Don't just judge it as an album by a band coming off a major line-up change. You won't need to.

Its stylized, specific, and unflinching sound roars with a singular menace, at once terrifying and captivating.

This reissue of Peace Sells, celebrating a quarter century of Megadeth's second but first truly great album, is probably more a sop to those diehards than anything else, but if it turns one curious party into a convert then it's worth it, even in this time of bald cash-grab reissue ugliness.

Each of the six tracks generates a be-here-now flash of present-tense psychedelia, hallucinations by way of overtones and volume.

Just as this band once broke the rules of hardcore, they have also reinvented the concept album, transforming the most indulgent exercise in the classic-rock playbook into an egalitarian, community endeavor.

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.

Shadows of doubt give the album its quaint, mercurial feel, deepening Lenae’s quest for understanding. Bird’s Eye situates her as a consummate thrill-seeker with limitless curiosity, restricted only by the uncertainties in her own mind.

Migratory balances this restlessness with an equanimous serenity unruffled by the gales, confident that Fujita’s scrupulous hand will catch the next updraft.

It's tempting to think of Art Brut as the foreign replacement for the catchy/clever observances Weezer used to traffic.

Grinderman may be intended as a somewhat goofy reassertion of punk vigor and virility, but the disc is no laughing matter.

Choral sometimes feels staid and a little postcard-y: a pretty gesture that fails to eclipse the experience of actually going somewhere.

The message is encoded into every note: If Anohni's music can manifest into something new, then perhaps we can. There is risk involved with moving from a timeless sound towards one that attempts to capture a moment, but without risk art is worthless.

Even before “Drugged Vinegar” breaks down into a round of rapturous applause, How Ill has already succumbed to and recovered from its own cleverness many times. But the album is never just clever.

Let God Sort Em Out coasts on the history they share with each other and with us, settling for good enough.

P2 shows a man who is patient and relentless in honing his craft, getting closer to the debut with each track.

Unlike many similar compilations, the album fits seamlessly into Molina’s existing canon—his work already blurs the line between “impulse” and “finished track.” And where his official albums tend to focus on a specific aesthetic, Songs From San Mateo County touches on every style he’s explored, making it the ideal entry point.

Segal comes from underground hip-hop and Booker from retro-leaning rock’n’roll, but LOWER doesn’t sound like any of those genres’ past collisions. Instead, it takes the basic textures of rap rock—boom-bap beats, Deftones’ icy ambiance, the corroded shredding of “She Watch Channel Zero?!”—and fashions them into a new strain of beat-centric grunge.

There’s something in the way the Comet Is Coming skewers the typical jazz trio that stands apart from his other projects. Its surface speaks to the cosmic sounds of Sun Ra, but there’s something raw and earthy at the core.

Although a couple of songs get samey, Expert is relentlessly invigorating and grounded by the clarity of Stokes’ writing.

Her third album in five years, İstikrarlı Hayal Hakikattir crackles with a live energy that stems from the 18 months of touring following its predecessor, 2016’s Hologram Ĭmparatorluğu. Producing the album with longtime guitarist Ali Güçlü Şimşek, Su Akyol is in firm command of her powers, adding a few more electronic textures to push to new heights.

Regresa maintains their brand of tropical synth pop, but while their first records could be cheeky, poking fun at Latino machismo, this LP probes deeper questions of life and identity.

You have to have the grit to handle some vulgarity to even begin the job of really remembering. In Jazz Codes’ promiscuity, Moor Mother plots an escape from the oppressive confines of institutional memory.

Good Lies toes a fine and, yes, functional, balance. There’s beauty in all this precision too—like an Eames chair, a perfectly weighted spoon, or the cone of a 15-inch subwoofer pushing air out of the bass scoops.

At 70 minutes, Black Noise is a big, dense listen but also the kind of album that rewards investment.

