This Is a Photograph succeeds not because of its nostalgic freight but in spite of it, and Morby’s dialogues with the living, not the dead, are when he speaks most clearly.

These tracks are plenty muscular, but there’s no bulge, no bloat. They’re as sculpted as the six-pack on a plastic superhero costume.

Without being told how to feel, one can simply feel; the music meets you where you are.

The stumbles keep Heart on My Sleeve from being truly exceptional, but Mai’s sumptuous voice and attention to detail make it a beguiling delight.

Un Verano Sin Ti is a cohesively packaged voyage through the various sounds synonymous with the Caribbean region—reggaetón, reggae, bomba, Dominican dembow, Dominican mambo, and bachata, among others.

Despite all its aggrieved poses and statements, the often astonishing rapping, the fastidious attention to detail, and its theme of self-affirmation, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers ironically never settles on a portrait of Kendrick.

They’re the sort of tunes that the Keys can pull off with ease, as satisfying as a perfectly tossed curveball landing in a beaten-up catcher’s mitt. But they also make you wish the Keys didn't spend the rest of Dropout Boogie lobbing underhand pitches right down the middle of the plate.

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

At no point does Headful of Sugar come off as cynical, though the central premise falls apart under the slightest bit of scrutiny: This is a largely beloved, well-connected, and unabashedly accessible rock band trying to be convincing as the voice of outcasts obeying their most reckless impulses.

A Light for Attracting Attention sounds more like a proper Radiohead album than any of the numerous side projects the band’s members have done on their own. ... The Smile spotlights the creative relationship between Yorke and Greenwood like never before.

Although Sigrid sings each line as if it’s eye-openingly profound, anyone looking for depth on How to Let Go will quickly find themselves in the shallow end.

On Spell 31, they rework their signature layered spirituals into fleet grooves that shimmer with color and joy yet still channel pain and loss.

Musically, it’s unfulfilling, lacking standout melodies or exciting rhythms. The sound of Come Home the Kids Miss You, in turn, is about as sophisticated and interesting as a Daniel Arsham sculpture, neat at a glance but vapid upon any extended interrogation.

There are few moments across No Fear that feel immediate, timely, or necessary, and their sense of urgency has dulled. For all the hype, fans deserved something better than just good enough.

They’re more interested in making a lovable rock’n’roll record than a pointed political statement, even though at its best Endless Rooms happens to be both.

We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong is a raging bonfire, and although its scale is monumental, it boasts a revealing depth of field, every dramatic arc finely detailed.

They’ve still got it: Murdoch’s droll reflections on youthful bliss are heightened by a flitting violin and a heavenly little bridge that flies high with a trumpet and Sarah Martin’s topline vocals.

The album’s best hooks feature Bartle duetting with Okereke, a new trick in Bloc Party’s repertoire. These strengths are even more frustrating because they reveal an alternative path to the binary rut in which this band has been stuck for 10 years.

Omnium Gatherum proves King Gizzard still have a whole lot of it left in the tank.

To their credit, they mostly remember in the second half of the record, where the songs become more modest and refined, the writing more confident and precise.

Mahal is as fastidiously layered as the rest of Toro y Moi’s style-shifting discography, but Bear leaves the edges rough, connecting the tracks with radio tuning noises and relishing in unvarnished instrumental expression.

The fearsome symmetry and formidable concision Owens attempts here is a high-risk, high-reward strategy, and while the first half of the album comes on strong, the second half is a little more prone to interrupting itself.

blue water road is Kehlani’s most mature album, as well as their most musically and thematically challenging.

The best songs on Profound Mysteries operate within those comfort zones [midtempo, instrumental tracks], making it more of a return to form than even The Inevitable End, but Röyksopp still trip themselves up.

These songs are bolder and more brutal, less interested in florid wording or oblique metaphor; they express feelings of alienation and self-loathing with discomfiting clarity.

His latest album I Never Liked You—the title sounds like a breakup note passed in the back of a middle-school classroom—has the ingredients of a really good Future album but lacks the depth of one. It plays it safe by continuing to lean too hard on the schtick.

