For much of the record, Nas sounds like he’s trying too hard.

On Simian Angel, we get a glimpse of something new: something sensitive, probing, and even whimsical.

CHORDS is a strong, occasionally astonishing next step.

Dunn’s approach has remained so consistent across his career that the difference between this album and its predecessors is one of degree, not type, but it’s safe to say that From Here to Eternity plumbs newfound depths: There is a coppery burnish that was not there before, a tendency to float just beyond the bounds of our usual limits of musical perception.

Though not fully comprehensive or that musically far-reaching (due to its prioritization of African genres that have already experienced crossover success), the album still succeeds in introducing a whole new musical universe to the average American listener.

The riskier these covers get, the better they demonstrate what made Frightened Rabbit’s music compelling.

Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks gets a sparkling remaster and almost an album’s worth of okay-to-pretty-good new tracks.

By reimagining the weighty concept record as light, escapist entertainment, King’s Mouth is as strong a candidate as any for Baby’s First Prog Album.

Beyond a few other fleeting moments of experimentalism on ERYS—the second half of “K,” when the buzzing of an electric razor slowly morphs into a heaving trap beat, or “Fire Dept,” a decent ode to the fast and distorted energy of SoCal punk—it’s mostly a slog, the sound of an artist with a blurry vision and too many resources at his disposal.

Even in its moodboard looseness and nostalgia, Angel’s Pulse has all the charm and careful attention to detail of Blood Orange’s last two magnum opuses.

While she can’t always shake the anodyne songwriting that plagued her past work, it’s still her best album to date.

Ada Lea vacillates between timidity and aggression, are what make what we say in private so exciting. But it’s Levy’s willingness to wrestle with her own vulnerability that leads the album to its highest peaks.

At a time when some ambient music can feel like it’s drafted solely for inclusion on a “chill” playlist to anesthetize the overworked, Cantu-Ledesma’s explorations have been steering towards deeper waters. On Tracing Back the Radiance, his most profound work to date, he finds them.

Pop-metal, stoner rock, doom metal—whatever amalgam of buzzwords you favor, on Admission, Torche remain a reliable supplier of grizzled riffs to test the low end on your stereo. The stylistic guises don’t always fit, but that’s a function of the group’s creative restlessness.

Some songs miss the mark—“I Get What I Need”’s creeping, bluesy bassline proves awkward—but most of them work, if only because the band sounds like they’re truly putting their all into their melodies and riffs, rather than leaving the heavy lifting to distortion.

Few releases have been as baldly transparent and destined for ubiquity as No.6, which has all the conspicuous mining of a Drake album, but very little of the finesse or cultural fluency.

While there are flashes of wisdom on Case Study 01, there are also a handful of clunky moments when Caesar’s out of his depth. ... Like his contemporaries 6LACK and Brent Faiyaz, Caesar is clearly talented, but he’s got a lot of learning to do.

The strongest cuts on Con Todo El Mundo are also the standouts on Hasta El Cielo, where they’re run through the usual dub effects: echo, flange, drop-outs, and more.

The subject matter of Purple Mountains is grim, but he’s still David Berman, and he can still dazzle with the sheer beauty of his writing or wink at the camera to lighten the mood when necessary.

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.

Aguayo’s productions have frequently flashed a sly sense of humor, but the mood here is driven, focused, heads-down. His drum programming is as slinky as ever, but there’s a newfound force to it; his drums could double as battering rams.

It’s a record so precise as to be sensory, whose arrangements of harmonies, guitars, and lonesome trills are like the intake of breath before a faltering step.

The music carries within it the idea of form coming into being; it moves away from the freeform drift of her previous albums and glides toward a nascent kind of order.

With Stonechild, Jesca Hoop complicates centuries of feminized folk music by singing about the ugly, violent aspects of motherhood. Stillbirth, spousal abuse, sexism inherited from mother to daughter—all claim vignettes on this record of electro-folk, seeking, much like Love did, to render motherhood in fucking intense terms.

Throughout WARMER he downplays lyrics that a lesser songwriter would have mined for misery, but these songs are no less moving for that understatement. Sometimes it’s the heaviest sentiments that call for the lightest touch.

With its winking humor and percolating rhythms, Plantasia might turn away some human listeners, but there’s a sense of joy and possibility in songs like “Rhapsody in Green” and “A Mellow Mood for Maidenhair.” It’s hard not to smile at the oddball charm of this strange enterprise.

