As a box set, Higher really does reinforce how creatively rich a band Sly & the Family Stone were, while making it seem almost unbelievable that their peak only lasted seven years and seven albums.

Unto the Locust does fall off a bit toward the end, but that's largely because the first four tracks add up to just under 30 minutes of the most exciting metal you'll hear all year.

The miracle of this album is how it ties straightforward rap thrills--dazzling lyrical virtuosity, slick quotables, pulverizing beats, star turns from guest rappers--directly to its narrative.

That Skinner is able to coax so much from a cliché-heavy, 50-minute examination of solipsism and self-pity is a tribute to his ability to reflect and illuminate life's detail.

There are no extras, outtakes or re-anythinged. But taking these 10 records in a row, chronologically, it is a striking reminder no single artist has had a run like Joni,

It's a real trove, and not just because this lineup is relatively obscure.

Dunn’s approach has remained so consistent across his career that the difference between this album and its predecessors is one of degree, not type, but it’s safe to say that From Here to Eternity plumbs newfound depths: There is a coppery burnish that was not there before, a tendency to float just beyond the bounds of our usual limits of musical perception.

She inhales and exhales life into memory so as to make it new—or, maybe more accurately, she affords history the brief freedom to breathe.

Ultimately, the release of The Carnegie Hall Concert feels right on time, providing a welcome jolt of focus to a widespread impression of Alice Coltrane that’s started to seem just a tad vague. .... As this set shows, she always contained multitudes.

Each of the Whisky shows is dotted with extended between-song pauses that are long enough to necessitate their own track designations. But these sorts of gaffes are small prices to pay for the illicit thrill of hearing the Trick in their primordial prime, rampaging through the darkest and most deranged songs in their repertoire.

The material on 77-81 is clearly a big bang, informing not just everything the band did after, but a lot of what other bands did, too.

Carrie & Lowell Live--while highlighting the starkest, saddest songs Stevens has ever written--reflects that side of his personality like no other release. This juxtaposition makes it a compelling listen and a fitting companion to a deep, multifaceted record.

By using country as a starting point for experimentation and recalling genre-porous artists like Ray Charles, Candi Staton, Charley Pride, and the Pointer Sisters, Cowboy Carter asserts Beyoncé’s place in this long legacy while showcasing the ever-expanding reaches of her vocal prowess. .... Her magnitude tends to cast a shadow over everything before her, no matter the medium. The side effect of this is that some of Cowboy Carter’s songs feel small and ill-suited for Beyoncé’s stature.

At every point, you hear a band going somewhere new, hurtling towards a forever-receding spot in the consciousness.

Undying Love is Neurosis’ best album in two decades and maybe even a quarter-century.

Renaissance is a commanding prescription to be perceived again, without judgment. Listening to the album, you can feel the synapses coming back together one by one, basking in the unfamiliar sensation of feeling good, if only for its hour-long duration.

The softer turns on Black Rainbows feel nearest to Rae’s earlier material, but those, too, subvert expectations.

At turns both acerbic and unguarded, GREY Area feels like the grand culmination of everything Simz has been puzzling out to this point. She’s a preternaturally gifted lyricist, a prodigy who recorded her first raps at nine and released her earliest tapes in her teens; it simply took a while for her to apply that acuity to her songcraft.

The truth about the 2021 manifestation of Let It Be is that Martin and his engineer Sam Okell haven’t really cracked the code either. It still feels like the awkward, intermittently exciting, sometimes deeply-moving collection of misfit toys it has always been. ... So much of the material included on the extra discs—the rehearsals, the outtakes, and the jams—is uncomfortable and fascinating. You see and hear their future together and then you feel it slipping away.

Deep in its mesmerizing glut are some astonishing works of synthesis. Sound bristles, foams, bursts, and oozes, lashing its acid against aya’s newly ferocious vocals.

Where many concept albums run a high risk of being pompous, cryptic, and self-important, Monáe keeps things playful, lively, and accessible. It's a delicate balancing act, but Monáe and her band pull it off, resulting in an eccentric breakthrough that transcends its novelty.

Baroness convince their disparate influences to gel beautifully without lapsing into the homogeneity (or self-indulgent drudgery) that remains a common defect of long, proggy albums. The second half is noticeably quieter and spookier than the more bombastic first half, easing down gently into more melodic and even acoustic fare.

For those who may think four CDs and three DVDs are too much, consider this: for an album that is all about contradictions, excess and mess, more of everything is most certainly a good thing.

Blue Weekend always nails the vibe, they nail everything, but often in a way that sounds micromanaged.

A collection of bratty rocker-chick anthems and soul-searching ballads that could slot into the soundtrack of any classic high school flick, from 10 Things I Hate About You to this year’s ludicrous queer sex comedy Bottoms.

Sprawling and spectacular. .... The songs are immediate and inviting in ways that Cindy Lee’s previous discography has only hinted at.

The Strokes are not deities. Nor are they "brilliant," "awe-inspiring," or "genius." They're a rock band, plain and simple. And if you go into this record expecting nothing more than that, you'll probably be pretty pleased.

We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service is all just beats, rhymes, and life. Nothing about this feels like a legacy cash-in; it feels like a legit A Tribe Called Quest album.