There isn’t a moment where Perico is upstaged, and his immediate charm is in the stylish near yelp of his rapping voice, the way he struts over a beat. He seems to always be at the top of his register, but he tucks a deceptive range of perky melody into each verse and hook. All of this plays out over a sleek G-funk backdrop, with plenty of playful nuance in the production.

There are brief glints of enlightenment to be heard here, but more often than not, Laraaji’s makeshift songs come across like daily affirmations as heard in a hotel lounge.

It’s frequently a difficult listen, and not for the reasons Garbus intended.

Blue Madonna’s main value over replacement synth-pop is his falsetto, capable of reaching a glam-rock frenzy but constrained in songs that never quite allow him to go there.

Between Two Shores was cobbled together out of songs left over from past sessions and home demos. This helps explain the album’s lack of focus. What’s missing is a singular idea for a listener to rest her headphones on. Instead, we get a hodgepodge of sentimental tunes that aren’t quite parallel, perpendicular, or adjacent to each other.

Punctuating The House’s actual songs are occasionally baffling interludes (one, “Åkeren,” is sung entirely in Norwegian, a first for Porches), which play more like unfinished sketches than intentional moments of quiet.

It can be hard to square the bleakness of the lyrics with the verdant excess of the sound, though its lo-fi sonics certainly match the rawness of the emotions contained within.

The trio is so refreshing and exhilarating because of the space they elbow-out for themselves and the vibrant spirit they pump into the exhausted genre, proving that simply adding some cavernous echo to a track isn’t enough.

Their voices complement each other so naturally and so gracefully that it’s easy to forget how much craft there is in these songs, and how much ingenuity they put into their vocals.

After five albums, it’s nostalgic sleight-of-hand for the Go! Team to continually look back on the sounds of the ’60s yet still tune out the underlying noise of that radical decade.

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

Camila shines when it’s light and breezy, giving Cabello the space she needs to cook.

While they’re not radically altering their own musical DNA, they are still in their own way trying to figure out what they can and cannot do. While that probably sounds like a backhanded compliment for these rock‘n’roll veterans, it might actually be the secret to their longevity.

The Wasted Years, despite its sardonic title, is a worthwhile look back at the path he took to get to those heights. While it’s not a complete document of the band’s start—this set ignores standalone singles and b-sides from this era, like a rollicking cover of the Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner”--it sets the table for a three-decade-plus journey that continues to surprise, confound, and satisfy.

Though less memorable than its predecessor, Lex succeeds when it is heard as intended: as a conceptual companion to Reassemblage’s opaque experimentation, an appendix of utopian ideas that adds nuance and provocation to a seductive sound world where East meets West, and breath and circuitry are made one.

While the subject matter of POST- ensures its relevance and substance, much like everything else Rosenstock has ever done, it also sounds like the most fun thing one could possibly do. It’s a motivation to, at the very least, get out of bed.

For all its imposing scale, though, it lacks some of the dramatic finesse of classic Prurient. Fernow’s poetic lyrics, spoken or shrieked, have been a key hallmark of the project, and without them, these abstracted noisescapes lack the narrative character of his best work.

Flourishing in his own way outside the Walkmen, Bauer has found a method of combining two dissimilar passions into art that honors them both.

Rooted somewhere in the corporeal fantasies that have always propelled dance music, Hesaitix unravels an imaginary realm that feels genuinely new in form.

Huncho Jack’s liveliness tends to come from everywhere except Quavo and Travis Scott. The protean energy that buoy their respective works are sadly absent.

While she may borrow from R&B and pop, Klein’s output has more in common with the abstract impressionism of Jackson Pollock. Such intensity makes Tommy a difficult and even exhausting listen, despite a running time of just 25 minutes. But as Captain Beefheart and the Shaggs have shown in the past--and as Klein demonstrates now—-stepping off the musical path that leads to standardized perfection can prove hugely rewarding.

Ardor ultimately feels emotionally coherent but tricky to categorize. BIG|BRAVE are the sound of the raw unconscious, turned up loud.

After two releases filled with high-concept fusion, some listeners might be hungry for solos that hang around longer and aren’t so beholden to the mood of the production. Adjuah delivers exactly this on The Emancipation Procrastination.

Neither Future nor Thug is at the peak of his powers on Super Slimey, which forgoes explosiveness and poignancy for streamlined action, and many of the solo cuts shine brighter than the team-ups.

Wood$ does an excellent job of creating a chilled-out vibe--the kind of music that could soundtrack any setting, whether it’s time to club or wind down. That’s a fine quality to have, but there’s a sense that something deeper is tucked beneath the layers of his brand of trappy R&B.