As it is, Bird Songs makes for lovely twilight listening, the kind of reflective and soothing album you play when nestled into a blanket on a porch with the people you love.

“Un Peso” captures the appeal of Oasis; frothy music made by serious talents. ... It’s goofy, but incredibly fun—a soundtrack for beach BBQs and ad hoc fire-hydrant water parks, summer vibes made manifest.

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.

Even at its most inexplicable, there’s not a moment on Dolphine that feels careless. As her imagination roams, Birgy understands that sometimes irrationality is necessary to make sense of reality.

With TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone on production, Islands polishes Durant’s sound to a resonant and gently rollicking gleam, brightened by dulcimer, guitar, brass, and woodwind. Durant’s songwriting is fine-boned and small-scale, and her lyrics are quietly epic.

Even when Mannequin Pussy venture to truly dark places, Patience is such a pure joy to listen to. In its biggest moments, Dabice’s raw edge is matched by equally colossal riffs, explosive energy, and surging momentum. Patience, is without a doubt, one of the year’s strongest punk rock records.

“Let’s Rock” is upfront about its meat-and-potatoes aspirations. This is an album by the Black Keys called “Let’s Rock.” It does.

Gou’s studied craftsmanship coalesces with her tastemaking abilities. It’s most meditative in its unwavering commitment to methodical bass. Gou has always appeared to have an old soul and with this endeavor, it’s on full display.

75 Dollar Bill slyly nudges you beyond the familiar, so that—no matter your record-nerd knowledge—you’ll wind up someplace new.

For Bandana, the pair taps into that heritage and allow themselves to be shaped by its highs and lows, its heroes and villains. Finding themselves within that slipstream of black thought and life, they plot their course on their terms. Bandana is tradition and transgression: one rapper, one producer, no limitations.

Burton sings about interior voyages and the tracks were usually constructed by no more than two musicians; it’s music made at home, for home listening. That’s all well and good, since the duo has considerable skill, but this existential lonerism underscores a chasm between the pair and their influences. Unlike the icons of the era they find so inspiring, Black Pumas rarely look outside of themselves.

It’s GoldLink’s ability to seem at home in any space that makes Diaspora so coherent, and so specific to him, despite pulling music from all over. He is the anchor.

It would do well as an introduction to the group for an unfamiliar listener, but doesn’t feel necessary by any means. If anything, Spirit comes across as more mood music by design, bespoke and undemanding, and it probably already has real estate on every bedroom-themed playlist on Spotify.

Late Night Feelings is not the first recent record to treat the sadness of women as a healthy response to all manner of hurt. It is, however, a worthy entry in this still-developing pop pantheon, authentic and honest in its rendering of many shades of feminine sorrow.

Dusk to Dawn has moments of real drama and surprise, as when a klaxon-like siren cuts sharply through interstellar glitter on Part III’s “Thoth,” or when the AI voice of “Solitude” poses the alarming question, “Why even wear a heart/When you could store it in a chest freezer?” But seemingly every interesting transformation is counterbalanced by slow changes, like the glacial “Indecision.”

Keepsake is an album filled with small, inspired moments like this, but they don’t add up to much. Sugary but hollow, Keepsake melts like cotton candy, dissolving on impact.

Here he and Godrich have perfected a sound of their own, one that doesn’t take Radiohead’s achievements as its primary unit of measurement.

The songs of Help Us Stranger often succeed only because they succeeded before, decades ago, as better songs.

Baroness convince their disparate influences to gel beautifully without lapsing into the homogeneity (or self-indulgent drudgery) that remains a common defect of long, proggy albums. The second half is noticeably quieter and spookier than the more bombastic first half, easing down gently into more melodic and even acoustic fare.

There’s a roominess to the music, a jovial looseness in its rhythmic complexity, and something like celebration in its exploration of these grave subjects. Nothing on here sounds rehearsed or calculated.

It is primordial and juvenile, dumb and clever, arch and true, and captures a band at that rare time before any self-conscious tones creep into their music. All the while, black midi discover what has been pioneered by countless bands before, and still present it as something entirely new.

A Productive Cough felt more like a genre exercise than a passion project, and that’s true of An Obelisk, too, except this time the genre is a far better fit.

Without the hooks of their previous albums, never mind those of their better-known bands, the songs on III take a while to sink in. In return for the slow approach, Bad Books offer a serious body of work that can stand on its own, a testament to the friendship that brought them together in the first place.