The trick is to cede the idea that Franz Ferdinand are meant to deliver the cohesive, moving, traditional Statement Albums their debut may have misled listeners to expect. Some people-- earnest people, like Bloc Party, Sufjan Stevens, and the Arcade Fire-- will go on trying to fill that niche. Franz Ferdinand, though, aren't going to do that, and good on them: We can only hope they'll go on offering us cheeky, energetic surprises.

Eyes & Nines could've come out at any point in at least the past 15 years, so if you're looking for innovation, look elsewhere. But for those of us who had formative, life-changing experiences screaming in our friends' faces in wood-paneled basements or tiled VFW Halls while bands like bands like Pageninetynine or Milhouse played, it's a real treat.

Basically, this is exciting, skilled, fist-pumping, true-to-life stuff made by good-seeming guys who, in the end, aren't afraid to laugh, goof around, or make fun of themselves.

The overall strength of Under Color of Official Right doesn't come from its big words, Detroit cred, or works-cited page; it's from lyrics that, while fraught with symbolism, feel emotionally resonant and, sometimes, viscerally unpleasant.

An album by turns beautiful and possessed, by others raucous and fiery.

How could the scene that gave us 1999 and Control have such an underknown history where its pre-eighties R&B roots are concerned? Thanks to the deep knowledge base and research that went into Numero Group's Purple Snow compilation, it's made clear just why that is--and why, in a fairer world, it shouldn't have been the case.

SVIIB is not only the group’s most technically accomplished work, their perfected swan song--it feels true.

Electric Messiah leans more on the Sabbath side of Pike’s patented MotörSabbath blend, suggesting that Sleep’s renewal is rubbing off on him.

It is a mystical, distinctive work that nearly lives up to all the lore surrounding the rapper.

Magnetic Fields-like numbers 'Winter' and 'Undeclared' seem vanilla by comparison to some, but by making room for both, Visiter ends up being one of the most welcoming (and welcome) records of 2008 so far.

This album sounds every bit as absurd, chaotic, and exhilarating as it did 14 years ago.

His mixing is never ostentatious, but it generally emphasizes action. It’s rare that a song is left to play out unaccompanied; far more often, he’s got two and even three tracks running in parallel, resulting in a dynamic, shape-shifting fusion that’s far more than the sum of its parts.

For the most part, it’s compulsively listenable, oddly moving, and stranger than it first appears, as the band gets existential on the dance floor.

This new album is in line with what fans of the band’s more recent (as in, post-2006) material have come to expect, but with a new twist—namely, the outsized impact that traditional doom bands like Candlemass and Solitude Aeturnus seem to have had on the songwriting. Darkthrone still stand firmly in the heavy metal (with a dash of punk) camp, but they’ve definitely got a soft spot for old-school gloom.

Where Heat introduced warmth to Atobe’s music, Yes has made it smooth.

Colored by the Alchemist’s palette, Haram offers another perspective of New York City’s hard heart, rooted in ruminations on power and how it’s wielded. These are the spiritual descendants of Def Jux, rappers that not only embrace the darkness, but wear it as a protective cloak.

In the same way the band’s first records felt like off-kilter interpretations of, say, King Tubby and krautrock, these new ones recast, not retread, what we’ve already heard. Seefeel have still got it, and are still finding new things to do with it.

Next to Fountain Baby’s splashy bombast, Amaarae’s embrace of tension and restraint is both audacious and inspired.

The Mirror is more about fresh adornments than drastic reinvention. And that’s OK because the album still showcases many of the best qualities Meek has been pursuing outside of his main band.

Present within these songs are grace and generosity--two words I could not imagine summoning to describe Father John Misty’s music a year ago.

Their portentous crescendos and surges of Jewish klezmer music set the pace, making post-rock sound improbably carnivalesque. That none of their experiments feel gimmicky speaks to a diverse and inquisitive musicianship.

The residue of death that lingers on I'm New Here is wiped clean from We're New Here. It's replaced with brightness, an energy, and a historical milieu.

Costello fans will find many delights in The Boy Named If. For one, his 32nd studio album sounds smashing. Sebastian Krys’ mix stresses the textures of acoustic instruments without walloping listeners; Costello’s guitar, as restless as a child at a symphony even on solid albums like When I Was Cruel and Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, burrows right between Faragher’s bass and Nieve’s keyboards, enunciating hook after hook.