Jeezy is mostly comfortable doing the same things he’s always done and letting others take the leaps. But times are changing and Jeezy is still clearly struggling to adapt to them.

An album of sunlit melodies with the shadows of Detroit looming over it delivers more than expected; it’s not easy creating a doleful aftertaste that never quite dampens spirits, but Bonny Doon pull it off.

It’s full of capable floor-fillers, but it rarely offers listeners much they haven’t heard many times before.

There are no insights to be found here about prestige, depression, or dependency. The whole thing is unbelievably dour and boring.

Both in the events leading up to this album and in the music contained within, Vincent has proven imperfect. That messiness comes to define this album, making for machine music that’s lovingly flawed and human.

On Saturation III, the collective’s objective begins to come into focus. They still paint in broad strokes and their songs sometimes still lack continuity, but they’re truly moving as a unit now, and the star power is all but obvious.

King Gizzard tend to get roped up in the flourishes on Polygondwanaland, before giving way to an instinctive simplicity. At times, it works to their advantage, like when they moderate the dynamics of a feverish tempo on “Deserted Dunes Welcome Weary Feet.” Elsewhere, the band dulls itself by overthinking a section and losing their knack for natural flow.

It’s not just the guest roster that sets Pop 2 so apart from the mainstream pop landscape, it’s the way these voices are integrated, making its 10 tracks feel less like a cool-kid curation project and more like a popping afterparty you’ve stumbled into.

As ambient music, radio play, fetid sustenance for misanthropic shut-ins--it is a singular piece of work, and a bold step forward for Rabit’s inky aesthetic.

While the long tracklist and equally protracted verses make for an exhausting listen, there are rewards for those that endure.

Diggin’ is a remarkable transmission: a document of a wave of heady creativity swept under our headlong rush toward tomorrow.

Between their respective spotlight turns, both musicians are on equal footing, challenging and surprising one another, and their listeners, with music that feels alive and wondrous.

The album’s first half sounds relatively strong. ... But No_One Ever Really Dies runs into a wall midway through, as old ideas rear their heads like those nobbly-headed creatures in Whac-a-Mole.

Ultimately, Badu’s reimagining of Fela succeeds better than any of the previous box sets by making his music feel both very much alive and very much her own. Her curation pulls together a sonically and thematically coherent experience that comes close to being the macro-album these album-length macro-grooves seem to demand.

If Eternally Even was James’ aggrieved effort to engage directly with a world in unrest, Tribute To 2 is an attempt to offer succor. It’s a little glimpse of the past James hopes will soothe and reassure us.

From the quality of the production, it seems that Metro knows he wasn’t going to get a progressive performance from Sean. Most of the beats on the album are standard fare with a few gems like “Reason,” which recalls Metro’s What a Time to Be Alive production “Jumpman,” and “Who’s Stopping Me” which samples from Brazilian artist Nazaré Pereira’s “Clarão De Lua,” something a little bit different from Metro’s typically modern approach.

This is still a staggering monument all the same, an elaborately detailed portrait of a shambolic artist whose astonishing productivity, creative restlessness, and utter disdain for the niceties of civil society know no bounds.

For all the racket, there simply isn’t enough focus, enough control, or enough music. Improvisations hints at the duo’s potential but is a fundamentally insubstantial listen.

Fans of Sublime Frequencies and their exhaustive look at Southeast Asian bands taken by surf music will find kinship in “Mirza” and the skronking sax lines of Sudanese track “El Bomba.” And just when it seems the comp is firmly entrenched in an exploration of how ’60s rock and R&B infiltrated the region, the tumbling disco beat and needling reeds make Mallek Mohamed’s “Rouhi Ya Hafida” refreshing.

Vol. 2 leavens its heavier moments with songs that celebrate the simple joys of love and marriage and family, without lapsing into sentimentality.

How to Solve Our Human Problems, Part 1 is the sound of a band deploying its full arsenal of bells and whistles to seize your attention, even when the songs themselves aren’t always strong enough to retain the grip.

The band sell their introspection by marrying it to convincingly urgent music. It’s also a lot of fun; all the flying guitar chords and thumping beats inevitably quicken pulses.

They really leave no space for Palumbo, and while there are distinct choruses, there are no hooks. There are more memorable basslines than vocal melodies.

With Weighing of the Heart, Iqbal adds another couple of strings to her bow, emerging as a pop auteur and songwriter of impressive emotional heft.