Despite real moments of fun, the project ends up feeling shy of its influences, stopping short of a full buy-in.

Some songs bleed into each other, but the album also has gaps between many of its tracks, making it feel like a more traditional rock album than an experiment in fusing genres. Two of its best cuts together feel like one evolving piece.

Two Ribbons retains all of the light-hearted surreality that made their first two records so bewitching, but out of necessity, the songwriting is braver.

Vulnerability has powered Tomberlin’s music for years, and “Collect Caller” aside, these songs are sweeter and more inviting than anything she’s done before.

It’s a scattershot travelogue, idealized and hopeful, bright with giddy pleasures, welled tears, and some of her best-ever songwriting.

Digga’s self-belief and willingness to raise a middle finger were never in doubt. As he continues to test and flex his talents, his path forward will only become clearer—no matter who’s looking over his shoulder.

In its gentle violence, for you who are the wronged functions like a kind of sweet and delicate surgery. Joseph lovingly lulls you into anesthesia while prodding at your most vital pain, and then delivering you back to yourself: poison extracted, powerful, clean.

Though his words reach for darker emotional valences, the album’s most honest moments come across in Carey’s compositions.

The solid foundation of moody songcraft on their two LPs is ripe for development. Shaking their minimalist DIY ethos in favor of more lavish impulses may be just what Jeanines need to truly transcend their influences.

There’s a lot going on at high volume, each track barreling into the next with minimal interruption, and the longest reprieve comprises two minutes of droning strings on “Wall Facer,” just before the album ends. ... Blood Karaoke is no less exhausting an experience, albeit far less addictive, and though the sheer volume of content makes it a consistently interesting listen.

The record’s complexity reveals itself over several listens, its slow-motion quietude opening up into a not-quite-happiness; what might be described as flow, or else, focus.

As a whole, Trendsetter is too wide-ranging and unfocused to scan as the proper debut she aspires for it to be. But when she does lock in, her mission couldn’t be clearer.

She could have ventured further afield with the covers, as she did with Dig in Deep’s sly take on INXS’ “Need You Tonight.” Still, she sounds good, she plays better, and her band, co-led by longtime foil George Marinelli, simmers.

Her tracks might be improvised or labored upon. They feel both sui generis and tossed off. You can hear her hand, and it makes you wonder, and in that way her recordings are empathy machines. They warm and flatter as they fill the air around you, silk scarves just out of reach.

Cry Mfer is expectedly eclectic, hurdling between indie folk, electro-pop, and one piano ballad for good measure—while the differences may feel jarring, the common thread is Konigsberg and Amos’ unflappable chemistry, and their willingness to put even some of the most difficult sentiments to tape.

It’s a musically varied and vocally impressive effort from an artist who continues to cut extraneous elements out of his songwriting, drilling closer to the core of his style.

It’s cinematic music, driven by sprawling harmonies and fluid motion. Rather than dreaming of the future, these nostalgic pieces feel as if they’re looking back at the past, taking in a bird’s eye view of the change that occurs throughout life.

You could take issue with Spiritualized for sticking so closely to the blueprint they inaugurated more than 30 years ago. But the band always felt built for repetition and refinement, a cosmic home for Jason Pierce to grow comfortably old, away from an ever-changing musical world.

At its best, Giving the World Away locates the edge between noise and melody, carving out a pop core amid seemingly structureless arrangements. ... Occasionally, the deluge of instrumentation grates. ... Despite its flaws, Giving the World Away marks an exciting evolution for Hatchie.

The real triumph of Skinty Fia is that Fontaines D.C.’s most musically adventurous and demanding album to date is also its most open-hearted.

The album’s final stretch encapsulates its elaborate brilliance.

Rather than attempt to write jokey lyrics, as they did on Confident Music, Stephenson and Moore are more content just to vibe out, with far more engaging results.

Whatever the Weather dazzles by pulling you towards them with the gentle confidence of an outstretched hand.