Oddly, at times it seems like Darnielle works more movingly and astutely when he's inventing his tales rather than partaking in personal anecdote and/or trauma.

Outer Heaven's heightened ambitions are best measured in terms of density rather than sprawl: the most bracing songs here pack in more radiant guitar textures, a greater lyrical depth, and sharper hooks without sacrificing Greys' innate moshability and punk-schooled economy.

Arpo refines and then traipses further afield than anything else in his discography.

Folky and pastoral, with recorder solos and mandolin excursions and proggy journeys-in-song, Forever Howlong is as ambitious as anything this band has done.

Gone is the chipper ukulele of w h o k i l l and BiRd-BrAiNs; Nikki Nack signifies maturity while still allowing room for Garbus to do zany things.

Jarak Qaribak is a rich, fascinating case of music both carrying history and shaping the future, redrawing the limits of the possible in specific, limited, yet meaningful ways.

The result is worthwhile: Poetry still pulses like summer, but Dehd sounds more cohesive than ever.

The shifts within and between tracks lend Deface the Currency a sense of perpetual surprise: Even after its contours become familiar, the particulars of the improvisation remain lively and kinetic.

It’s taut but it’s also a shambles; cramped and ready to rupture with the despair of five unruly lads.

After the debut’s big bang, Wall of Eyes connects the particles into somewhere you, and perhaps these restless musicians, might like to make a home.

Soused is compelling, almost inherently so, but it’s not a classic.

If the additions are what make this record distinctive, what's left out is what makes it brilliant.

Despite a few trite lyrics, there are many transcendent moments on Heaven. Sol is able to pivot between multiple emotional states—gratitude, calm, yearning—within the space of a single vocal run, like on album standout, “Heaven.”

Royal Headache have taken steps forward since their last album--they’ve cleaned up their production and diversified their songwriting. Ultimately, though, the important bits are intact: the passion, the power, and the hooks that demand being shouted joyfully.

The music is poignant and meticulously arranged, and all you have to do is surrender to it. It helps that the engineering of ¡Ay! is pristine, often evoking a smoky, afterhours lounge, the kind you might find in a spy film from the 1940s. At times, it is so vivid and immersive that it feels as if Dalt is singing directly in your ear.

Somewhere between King Tubby and King Buzzo, Machine may not have the irresistible grooves of 2003’s Pressure or the political resonance of 2008’s landmark London Zoo, but—by thudding leaps and earthquaking bounds—is easily the heaviest, ugliest, paint-peelingest record in an already seismic discography.

It is a profoundly lonely place, this album, and it would be unbearably cynical were it not for the moments of sublimity rustling through its sneers.

The members of the 1975 began playing together in their teens as an emo band, and they are still interested in wringing out unadulterated feeling from everything they touch. This is the thread that grounds even their most dubious dabblings, and makes their dilettantism amount to more than a series of stunts.

On Farm to Table, he’s saying many of the same things he said on Live Forever, but more with his chest, with his feet planted even further apart, his gaze more level with ours.

At times the songs can sound cold, as though they want to keep their distance, refusing to shed any armor. Although this could be a handicap on other albums, it only serves to makes Carboniferous more intriguing.

Cohen is a genially commanding stage presence, falling on his knees at crucial moments and doffing his cap for his accompanists' solo turns. The Old Ideas songs, sprinkled throughout the set at just the right intervals, are naturally at home, capped with the wry God-speaking-to-a-man-named-Leonard "Going Home". Otherwise, the songs you know and plenty of songs you should know better are probably here.

The album is also a quiet showcase for her melodic imagination.

Shura is at her most convincing, and her most alive, when she’s fully embodying her own experience rather than narrating someone else’s.

Deerhoof are at both their most whimsical and most energetically approachable on Miracle-Level.