The numerous early takes and rough demos have a diehard appeal (there’s a reason Metallica has a dedicated archivist on their payroll), though the live recordings present a band going through its most monumental transition punctuated by monumental tragedy. Recording a masterpiece was the easy part. Genius does not appear out of thin air and Puppets was a culmination of Metallica’s influences and forward direction, so yes, it will give you a more rounded sense of how a masterwork came to be.

Kweli’s flow can feel rushed and sticky, as though he can’t articulate his thoughts as neatly as he can conjure them up. But his fans are loyal. Radio Silence will comfortably shore up the base.

There’s plenty Sia could do with an album entirely of Christmas originals, but too many are underwritten; there’s more consistency in the art direction than the songwriting.

If Young’s recent work has felt like a series of hard-headed dives into his pet obsessions--more interesting for simply existing than for actually listening to--then The Visitor is more all-encompassing, and as a result, more centered.

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

Despite the blatant bid to sound modish and rejuvenated, U2 cannot help in certain respects but sound the same.

On War & Leisure, he sounds unconflicted and ready to rumble. The freedom he promises his lovers in his music extends to himself, and he’s better than ever at just letting go.

Morning After challenges listeners to assemble their own puzzle, pull fragments from it, and draw their own conclusions. Trust, aloneness, insecurity, hundreds of nights worth of feelings: dvsn puts them all in the air for you to grab at any moment.

An explicit testament to Lo’s chaotic love life, an unashamedly sexual and emotionally impactful piece of work. Lo ends up baring much more of her soul than her body.

Though too scattered to stand alone, The Greatest Gift adds new dimension to Carrie & Lowell.

Who Built the Moon? feels like the sort of album where Noel spent way more time mapping out the sounds than writing the lyrics. But “Keep on Reaching” whips up enough manic, soul-stomping gusto to forgive its obvious Stevie Wonder swipes (”Keep on reaching out for that higher ground”), while “Be Careful What You Wish For” oozes enough creeping menace to elevate its title from clichéd phrase to prophetic threat.

At times this sunny, heart-on-sleeve temperament seems harmless and even quite endearing. More often it simply grates: he’s too precious, too twee.

His signature restlessness tends to enhance the Oh Sees’ concussion-inducing material; for the past 10+ years, it’s sometimes seemed like the faster Thee Oh Sees produce, the harder they hit. The approach doesn’t work such wonders here.

It’s to her credit that it [final song, “Call on God”] doesn’t sound like a farewell. Instead, the song—the entire album, in fact--is a poignant statement of the determination that motivated her all along.

At 72 minutes, this is the longest studio album of her career. Björk doesn’t find love with three chords and the truth, she finds love through an endless interrogation of every note there is.

While there are some musical highlights--like the 8-bit ambience of the Ricky Eat Acid-produced title-track--the album is constantly in pursuit of a voice it never finds. Which highlight Smith’s writing, some of the worst in rap this year. His lyrics are crass and half-baked and insulting to one’s intelligence.

Idle No More, released in 2013, was his first real adult album, with a real U.S. label and a sound that buffed away some of the rough edges but maintained that sense of the ridiculous. That charisma comes through on Murderburgers, his debut solo record and the first on his own Khannibalism Records (an imprint of Ernest Jenning Co.), although it’s more muted and even more mature.

A few songs are some of Morrissey’s most engaging, exciting work of the 21st century. Other songs get your attention for the wrong reasons. ... His political musings all arrive with a crushing lack of subtlety or nuance.

The group balances tension and relaxation with the timing of a master storyteller. It’s a talent Bitchin Bajas has shown on previous records, but here they’ve perfected it, instilling direction and purpose into what could easily be aimlessly pleasant music.

Without abandoning the conundrums that made Obsidian so emotionally indelible, he’s embellished the worlds of his songs with color from the dreams in which he’s immersed himself over the years. The setting may not be real, but the sentiment rings true.

Their music stands now as both a crucial piece in the roiling Seattle scene and as part of a noise-rock continuum that includes like-minded outfits such as Scratch Acid and Butthole Surfers.

Yes, Heavy Light is destructive music, streaked with shrieked lyrics about prey and death, age and tears. But it’s also an inspiring, instructive record, too, where two brutal bands find solidarity and something to celebrate in the darkness. Even if every thought here isn’t complete, Heavy Light is as exciting as either band has ever been.

On Rest, Gainsbourg doesn’t just reveal her pain, but monumentalizes it, lays out a red carpet, and invites people to watch. Her refusal to be sequestered by grief is, quite literally, a death-defying feat.

The eight songs on New Shapes of Life clock in at a tidy half hour, and sometimes you wish he’d give himself the space to stretch things out further.