A 19-minute EP bookended with the Billy Ray Cyrus remix and the original version of “Old Town Road”--he opens himself up to the criticism that “Old Town Road” bypassed. Each new song on 7 is an attempt at stumbling into another lighthearted hit. ... For the entirety of 7, it’s unclear if Lil Nas X actually likes music.

There’s a fine line between escapist and naïve, though, and Nelson and company aren’t afraid to toe it. The extent to which listeners enjoy this record depends on how much they buy into the fantasy of Nelson and his famous pals clinking Coronas around the pool while the rest of the world goes to hell. If it feels a little hollow, well, that’s by design.

The profane marriage of old and new, big ugly riffs and shrieking noise, beauty and brutality seems like the clearest marker indicating where Full of Hell may intend to head next.

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.

Nighttime Stories plays like one seamless expression—its 50-minute runtime passes remarkably quickly—but it’s a statement heavy with meaning and memories.

Though the album doesn’t really step outside of neo-soul conventions, it is nevertheless as stirring and lifting as a memory-triggering scent.

Mustard and 03 Greedo make the most of each other’s talents; Greedo’s crooning and rapping melt into the plush spaces of Mustard’s sweltering cookout beats.

[“XanaX Damage” is] a flash of greatness bogged down by poor execution, which could stand as a theme for the EP as a whole.

Her pop exists to exploit and sand off edges, packaging esotericism for the masses. It’s just that on Madame X, she is not merely dining out on other cultures; she’s whipping around drive-thrus.

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

The album’s hypnotic quality grows ever more romantic and tense with repeat listens, a prescient-feeling experience that matches a zeitgeist: strung-out maintaining in the face of impending doom.

Comparing the two releases, it’s clear that Calexico and Iron & Wine have found a way over the years to leave a little more mystery in the words and let the music provide more of the clues.

Happiness Begins is by no means an extraordinary album, but it’s a respectable showing from a group that has long deserved more respect than they’ve received.

These avatars introduce a record that favors new sounds and perspectives—he often sings as a shadow or a visitor, giving credence to a recently revealed habit for crashing strangers’ funerals—but remains carefully rooted in his history.

A slight and unwaveringly safe 30 minutes, it goes down easier than anything the band has ever done, while making less of an impression.

This ungainly sprawl suits the Rolling Thunder Revue, which was meant not as a mere evening of entertainment but rather an immersive theatrical experience. ... The heart of the box sets lies in those five full concerts, all sharing the same basic momentum, all distinguished by passion. The vigor doesn’t belong to Dylan alone. The Guam band is unwieldy and enthusiastic, taking the time to let all their disparate voices mesh.

Shepherd feels like his most something album ever—his warmest, his most generous, possibly his most profound. It is his longest, for sure, lounging comfortably across four sides of vinyl, none of it wasted. It is a high note, fond and deep and sustained.

On a purely sonic level, TIM is an easy listen to a fault, but taking in this final artistic statement is more difficult when focusing on the lyrics. ... The effect of these [guest] contributors effectively recasting his personal sentiments over once-unfinished music is haunting in all the wrong ways.

Midnight is a growth spurt without the usual growing pains. Toledo contributes subtle handiwork throughout, but no studio trickery could replicate Chura’s intensity.

Even at their most rigorous, these compositions manage to hold the listener close—a bare but rewarding intimacy.

Sirens’ unrelenting nervous abstraction can be difficult to take over 14 songs, but perhaps that’s the point.

Widows’ Weeds contains little in the way of electrifying suspense or carefully-hidden, internalized trinkets—only empty gestures and lazy execution. Nearly 20 years into Silversun Pickups’ existence, we see them for what they are: a little big, a little brooding, but mostly boring.

Kempner has excelled at tracing anxiety, fear, and shame through expertly crafted rock songs, and there’s still plenty of those emotions throughout Black Friday. ... But on her third record, she also allows herself to experience pure joy, and what a treat it is to feel that euphoria along with her.

It offers a window onto the playfulness of his improvisations and, in a structure that mimics the range of an actual Prince album, shifts nimbly between up-tempo songs and ballads, sweat and tears, near impossible to stay sitting still while listening.

The gloriously mopey sound of new wave might be novel to Norrvide and Fischer, but there's not much here that stands out in synth-pop's always-crowded field. In a sense, that's fine; Lust for Youth wear this sound well. But Lust for Youth shows they might have escaped coldwave’s dead end only to settle into a rut.

