Solo ultimately reveals little we didn't already know about Vijay Iyer as a pianist, but to hear him explore these facets of his sound on his own, with no one to lean on, is still interesting. The central suite is where the album and the artist truly shine.

Bonet lets her imaginative, polymath inner child run free--but she never loses sight of adult reality.

Forsyth’s lyrics have never been sharper, or stranger.

10 Summers closes with four R&B tracks—two songs and two interludes, all of which act almost as palette cleansers after the unrelenting hardness of the previous eight numbers.

Aside from the sheer invention, what’s most striking about Viewfinder is Eisenberg’s ability to crystallize their complex, nuanced thoughts about the limits of perception without creating new dogma in the process.

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.

As Good as Gone is Nudge's best album so far, the kind of record that indicates a band has found its signature sound, and is poised to deepen and expand it.

Though he’ll only tacitly admit as much, our player entrepreneur is hurt, and Beast Mode’s heavy-hearted sounds assist him in sorting through it just as Monster’s menace helped him turn spite to fuel.

Confinement prevents the EP from reaching GREY Area’s heights, but Drop 6 still contains deeply affecting moments.

The most focused Sparklehorse effort yet, the album flows along with the grace of a river occasionally stirred by a rapid or two.

There are moments on Mayday that feel essential, plucked out of the ether as if they’ve always existed. These chimeras of the past and present illustrate what Gendron does best—digging up timeless sounds only to disrupt them, reenvisioning what’s timeless for this precise moment.

Southeastern is easily Isbell’s best solo album--his most richly conceived and generously written. If it’s not quite the album that lives up to his considerable talents, it’s mostly the music that’s to blame.

Abrams’ music moves through time gracefully, adjusting to the demands of when and where it is performed, and who’s involved. The awe that his music channels lies in its grasp of mutability, tracking subtle changes in repeating patterns—whether from moment to moment or year to year.

El Último Tour Del Mundo gets at the core of what makes Bad Bunny so appealing. “Maldita Pobreza” isn’t just a trap-rock fusion experiment, it’s a reminder that Benito is less than half a decade removed from bagging groceries in Arecibo, daydreaming of exotic Italian sports cars. He toes the line between rap braggadocio and vulnerable everyman with relative ease.

In parts, Albion's shambolism is stunning, but that's no excuse for moments of total sloppiness.

The result is his best album to date--his most mystical and earthbound, all at once.

Saves the World approaches adulthood with unabashed honesty, so you’ll be ready to smash the system a little more gently. And while MUNA’s pop is preoccupied with that greater sense of purpose, it carries its heavy heart to the dancefloor.

Where The Best Day proffered a somewhat uneven mix of extended odysseys and rough-hewn sketches, Rock n Roll Consciousness is much more cohesive and smoothly sequenced.

On Chalice Hymnal, they’ve added another solid story to their growing skyscraper.

Just 35 minutes long, the album is a mix of downbeat mood pieces, more fully fleshed-out songs, and effervescent ambient miniatures.

Meluch and Irisarri have crafted a genuine, coherent album that conjures immense shadows and immense depths worthy of its namesake.

It’s as if she’s stepping outside those limited bounds for the first time in a long time, confident that she can take a risk and still find a soft place to land. Her quiet yet spirited second album offers one too.

It’s as subdued an album as Oyamada has made. ... But thankfully “subdued,” by Cornelius’s standards, still entails unceasing rhythmic invention, perhaps the central musical theme of his career. Filling the stereo horizon with flickering instrumental flashes that often careen off each other in intricately syncopated arrangements, even the album’s most lulling moments have non-mellow currents churning beneath the surface.

Monáe has given us a pop record that feels gleefully youthful, perhaps even the album she wishes she could have had as a teen in Kansas City. The songwriting is precise if not always flawless.

The album plays to his strengths. It is more playful than his last LP, and also more finessed.

The result is comfortably atonal--a headphones listen that's difficult but ultimately more haunting.

Whether he’s full of joy or howling into the void, he pushes his songs to their edge, which helps to deliver on the promise shown in his earlier work.

The Ornament's expansiveness owes a fair bit to Olsen's voice, which sounds like it's been given an emotional B12 shot. His lyrics are prettily--albeit somewhat emptily-- evocative, richly textured, and his tonal pronunciation (the "PO-lice cars" of "Hanging Window") adds temporal sentimentality to his words.