Whatever her bad luck might be down to, Kelis can take some small comfort in having made her best album since Kaleidoscope.

While Yow's performance is consistently excellent, it doesn't always seem to further the cause of the music; there are too many moments on Love's Miracle that effectively reduce Qui's extremely talented instrumentalists to a backing band and the inimitable Yow to a sideshow.

Even as its musical forms and source material remain familiar, Renegade Breakdown is a work of knowing misdirection, a way of staking out new creative territory that’s challenging, idiosyncratic, and proudly uncool.

Staying mostly faithful to the spirit of the originals, Mesmerism aligns itself with Bill Evans’ piano trio albums or Duke Ellington’s collaboration with Max Roach and Charles Mingus on Money Jungle. The sound of the new trio is warm and intimate, putting melody and rhythm at the forefront.

A song or two here and there might falter a bit, but taken as a whole, Mary's Voice is a minor triumph.

The nine tracks that made up The Arizona Record are more satisfying on their own.

Each song is a carefully constructed miniature, and the album itself is endearingly small-scale too—a record where life lessons aren’t preached, just lived.

Myuthafoo, however, dispenses with vocals entirely, and is better for it. The absence of singing brings Barbieri’s synths to the fore. Part of the wonderment of Myuthafoo isn’t just how she sequences; it’s what.

Its quality is mostly a testament to Pusha's connections and his ear for beats, but the rapping is sufficiently competent enough that the album never drags, which is less of a backhanded compliment than it might read.

It’s an almost self-consciously busy-minded album, chockablock with ideas and sounds, all colliding violently and sometimes brutally.

Ultimately, Chain Gang suffers from a lack of depth, but it's not so painfully hollow that listening isn't kinda fun.

It's easy to hear the decades of dance music this guy's absorbed and appreciate how he's able to spin that into sounds that are at once reverential and future-forward. This doesn't happen on every track, but when it does, it's something special.

This is Nielson's most accomplished album, though it's not his most direct, or brash, or explosive.

The gripping parts of Legends Never Die come when Juice is speaking from the heart.

There's a purposeful simplicity to its narrative approach and a concreteness to its imagery--even when our narrator sounds less than engaged.

With its deliberate, languorous pleasures, this is an album to live with, settle with and be crisply rejuvenated by.

Hour of Green Evening might have benefited from more of that wilder teenage thrall, but for the most part, what the music lacks in rowdiness it makes up for in emotional complexity.

The hooks on “Alibi” and “Keep It Alive” hit with scream-along jollity, even if Cabral’s punk turn means we get less of the fairytale quality that made her earlier work bewitching—and even if the drums sound curiously flimsy at times, crushed underfoot

A rare example of indie-rock insurrection in Britain, A Fever Dream--darkly glamorous, flamboyantly appalled--is a fine monument to the nation’s despair.

Its sense of genre wanderlust means it's an album that clicks on about the third listen, revealing its character and depth much the way the seemingly random swirl on the cover becomes an alligator lurking just below the surface on further inspection.

Memories of the very real pain and passion we felt as teenagers become cool enough to touch when we’re older. In Tegan and Sara’s hands, they become mantras, glimmering and hopeful and full of sparkle.

Overall, South are in roughly the same place they've always been, making good post-Britpop music that sounds fantastic and sometimes erupts in a moment of unadulterated brilliance.

The Hungry Saw's temperate approach feels like the work of a band who are grateful for a new lease on life, but not sure exactly what to do with it, proffering brief experiments that amount to little more than amusing curios (the self-explanatory "The Organist Entertains") or instrumentals that sound like guide tracks waiting for a vocal supplement (the tremoloed psychedelic samba of "E Type").

Minks adapt the style that the Clientele matured into over their recent full-lengths, which adds a foreboding touch to these love-and-regret-focused songs.

That the songs can sound enormous while maintaining this kind of person-to-person intimacy is Jepsen’s particular talent.

11:11 is replete with pilots asleep at the wheel and elected officials ignoring the obvious. Yet the record’s most compelling figure is that dazed child on the beach, vomiting sand and seawater, insisting, “I want to be alive.”

KD3’s most effective songs are the ones pulled toward opposite poles:.

All that is loveable or lamentable in Mungolian Jet Set's music is right here.

Sister is shorter than its predecessor The World. The Flesh. The Devil, but suffers from the same fate: the disappointing, overlong ending.

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.

It's rare to find complex, personal songs about love and relationships matter-of-factly sung from a queer perspective, and in that respect alone Tegan and Sara remain a crucial voice in the pop landscape. Elsewhere on the album, things a just a little less distinct.

Attention Please at least offers something fresh for Boris.

The feels remain noxious and suffocating, but as she embraces the delirium, the “ughs” slowly turn into insights.

