With Stonechild, Jesca Hoop complicates centuries of feminized folk music by singing about the ugly, violent aspects of motherhood. Stillbirth, spousal abuse, sexism inherited from mother to daughter—all claim vignettes on this record of electro-folk, seeking, much like Love did, to render motherhood in fucking intense terms.

McKenna has a remarkable facility for conveying the inner lives of women trapped in soured relationships; that may not be an easy sell for the conservative playlists of country radio, but it makes for one of the most accomplished and devastating singer-songwriter albums of the year.

It’s GoldLink’s ability to seem at home in any space that makes Diaspora so coherent, and so specific to him, despite pulling music from all over. He is the anchor.

At heart these are songs about living with the weight of sadness, about the accumulation of severed relationships and missed connections and regrets both big and small. Change all the names and the album can still hit you like a speeding car.

Landwerk No. 3 never quite transcends the image of a man playing along to his records. The best experimental turntablism can make the listener feel as if a ghost has entered the room. Listening to Landwerk is like eavesdropping on somebody else’s séance, but luckily, these spirits have a lot to tell us.

In Conflict might not be an autobiography the way you or I would write it, but make no mistake: the deeper you look into it, the deeper Pallett himself stares back at you.

Freetown resonates with everyone sagging under the weight of systemic oppression.

This is not an album of passages or movements or suites. It’s best understood and appreciated as a collection of songs, of which there are clear highlights.

Singles is risky, but the strength of the songwriting carries it over.

Never mind the retro-gazing moniker-- The Week That Was is a band you need to hear now.

Wire is continuing to make greatness look easy.

The album's not a step forward so much as a squirm in quicksand.

Blacklisted's accompaniment is roundly excellent and evocative, but Case's voice is what really sells the record.

The true beauty of Clinic is that they have, using a relatively standard rock vocabulary, constructed a truly distinctive, energetic, and magnetically appealing sound.

Whether you treat it as background music, incidental listening, or a two-hour magnum opus, Themes for an Imaginary Film is a well-rounded portrait of a key figure in the American electronic music landscape.

For all its lavish instrumentation and weighty subtext, however, Babelsberg never overwhelms Rhys’ preternatural gift for writing swoon-worthy melodies.

Even at her most damaged, Hauff’s take on noise is nothing short of opulent, and it’s that alternatingly grating and sparkling attention to detail that makes Qualm so exciting. What might at first sound retro turns out to be simply timeless.

One of Oldham’s most complicated albums. ... If you’re left confused or disoriented, that’s exactly Oldham’s point. Welcome, he seems to say, we’ve been waiting for you.

Camp Cope’s windswept punk feels both retro and right now, like Courtney Barnett covering Tigers Jaw covering Ani DiFranco. Their sound is jangly but unpolished, folky but not crunchy. Maq’s voice, decorated with Australian diphthongs, ably meanders from shouty to soft, conjuring an inexplicable mashup of Joe Strummer and Joni Mitchell

Here, as on previous albums, Arthur demonstrates his gift for emotionally direct songwriting, but the specifics often escape his attention.

t's a strangely affecting synthesis of sounds and marks Holy Other's short debut out as a darkly oppressive but ultimately rewarding piece of work.

For the most part, they remain a powerful trio with perfect chemistry, capable of embedding great hooks and marvels of rhythm section athleticism within riff-worshipping hits.

It's remarkably cohesive both in mood and style: energetic but never wanton, bittersweet but never wallowing.

There have been times in James’ career when his knowing smirk threatened to eclipse the music. But here he’s obviously having a genuine blast, and his joy is infectious.

For all the complexity of Stadium, its true genius lies in understatement and how a thousand small sounds build into a larger vision.

The original Superwolf was the product of two loners delighting in how easily those solitudes intertwined. Superwolves’ success, then, is unimaginable without the 16-year hiatus between albums. Both artists needed to wander, to lose themselves, to become strangers again—even if only in their artistic partnership—so they could come back together and find that the rearranged pieces somehow still fit.

The album is more a warm remembrance than a full-blown celebration.

It might not meet the extremely high bar set by his best work, but it’s almost certainly him at his most emotionally vulnerable.