With its amalgam of genres, tones, and tastes, Ivory goes beyond thinking outside the box: It’s as if the box were never even there to begin with.

The group is at its best when it balances excess and exuberance, when its sparse snippets of quiet feel like clarity, not compromise.

Together also continues to emphasize the newfound clarity and purpose in Duster’s arrangements and production. There are still fresh experiments—like the kosmische synth swells that open “Escalator”—but this record is largely a refinement of the band’s sprawling, slow-paced sound, giving a little focus and momentum to their once-opaque instrumentals.

The deeper Vile gets into his career, the more his creative process seems to blend with the results.

These songs are great showcases for the group’s range. Though they seem to have settled squarely in the neon haze of the dancefloor, they’re more truly in their wheelhouse in these mellower moments. Sequencing, though, is a problem. Too often, the record plummets from a sugary adrenaline high to a last-call ballad.

It might not meet the extremely high bar set by his best work, but it’s almost certainly him at his most emotionally vulnerable.

The Line Is a Curve functions as a therapeutic exercise in resilience and repetition.

A capable vocalist with a lightly nasal tone and a dramatic streak, Cabello rarely misses an opportunity to riff or sail into her wispy head voice. But her spoken delivery can be just as captivating.

Besides a handful of catchy verses, though, there aren’t enough standout moments on B.I.B.L.E.

Broken Hearts Club doesn’t stray far from that warm atmosphere, but Syd still makes time for the occasional detour.

Turn It On! plays to their strengths.

Valentine pours a generous splash of funk into the homebrewed elixir, offering one of his most accessible entry points in years.

It remains a fascinatingly ambivalent note to finish on for one of the most influential indie rock bands of their era, and this reissue, while not necessarily better than the original 1999 release, provides enough context to understand its odd bathos in a new way. It was the album that brought Pavement full circle: dressed for success, but never quite sure if they wanted the job.

Their debut doesn’t skimp on outlining the horrors of being a youngish woman—but its giddy, wild-eyed pleasures are also a testament to creating your own reality to survive.

It can feel like Misty is in danger of spinning out, but for most of the album, what’s so impressive is the subtlety of his control. The band—including frequent collaborators Drew Erickson and Jonathan Wilson, plus a string quartet and eleven orchestra members—play with silvery poise and high drama. The characters may be odious and dissolute, but the way Misty sings about them is delightful.

When the production is as over the top as Peck himself, it can be easy to excuse—if not quite ignore—these affectations, but whenever he’s relatively unadorned, as on “Let Me Drown” and “City of Gold,” his unsteady, amelodic quaver is difficult to ignore. All these tics were on Pony, too, yet there they added to the charm. Here, as part of a grander spectacle, they become a distraction—a nagging element that keeps Bronco feeling earthbound.

Beyond emotional acuity, the Linda Lindas also understand the power of a great hook. Arriving at under 30 minutes, Growing Up moves at a tight, bouncy clip, pogoing between power pop and punk, political statements and tributes to cats.

Fear of the Dawn is fucking weird: not obligatorily weird or try-hard weird, but genuinely, imaginatively weird.

In the past, Rossen has tended toward cryptic minimalism, but emotional honesty suits him. The warmth of his voice counterbalances the darker moments he recounts.

Leave the Light On often considers the toll of living up to expectations, in romantic, platonic, and societal terms. Unfortunately, you also sometimes get the sense of it with regards to following up a beloved album, with the band revealing a new inclination toward gravitas that smothers some of their fire.

It can feel staged at times, even a little stiff. Still, it’s a powerful showcase for his guitar work, his singing, and his ministry.

Pick any song, and you’ll be rewarded with something painfully precise.

As it stands, Barbara feels like a meticulously carved treasure box to which one has lost the key—magnificent to behold, impossible to unlock.

Tickets to My Downfall was memorable for the way it treated pop-punk like a natural palette for his emotions, but this too often feels like a concept album about rock, a stodgy record that’s too busy using “real instruments” to do anything interesting with them.

These songs capture a big part of PUP’s talent: making music that captures the sentiment of depression yet never succumbs to its lethargy or listlessness.