Believe You Me comes off as a collaboration between two dyed-in-the-wool daydreamers, finding both harmony and intriguing incongruity in their respective visions.

Although it makes no apologies for the bits and pieces it takes from her contemporaries, No Mythologies to Follow doesn't work because it assembles the right ingredients in the right amount--it works because a likable persona is something you just can't teach.

Unlike Dedication 2 or Da Drought 3, Sorry 4 the Wait sounds like the work of a mortal human being. Happily, that mortal human being still happens to be very good at rapping.

Robed in Rareness is ultimately a less significant Shabazz Palaces release, but there’s something fitting about a casually adventurous album by a vet dropping in the year of hip-hop’s 50th birthday. As the doomsayers look backward, Butler turns his gaze everywhere.

Soft, warm, but still interestingly distant.

Though neither a high point nor a low point in her freewheeling, four-decade career, Banga has the same charm of Smith's best albums: It flits with the impressionistic fascinations of a single mind.

Revisiting Come on Feel the Lemonheads can be revelatory in spite of its unevenness. .... As with the reissues of Lovey and It’s a Shame About Ray, the deluxe version offers demos and outtakes that justify a physical reissue in 2023 and not much else.

This is an impressive record in many respects, and its hooks and patterns only emerge after many plays, but it's also an oddly distant one.

In A LA SALA, each member of the trio has several opportunities to shine while making each track sound individual, and it all comes together cohesively because Khruangbin know where their strengths lie.

While the record delivers on joyful bass drops and club life vignettes, it occasionally leaves you longing for just a bit more unchoreographed chaos.

Unhinged as it is, it’s a cathartic expression of the way the world is: messy, ugly, and real.

Their most modest record to date. Think of Closer to Grey as an auteur’s niche art project—satisfying to the superfans, though not necessarily winning over new ones.

In seeking their answers from the indie rock firmament, Literature have found something freeing, as Chorus sounds surprisingly fresh. More importantly, it sounds like the record their previous recordings hinted that they wanted to make.

On Enderness he gathers and subverts modern tools to construct his indictment of the modern world.

Anamai may not be as pummelling as a HSY record, but their metaphysical weight makes up for it, producing an even more striking result than Mayberry’s other band.

Her songs, stuffed with information and emotion, act as an extended reminder to appreciate the gentler things the world has to offer--proof that even in the tremors of everyday life at its most confusing, kindness, calm, and empathy still have ample room to grow.

Lowe’s sophomore album retains a distinct point of view, with her folkloric sensibility and forward-thinking production shining through despite some smoothed-over platitudes. Lowe is only growing as an artist, and YU heralds a bright future.

In Rubin—as much a guru as he is a producer—Kesha’s found a collaborator willing to indulge her spiritualist tangents. But neither the ideas nor the audio clips feel fully integrated into a broader theme of the album. Her ambivalence is more potent.

The chemistry between the two bands isn't so perfect that a second collaborative album would be preferable to whatever either of them has up its sleeve next. When FFS does click, though, it's a little delight.

Letter to Self is a bracing, frantic record designed for both thrashing mosh pits and solo meltdowns, best heard with the volume turned up loud.

Competent but not always compelling.

The new splashes of color are welcome, and they help to lend In Roses a degree of character that wasn’t always present in Gem Club’s earlier music.

Chastity Belt is largely confessional; her words are the focus here, and these simple, serene landscapes are a fitting backdrop to hear her loud and clear.

The Golden Dove has moments of significant achievement.

The problem with Untogether is that that Blue Hawaii occasionally get carried away with emphasizing and embracing disjointedness.

It is slightly bizarre to hear aging punks perform the songs of their youth, music that would become foundational to scenes that produced the likes of Blink-182 and Weezer. But as the missing link that connects Descendents’ humble beginnings to their most iconic sounds, it’s essential.

It's a pretty and intimately rendered collection of folk songs, but those moments of jarringly direct, piercing emotion are few.

Except for the previously released singles that pad the end of the record in keeping with industry norms, High Off Life is better-paced and sequenced than most of Future’s recent releases—the whole thing seems to glide by frictionlessly.

The five songs on the Crosswords EP sound like tracks that come easily to him, songs he knows how to make without stretching himself.

Stuff Like That There may not always intrigue on a track-by-track basis, but, taken as a whole, the record stands as a loving portrait of Yo La Tengo’s vast musical and social universe condensed into a small wooden frame.

Redd Kross sound tighter and more energetic, even though their guitar tones have mellowed a little.

Lil Baby and Durk’s new joint album, The Voice of the Heroes, is not quite a marquee work for either artist, though it is reliably consistent and casts them as a natural pair—near-ideal complements to one another in writing and execution.