Fear of Men are likely never going to shred riotously, blow up their gear, or even raise their voices to anything resembling a scream--they simply aren’t that kind of band--but here’s hoping that all that well-considered vitriol in Weiss’ lyrics might eventually bleed over into their music.

As a whole, We Are KING is seamless: It properly showcases the group's breezy aesthetic and has the feel-good creativity of black music's great luminaries.

At their best, Szun Waves jams come as swells, with a power that is hard to dismiss, regardless if you can see their intentions from a click away.

This is heavy stuff, but Ahmed’s wry wit and laser-focused delivery ensures that it doesn’t feel overwrought.

He continues to split duties on keyboards, guitars, bass, and drum programming with longtime producing partners Daoud and daedaePIVOT, and at its best, the music splits the difference between carefree and careworn.

What a Time to Be Alive’s rage feels visceral because of age and experience and exhaustion, not despite it.

Even at its most sophisticated, Seek Shelter retains Iceage’s restless spirit.

This version of Earth has simply given Carlson more room and more assistance to explore, well, darkness and light--in his own time, of course.

Throughout, Mr Twin Sister is every kind of luxury--it’s more pillowy and firm than the spindly, spiky dance-pop of their past, crystalline on the outside and glittery on the inside, a snowglobe of a Times Square celebration.

Bruun has sealed many of the foundational cracks in her compositions and owned the audacity of the project and the form at large.

O’Connor’s a true eccentric, but O∆ has a universal appeal. The hooks are so intensely hooky that you can find yourself singing along to them without even knowing it.

She’s so versatile that it’s difficult to identify her musical ground zero. ... She’s the glue holding everything together—think a female Travis Scott, one who grew up worshipping Madonna and the Spice Girls instead of Drake and Kanye West. At the same time, the sheer intensity of every song on Clarity makes it tough to digest in one sitting.

It is one of the most intimate records in her catalog, and the entire band seems locked into the introspective intensity that marks her best songwriting.

Live Forever argues that life is not some march toward a peak, but a closed loop—one that’s tighter if you’re Black. The brilliance of Bartees’ debut is in how it carves out an expansive space within that loop.

Nothing in contemporary music sounds quite like it, yet it seems to have always been with us, hovering just outside the realm of possibility.

As a transitory release, Persona is the best of both worlds: just as ferocious and unrelenting, but with bolder production and deeper hooks.

Lianne La Havas streamlines her impulse to blend styles, while still taking the time to nod toward pioneers.

Even if the fusion initially seems unorthodox, LIVELOVEA$AP is exactly the sort of record you'd expect to hear in 2011 from a New Yorker who was 13 when "Big Pimpin'" came out.

There's a weight here that could drag you down if you let it, but mostly this is a band searching for hope amid shattered dreams.

Most of these pieces have a lot going on, designed for listeners who take pleasure in guiding their ear through each successive layer.

Sure, fans who swear by Skeletonwitch’s early work might take a while to warm up to anthems like “Temple of the Sun,” a tightly constructed barnstormer in which the band dares to toss clean-sung vocal harmonies into the mix, or “The Vault,” a Pallbearer-esque doom experiment that grows more blackened with each wailing note until its entire soundscape is torched to a crisp. And yet, even when their creative lodestar shifts its orbit, the Ohioans’ cornerstones remain intact: their virtuosic riffs, their robust production (once again courtesy of Converge guitarist and board wizard Kurt Ballou), their endearingly adversarial presence on-record--and, most of all, their diabolical joie de vivre.

Luck in the Valley is so vibrant, engaging, and alive, it's hard to overestimate it.

The music—bubbly, nebulous, free—seems to have a mind of its own.

Star Wars is their strongest record in a decade.

These 15 tracks were certainly worth the almost-decade-long wait.

Diaphanous of texture but heavy of spirit, Safe revolves upon this tension, the pressure point of a soul under strain.

Built mainly from Powell’s knotty acoustic guitar explorations and lyrical musings that feel like fragments from an exceptionally perceptive diary, it’s the most satisfying Land of Talk album yet.