Greys tear down everything they’ve ever known about making music, and piece it back together from the ragged-but-arresting wreckage. This dark incarnation of the band is one that their 2011 selves wouldn’t recognize—and they wear the change well.

For all its wholesome ingredients and folk-on-sleeve earnestness, Out of Sight settles into a space out of time, one immediately adjacent to our own, where perhaps the ancient magic hasn’t dissipated.

Zoospa’s musical elements feel cohesive, even as they bounce across genres and eras, often within the same song.

For a six-track EP, She Is Coming is remarkably repetitive, but it does manage a few OK spots.

There are few forces more powerful than the feeling of belonging. In creating his stunning Miami rap opus, Denzel Curry taps into that, demonstrating that he belongs among its most distinguished representatives in the process.

Fortunately, one song on the album is unhindered by Artaud’s ramblings: the only track that Smith wrote, “Ivry.” ... It is a moment of clarity on an otherwise foggy and disappointing record, and it leaves you feeling full of light and ease, at least for a moment.

Cooper has been tinkering with this record for years, and happily, it sounds like he spent much of that time paring it down. There’s no grandstanding in his playing, nothing inessential, nothing hidden in the fixed but flexible figures.

Speed is perhaps the point here; whereas 2017’s Strike a Match punctuated energetic pacing with more meandering tracks, Run Around the Sun barely stops for breath.

There is no grand thesis or groundbreaking concept on Boat, but Pip Blom provide a welcoming nook for spacing out.

Rainford marks a welcome return for an artist who for far too long had been rendered all but invisible behind his abstruse wit, esoteric demeanor, and all those mirrors.

As the album plays out with its series of sketches that flip between the trivial and contemplative, and as Skepta tussles to find his place in the world, you’re left wondering whether he craves the bliss of youthful innocence or the responsibility of being a voice for a generation. Unfortunately, Ignorance Is Bliss is a deferral, splitting the difference with a series of half-measures.

Forward motion makes So Full Upon Her Burning Lips more than just a return to a classic sound. There are enough surprises here that what could’ve been just a comfortable glance backward.

For an album whose highlight is a song about the urge to extend beyond the limits of your own experience and find solace in collective acceptance, it all feels surprisingly timid. Apollo XXI is centered on the interior self, but it’s not self-centered--it just seems a little weighed down by Lacy’s still-palpable reluctance to claim the spotlight his talents warrant.

On her debut album, There’s Always Glimmer, Margaret’s violent view of songwriting translates to 34 minutes of serene and perceptive storytelling.

4REAL 4REAL doesn’t quite reestablish YG as the album artist of My Krazy Life and Still Brazy, but what it lacks in a satisfying through line it makes up for in highlights.

Idiosyncratic yet understated, Atlanta Millionaires Club wraps in a little of everything without doing too much of anything.

Their version of the band has a lot less boogie but a lot more swamp, a lot more Frank Frazetta fantasy, a lot more majestic doom.

Instead of merely contrasting the tunefully heartfelt Barlow with the more erratic, irascible Loewenstein, the new album finds them mining common topical terrain—namely, the emotional toll of perpetually wading in a sea of misinformation—through their respective personalities.

Her music speaks loudest in its calmest moments, and Reward is an album most remarkable for how it fills its space.

Some of its songs are so intimate that their meanings seem all but impossible for an outsider to parse. But in the moments when he decides to push his music out into the light, Thorpe's self-searching takes on a shape we can all recognize.

When they play it safer, like on their workmanlike strum through Joni Mitchell’s “Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow” or the easy-listening wistfulness of their take on Roy Orbison’s “It’s Over,” the results are less remarkable. And while it’s a relief to be spared Morrissey’s bitterness, sometimes California Son feels too frothy, and he sounds like he doesn’t have any skin in the game at all.

While The Dots is awash in dimensional, multicolored compositions, ALASKALASKA are able to pare things back when necessary.

She has prepared her whole life for the opportunity to challenge the coastal elites for a seat at rap’s table, and Fever is her folding chair.

Because Staples has lost little expressiveness with age, We Get By sounds surprisingly raucous and admirably rough around the edges, especially on the percolating “Anytime.” But these songs are more about the small, quiet spaces where Staples can catch her breath and steel her nerves.