BBNG can still be frustrating, but IV is a sign of a band hitting its stride. It’s their most jazz-forward album, and it’s filled with some markers of magnificent growth.

While it’s exciting to hear a veteran band sharply change course on the fly, Tera Melos doesn’t always have a grasp on the mundane things like pacing or sequencing that make for a smoother LP experience.

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.

A pleasant, atmospheric diversion.

Live From the Underground shows that not much has changed with Big K.R.I.T. over the past two years. He's still an exceptional rapper with a befitting production style who can make some very good music. It's just that, at this point, good isn't good enough.

The tempos remain rigorously uniform across these 13 tracks, as though quickening the pace might change the genre or break the spell. It makes for a warmly moody, albeit strangely static album.

Though Bent Arcana can sag in its less propulsive moments, the band generally hits the right ratio between eerie investigation and chunky jams.

Dance on the Blacktop is music at the edge of Hodson’s “everything.” Its theme might be resolve, tenacity, or redemption itself--the sound of hitting rock bottom, looking up, and still catching a glimpse of beauty above.

A few songs go a little too far with the crunching stop-start bits and displays of power, at the expense of songwriting, and the closing title track reaches too hard for a grandiosity it doesn't achieve, but otherwise, this is a good album from a band whose ability to make good albums has long been underappreciated.

It’s silly, it’s in no shape or form subtle, it’s fun, it works.

Eventually It’s All Smiles starts to run out of steam. Its songs are ambitious compared to radio pop, but too safe to really stand out; it’s a cinematic album in search of a climax.

As the geometric tones of closer “Take Me to Your Leader” blip and fold into themselves, it becomes clear that, short as it is, Exotic Birds of Prey still has the loose and expansive feel of a radio show. There’s no easier way to visit outer space.

On Appreciation, Horse Feathers’ sixth full-length, that introverted persona has thawed, revealing a surprising affinity for the joy of both Stax-era soul and the country-fried sound of Doug Sahm and the Flying Burrito Brothers. While the looser grooves can deflate the tension, they also frame Ringle’s world-weariness in terms that are directed, finally, at us.

Equal parts brittle and brazen, Shitty Hits is the work of a well-past-promising newcomer.

n its refusal to adhere to a particular theme or sound, Paris in the Spring comes across as a little diffuse, but when everything locks in, the results are transcendent.

Even more so than their promising debut, Staring at the X proves them to be a commendably ambitious band with the chops to carry out even their most far-flung ideas.

This trio already functions like a well-oiled machine, and they've produced a stylish debut that demonstrates both their immense talent and impressive instincts.

Yes, Bishop takes the guitar on a few mesmerizing turns, alternately embracing frenetic strums and pleasant licks familiar from his past. But on an album inspired by the sounds and scenes of his dreams, Bishop finally seems tired of being confined to one instrument.

Never Ending Nights contains just enough detail to save it from pastiche and in doing so offers a glimpse into Willner's influences.

The new model Apples don’t always achieve liftoff, but Simeon still possesses the coordinates for dazzling new places.

Halstead's performing reinvents no wheels but never is anything less than well-done regardless, and the full performances can often find their own impact.

MartyrLoserKing doesn’t necessarily rise or fall on Williams’ ability to clarify his thoughts into a clear, memorable hook.

Aside from a few ungainly, obvious missteps--trying to play the Scott Storch melodic game on 'Amerikan Gangster,' wasting the KRS run-in on a track that sounds like a D12 refuse pile ('Sex, Drugs & Violence')--the album is finely sequenced.

The Horrors’ most ambitious album to date. At the same time, it feels like a wasted arsenal of almost-brilliant songs, a record that lacks the essential quirk found in so many of the band’s touchstones.

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.

Raw is a perfectly executed version of what Westerners might call global kitsch: a series of evocative tourist postcards showing sunny scenes from Rio and Honolulu.

Class Actress still sound a little too weird to truly break through (and if they toned that weirdness down, this record just wouldn't be as interesting).

Johnston devotees will get a kick out of it, for sure--out of the successful merging of Johnston and a rich, full-band aesthetic, and just out of the sound of Johnston doing well and writing well, finally rocking out on the wide screen he's usually had to imagine.

KoKoro isn’t perfect, but Assbring’s knack for creating well-written, catchy melodies carries the record it even in its slightest moments and a huge step forward from Pale Fire, positioning El Perro Del Mar well for an interesting Act II as a modern world pop purveyor.

Menos el Oso ultimately stumbles on its own self-conscious maturity.

Chat and Business won't bring you down, nor will it kick your ass. It's the kind of album that's never better than its last single.

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.

If anything, ye compresses the Kanye West character, making everything about the artist feel smaller, blurrier, like you are squinting at an image once larger than life.