Tranquilizer is the most immediately pleasurable Oneohtrix Point Never album in some time.

She has a lot going on up there, and she seems to feel a responsibility to sort through it all. An impatient conversationalist might prod her to just spit it out. On her most direct and brash album yet, Twelve Nudes, Furman does exactly that, and spits in a few faces along the way.

An astonishingly good late-period record from Of Montreal that's as uncomfortably savage in its depiction of breakup psychology as it is relentlessly catchy.

Nothing about Devotion feels like a burden. Instead, it’s so personable and candid that it feels like a privilege to spend a few minutes hearing what Tirzah has to say, imperfections and all.

While Womack does his best to step up to his alien surroundings, he can't help but sound like an out-of-place guest on his own album.

As important questions about music's worth in the age of free continue to swirl around him, Sufjan's still combating instant-gratification culture the best way he knows how.

For all its disjointedness, the album never wanders more than a few inches away from the sublime. It’s a document of a band knocking loudly on the door of greatness.

True Hallucinations is ultimately a triumph of focus and discipline.

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

On Vibras, he’s poised to take his place on the global stage—mi gente in tow.

Most of the set’s first disc comprises recordings made during sessions for 1983’s Star People, my pick for Miles’ best comeback-era record. However, all the studio tracks presented here are previously unreleased, so fans have plenty of incentive to investigate. ... Disc three contains a July 1983 live show that occurred during a break in the Decoy sessions and is the highlight of the collection. ... The alternate mixes and full studio session versions on this set are solid, if not particularly revealing.

Anderson finds flashes of beauty even when she seems to be casting about for something to say; were she a less graceful guitarist, this stretch might derail Still, Here’s momentum entirely.

It all amounts to a constructed world that sounds outré at first but winds up being a startlingly astute reflection of our own as you settle into it.

This is music that digs deeper and burrows beneath the level of shared associations to discover the sparkling emotional potential of carefully arranged vibrations moving through the air.

The soundscapes he's constructed on his third LP, Howl, are spiky and imposing, too solid to sink into. The music is always shifting, so it's impossible to lose track of time while listening.

Music has always been just one aspect of the Poppy multimedia experience, but Flux makes it finally feel like the most important one.

These songs feel personal. They tug at important moments. It's a quietly masterful, emotionally rich work. Of all their records, it's ultimately the one that sounds the most like the image their band name evokes.

Holding all of this together, as always, is Riley's sharp humor.

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.

How Many Times necessarily loses some of its steam after that song, and how could it not? “Songs Remain” is the heart of this album as well as one of the finest moments in Rose’s catalog so far, showing how heartache can change how you experience a city and how music can keep you running.

[The songs] are peculiarly absorbing, and they only grow more so with repeated listening.

On every level, PLAY ME is the most populist and literalist music Gordon has ever made. There are fewer jagged ruptures than on her previous solo records, more clearly demarcated beats, hooks that resemble hooks. The loops recur and aren’t so violently flayed open.

Ay Ay Ay is a sticky-sweet, unbounded mess, but only the priggish and unimaginative will hold that against it.

Her best and most cohesive work to date.

The record’s best songs are imbued with real emotional weight.

Beyond simply making surface references to scramble suits and fields of blue flowers, Essaie Pas connect to something deeper--real human emotion.

She Remembers Everything is a collection of miniatures that collectively paint a vivid, haunting portrait of the blessings and bruises of life.

Modus is essentially the antithesis of the half-baked works that arose from Kanye’s Wyoming sessions in 2018. It is the result of a handful of talented collaborators who provide enough eclecticism to balance out the bombastic sound of G.O.O.D. in-house producer Mike Dean.