Famously Alive is a beautiful mess of squelchy psych-pop—emphasis on pop—that feels in conversation with the band’s abrasive, dissonant past: As Guerilla Toss turn a new page musically, Carlson turns one of her own.

Spend enough time in it, and you will sense that intelligence, fleet and mysterious, moving just beneath the surface. Something is alive in their work, and it feels like it’s always rounding the next corner, just out of your reach.

Restraint, patience, trust: time and again they make GOLD sound like an incredibly wise record.

Unlimited Love is competent and comforting—its creators rarely try to grab your attention but never totally embarrass themselves either. (Well, maybe a little during the rap verses in “Poster Child.”)

It’s a testament to the band’s ambitions and execution peaking in lockstep that Diaspora Problems can be appreciated as both a fully visceral experience and a cerebral one.

That’s how Spring feels: a lot of planning, a shrug to finish. Like OK Human, this is a product of the pandemic. Unlike OK Human, it actually sounds like it.

Uplifting music can tend to grate rather than inspire, but Koffee hits a satisfying midpoint, free of didacticism and never forced; she’s simply inviting us into her world.

Running With the Hurricane is at its strongest when Camp Cope harness the swirling turmoil and ride it towards self-awareness.

Humble Quest lives up to its name: 11 lithe songs about love, work, and family, some great, some good, with a coherence and clarity that make it feel matter-of-factly masterful.

On Melt My Eyez See Your Future, Curry again retools his sound, trading livewire energy for introspection and vulnerability. The album lacks the vividness of his past releases, but its concept offers a glimpse into Curry’s roving mind.

Working within a framework isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but there are cracks in the formula. Mostly on the production side, which is incredibly played out. ... Still, even with the stale sound of the album, Durk is such a complex and colorful writer that it’s worth it to stick it out.

The sound of Warm Chris is sparse and oblique, and trying to anchor yourself in Harding’s lyrics can feel like organizing a narrative from the shape of passing clouds. But that’s also where its brilliance lies, what makes this some of Harding’s best songwriting yet.

The contemporary energies thrumming along the music’s surface highlight the deep connections the record effortlessly draws—a series of starbursts connecting William Onyeabor to Gloria Estefan to Loose Joints to Grace Jones to a beat that picked up before recorded history begins, somewhere in West Africa, and never stopped.

Labyrinthitis delights in rupturing the elegance of its own facade.

Sonic Youth were always a very social band—supporting fellow musicians, self-releasing records with fans in mind, and generally making people feel part of an informal club that the four members provided a soundtrack for. In that sense, In/Out/In is as Sonic Youth as it gets.

Forever misses some of Ventilation’s bite, even if the gentler tones are fitting given the new album’s themes.

From a carefully selected set of softly rounded shapes and muted tonal choices, Villain wrangles a surprisingly varied selection of instrumental tracks that flow together like the interconnected parts of a suite. All seven songs are shot through with an abiding sense of mystery.

This World Is Going to Ruin You cannot simply be pegged as a lateral move or a leveling up: It explodes Vein.fm’s sound into seemingly dozens of different directions.

A brief and blistering collection that finds their dark arts at full power.

Sonescent slips between Reynols’ brilliant Blank Tapes, where you imagine musical shapes coming from re-recorded sleice, and Ned Lagin’s immersive Seastones series, where there’s so much music you have to tease out the hidden figures.

The Great Regression has fun pointing out the world’s contradictions, subverting its vulgarity, questioning its systems. At its peaks, it feels like an antidote for the ennui of ceaseless catastrophe.

If Frank represents a culminating moment for Fly Anakin, instead of just another brick in his discography, he finds subtle ways to show us.

It feels rare to hear an album that’s so experimental, that aspires to stretch itself out across genres and play with form, and that attains exactly what it sets out to achieve.

Continuance isn’t an overhaul of the blueprint established on Covert and Carrollton, nor is it straight-faced fan service. It’s a space for two rap veterans who are comfortable enough with their chemistry to continue prodding at their margins.