this EP the meticulous craftsmanship we've come to expect from his work, but in Silent Hour he's created something rare: a rendering of isolation that feels sincere but never maudlin.

Some of Banks' best lines are elegantly self-aggrandizing and enemy-deflating, but she's just as capable of executing those moves in more straightforward terms.

It's true that destruction can be an act of creation, but the same goes the other way around: In building, Villalobos, with his big ideas and cheerful disposition, tears down.

Light Up Gold finds Parquet Courts looking to breakout through any available means: intense reflection, resin hits, or rock'n'roll.

Single lines don’t really stand out, but Morby’s commitment to such elemental concerns has a cumulative effect, and the album’s lack of specificity becomes a strength. That confidence extends to musical choices, including Morby’s tendency to let the small details of the sound do the work.

The recordings on One Hand Clapping are appealingly raw and in-your-face intimate, making the listener feel like the sole ticket-winner to a private Macca soundstage performance.

Alternately atmospheric and gut-punching, Demilitarize embodies these contradictions for a record even more searing—but also touching—than its civil war-inspired predecessor.

No One Was Driving the Car is an inspired departure from interpersonal drama in favor of incisive critique, a confident step forward into an uncertain world.

Course in Fable bears the ripe fruit of this impulse, cohering into the most impressive of many surprising recent triumphs from an artist who’s faced down oblivion and has emerged more inspired than ever.

Redd Kross is a hit parade that perpetually walks the tightrope between the McDonalds’ pristine melodic craft and their innate garage-band insolence.

These aren't 11 songs so much as 12 blood-riling arguments.

Invisible Cities serves as something of a breath-catching moment for a band that's taken a giant leap on each of its albums, bringing some of the thunder back while further elaborating on the progress made on Ghost Rock.

Before the Dawn demystifies what we’ve fetishized in her absence. Without draining her magic, it lets Bush exist back down on Earth.

Flower Boy shows thoughtfulness can be freeing. As Tyler, the Creator embarks on a journey of self-discovery, he becomes close to whole.

Eustis dances between revealing and concealing, admission and denial, and that tension animates the record from within: emotional whiplash as the engine of life. In this, the album plays out very much like the sweep of grief itself.

Nothing here is going to replace “Boys in the Better Land” in the alternative disco pantheon—but Chatten has made a bold claim here as a folk auteur, whose classical songwriting and tender, veracious touch resonates now and into the past.

What’s Your 20? is for the neophytes--it’s a very reasonable place to start for future generations facing down Wilco’s full catalog on Spotify.

These sublime ensemble recordings reflect not just the result but the process of deep enlightenment. Coltrane, performing with ashram members, illuminates Hindu devotionals with meditative Indian instrumentation, a sparkling Oberheim OB-8 synthesizer, droning Wurlitzer lines, and full-bodied singing evoking the Detroit church choirs of her youth.

[A] collection of seven gorgeous, baroque-folk songs.

Though Duffy’s voice and sensibility guide the record, the fingerprints of their musical community are all over Blue Reminder, including (among others) Uhlmann on guitar, bass, and percussion; Perfume Genius’ Alan Wyffels on piano, Wurlitzer, and flute; producer Blake Mills on organ and guitar. Together, the band shapeshifts across a range of sounds.

A charming batch of stripped-down rock songs that isn't as fully realized or inventive as last year's Guerrilla, but still makes a damned enjoyable listen.

Many slower outfits-- Low, American Music Club, Codeine, et al.-- are sometimes pinned with the theory that if you've heard one of their albums, you've heard them all. Such is no longer the case with the Red House Painters.

Sometimes bludgeoning, always regal, Blue Cathedral is a calcified, hippified holy place.

In short, it's fun and functional, yet disposable.

It continues Björk's run of releases that sound nothing like their predecessors, yet is, as ever, particular to her.

The lyrics are elusive at first, darting behind fast-moving songs and delivered in impressionistic, conversational bursts that recall the delivery of Joni Mitchell. But the fearless generosity behind them communicates itself loud and clear, and it's a spirit that animates the entire album. With it, Spalding has once again redefined an already singular career, dictating a vision entirely on her own terms.

Shygirl’s voice carries a bit more over the muck; the production is bolder and more focused, like throwing a sharpened knife at a wall rather than a smattering of darts.

There’s constant movement here, and while everything is lovely, nothing lingers too long or lends itself to stasis.

Oldham long sounded like he had wisdom to share, and he sometimes did. Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You overflows with it.