A singer of remarkable power and expression, Staples essentially rewrites these songs simply by singing them, imbuing each line with fine gradients of emotion and authority. She emerges as the active agent in the project, delivering these songs from her perspective as a black woman, as an artist, as a daughter and sister, even as a Christian.

What a pity, then, to find the band more or less dozing off after their spectacular opening tantrum, drifting aimlessly in a space-rock black hole for the bulk of Interiors.

It doesn’t have the teeth that really gnaw into one’s consciousness, lacking the bleeding heart and pleading lyrical hooks of Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. Instead, Out of Range dishes out good feelings and Zen calm—more East than West. These days, we all need that sort of thing, regardless of your stance on sound baths.

As much as Golden Teacher absorb the adventurous dub sounds of the past, their exuberance can’t quite make up for the fact that sometimes they still sound like students.

He’s found his voice as a musician, but he’s still searching as a writer, trying to find the sweet spot between autobiographer and novelist. It’s no slight to say that Ewald is still best at his most transparent, singing to the person right in front of him.

If the demos collection presents the fables of R.E.M.’s deconstruction, its concert-disc complement—capturing the only show they performed in support of Automatic for the People—is an essential document of their onstage chemistry. ... It’s an album that—in surveying a fraught political landscape, the fragility of our mental health, and the fate of our planet—still speaks emphatically to our current condition.

Lean, at some point, gets lost in the wall of sound. And still it feels like the most essential music of his career: no longer an outsider looking in, but an artist fully embodying himself.

Even in unvarnished recordings, some of the earliest tracks here--the innocent teen angst of Hart’s “Can’t See You Anymore” and “Sore Eyes,” the handclap-abetted “The Truth Hurts,” and Mould’s studio outtake “Writer’s Cramp”--show an attention to and ease with pop songcraft that later became a hallmark. ... By the time the set gets to the 1983 studio debut Everything Falls Apart, it’s a little like Dorothy stepping into Technicolor.

Not everything works. Often Gamble creates luscious atmospheres only to toss them quickly aside, or approaches a stunning melody and then veers away. ... Still, there are many moments of beauty amid the deluge of twisting and disjointed synthesis.

It’s full of bulletproof hooks and sticky turns of phrase. But in committing to a more conventional form of superstardom, Swift has deemphasized the skill at the core of her genius.

Carnell captures his negotiation with vulnerability in the process of its unfolding, and his relationship with his sonic language feels in-process as well--a generative path, to be sure, if sometimes an uneven one.

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

Phases isn’t as cohesive as her previous albums but, terrific and revelatory in its own right, it feels like a link between them, a trail of dropped clues to the creative process of the defiantly mercurial Olsen.

That voice is deservedly the musical centerpiece of Anthropocene, a record that, like its predecessor, is given flesh by a wide cast of accomplished collaborators, such as Wilco drummer and tasteful producer Ken Coomer and flashy Sturgill Simpson guitarist Laur Joamets.

She [Alexis Krauss] directs this show, and the space she occupies helps the lyrics stick.

The duo clearly have good stories, but need to expand the range of emotions they use to tell them.

Levine’s voice murmurs and glints in the corners of the arrangement, and the total effect is exactly as pleasingly immaculate and numbing as all soft rock should be.

Now a bandleader of a live ensemble rather than a solitary synth programmer, he has opened the door to an entirely different sort of career for himself, one where concerns for the dancefloor shrink away to nothing, and the possibilities of repetition are infinite.

It’s short and cohesive, an enjoyable and uncomplicated 33 minutes of sheer exhilaration, filled with stings, itches, and cold chills. In one form or another, the collaboration comes as a surprise to all of us, arriving suddenly and carrying within the electricity and satisfaction of a good scare.

Across these 102 tracks, he sounds as devoted to his work as ever, puncturing a style of music built to offer definitive answers with his own heavy brand of cosmic nihilism.

Lone’s DJ-Kicks probably won’t get your party started--not in a great hurry, anyway. But it fits snugly into an illustrious line of DJ-Kicks albums that favor the mind over the feet and the bean bag over the dancefloor.

By drawing out the minutiae of Belief System’s rigid conceptual framework, Woolford loses the spontaneity and audacity that made this music so thrilling in the first place.

The Thrill of It All even features a few songs that leave heartbreak in the rear-view mirror. They aren’t all successful, but they’re interesting experiments for someone whose bread and butter is romantic dissatisfaction.

Like the city in its ’80s golden age, MILANO is superficial, vibrant, and full of possibility.

In a year in need of centering and a sense of calm, Phantom Brickworks lives up to its name; it feels haunted while also offering up a hope to rebuild.