At 72 minutes, this is the longest studio album of her career. Björk doesn’t find love with three chords and the truth, she finds love through an endless interrogation of every note there is.

It’s the first Wilco album in years to activate, in fits and starts, the band’s long-dormant experimental gene; the first one in years where the songwriting feels as guided by the production as vice versa.

As Epic progresses, her vocals couple with an array of sonics and styles (see: the pedal-steel country saunter of "Save Yourself", the electric punch of "Peace Sign"), though it's the slower, more atmospheric numbers that remain the album's most arresting.

Once you stop trying to label what should be a hook and focus on what is, the ingenuity of each song’s design and the ear-turning nature of every maneuver speaks to Never Hungover Again's inexhaustible quality, the kind of album you can play three times in a row without any part wearing out its welcome.

Dawson grows as a singer throughout these songs, sometimes with humorous results.

Impressively, Eagle maintains a coherent aesthetic across 12 tracks by ten different producers, a muted brood that resists the default loudness of mainstream hip-pop. There’s a lushness to the production absent some of his earlier work.

Breaking the Balls of History has a blurry quality: a jumble of all-too-familiar thoughts that never add up to a breakthrough.

This doesn't eclipse their non-soundtrack work by any stretch of the imagination, and it occasionally lapses into texture that longs for its visual component, but by and large it's an involving listen that telegraphs a sense of emotional and geographic space. It's good to have it all in one place.

In a way, Mastodon operates something like prime-era Metallica, unleashing these huge, blistering tracks that journey over peaks and valleys and ditches and oceans before leaving you spinning.

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.

She occupies the space between the bouncing, full-bodied bassline and plaintive keyboards with a plainly stated want that would be unthinkable on her introverted early releases. Having come so fully into her own, PinkPantheress still aspires to reach out to you.

The wider canvas and broadened palette reveal the complex human emotions within War’s music, resulting in a breakup record that’s emotionally resonant and curiously hopeful.

Feels like music I've been subconsciously craving without even knowing it exists.

It doesn’t always work—it’s hard to ignore the shortcomings of his singing voice, and the otherwise relatable lyrics on “Cigarettes & Cush” are mired by a trite composition. But from the themes to the production choices to the sequencing, it’s a remarkably well thought out debut from the ascendant 23-year-old MC.

Taken as a whole, The Electric Lady is a convincing argument for the virtues of micromanagement, but some of the most powerful, tender moments come from acknowledging limits.

Give Life some time and you might find it infecting your synapses, too.

Lavender ripples with the densest, most expansive production yet recorded under the Half Waif name. The album’s lyrics might stand out first because they are sung so clearly and with so much urgency, but Plunkett accomplishes a difficult feat in welding her voice to her backing tracks so that each song emerges as a singular organism.

Resonant Body celebrates 1990s rave anthems with a bittersweet sense of vanished time—the party ended long ago, the dancers shut their eyes against daylight, but balloons still float around the room on inherited breath.

It’s a playful, fantastical response to some serious life changes.

The intimate nature of Has God Seen My Shadow? thus illuminates those qualities that often get overlooked in Lanegan’s high-profile pairings: his grace, tenderness, and self-deprecating sense of humour.

At Saint Thomas feels drier. The virtuosically unspooling vocal runs of “Die Stunde Kommt” feel particularly embodied, like you’re watching her vocal cords come unraveled there in person.

Roving at will across other genres, Cross is able to wholly remake the horn in his own image.

Middle of Nowhere are confident and cohesive, but Musgrave’s lyrical point of view seems to blow hither and yon from song to song.

Compared with its predecessor, Cutouts is looser, funkier—a thrilling testament to the near-telepathic chemistry these three musicians have honed across two years of touring.

The smartly paced set switchbacks between minimalist drum tracks and deeper, more atmospheric house, and it climaxes with two previously unreleased Audion cuts and an interlude.

If you, like Webster, feel most at home in the warm glow of a band in the pocket of a groove, Underdressed at the Symphony delivers just under 40 minutes of gentle melodies and extended jams, a soft landing pad after the end of a romance.

More than just an autobiographical document or a manifestation of Charli’s impressive work ethic, How I’m Feeling Now is her answer to questions about the viability of music in a crisis. It works better than anyone could have anticipated.

Each disc stands on its own as a powerful document; together, they genuinely earn the word "epic.