Let It All In feels lived-in and newly cut from his core.

What Legacy+ offers is a merging of Fela’s legend, Femi’s unrelenting struggle, and Made’s extension of the genre: three generations of Arobeats in one place.

It’s satisfying to hear Shelley’s sound growing more verdant, the way carefully tended topiary fills out in spring. But the words and her phrasing remain the heart of what she does, and the judicious spaciousness of these settings feels both admirable and essential, crafting austerity that’s as much bounty as balm, and as celebratory as it is reflective.

Bits is streaked with irreverence, whether for C&W formality (the intuitively simple melodies of 'Featherbeds' and 'Young Love Delivers'), instrumental tightness (at times, they can make No Age sound like the Famous Flames) or lyrical artifice.

Helpfully, the 17-song record includes eight interstitials to ease the intensity, though admittedly they’re more useful in the first half, which is frantic and sparkly, than the sleepier second.

A grab-bag of a Fall album with brilliant highs and scattered lows.

It is rewarding to have Herren's voice at the table again, to remind the world where a sizeable chunk of this sound derived.

There are other records like this one, but they’re few and far between.

Yowzers is a tighter, more intimate affair, an invitation into the inner circle.

By feeding her perceptions of a vast, uncaring universe through these tiny, delicate sounds, Schott comes closer than most to capturing our vulnerability as living creatures--animal or human--and the senselessness of suffering.

That sense of connectedness lends these songs a reassuring familiarity, as though they were new corners of a strange world whose boundaries grow larger and whose scenery grows more inviting with every Oldham release.

The insularity of "Cease to Begin" certainly has its merits, and it's pointless to argue about who comes out on top here, but the way Grand Archives come forth with arms outsretched results in a debut that likely exceeds most expectations.

On Selvutsletter, Hval slips into rabbit hole after rabbit hole, and all we can do is follow her down.

An album that offers its emotional reckoning as a messy and necessary new beginning for Young Jesus.

Over a well-played hand of wistful, bright-eyed and reflective beats, HNDRXX strikes a near-perfect balance between a man still licking his wounds and a man emerging from a long, dark night.

He effortlessly squeezes so many ideas into its barely-there, four-minute frame, it's easy to wish he'd settle in and record an entire album of such quietly masterful pastoral mood-setting.

While he’s rarely shied away from humor, on his new album DEATHFAME, he balances broad comedy with pointed satire, providing direct political address with a looseness that keeps it all from sounding like mere cant.

Like its predecessor, In Our Nature is a collection of sparse acoustic recordings. But it's a more thoughtful and atmospheric work than either "Veneer" or last year's "Stay in the Shade" EP.

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.

On his latest album, Almanac Behind, nature takes center stage, sometimes overwhelming the music completely.

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

While Forest Swords has always hidden hooks in his music that reveal themselves upon repeat listens, Compassion is by far his most approachable album at first pass.

It's the most solid Wu album in years.

It's a long glorious exhalation of energies not actually dissipated, as it seemed for a while, but only multiplying in force under suppression.

SABLE, distills the familiar pleasures of Vernon’s extraordinary oeuvre while providing a singular magic all its own—one of refinement and maturation, of clarity and confidence.

Konnichiwa is as nakedly vulnerable Skepta has ever been, and it represents a tantalizingly wide-open door for grime. It’ll be our job as listeners to step through and discover what we’ve been missing.

Vanderslice hasn't made a bad record, but he's only made a couple that are this good. If you've never dipped an ear into his world before, Romanian Names is a great place to do it.

Calvi's outstanding vocal tone and arrangements carry the emotional punches, while her lyrics can occasionally take a backseat role.