On a technical level, these songs offer the best performances of Sampa’s career, but in terms of style and emotion, they fall short. Despite the homecoming mood, Sampa often sounds distant, her rhymes functional and indistinct.

Dimensional Bleed introduces a bit more subtlety than Death Spells, with bookend tracks “Hexsewn” and “Blood Memory” in particular making use of minimalistic sound design that goes far beyond “rock band adds synths” stereotypes. These quieter moments are Holy Fawn’s most unpredictable.

Building in the steps of Black women and their sonic architecture, Natural Brown Prom Queen thrives on improvisation, daring lyricism, and technical ingenuity.

This time around, she takes on more sinister hues and foreboding melodies. It’s a gripping transformation, one that illustrates the full range of her gifts as a composer, and reveals a darker side of her era-blending music.

In its weaker moments, My Boy can feel like a collection of signifiers in search of meaning. ... Williams is at his best when he’s being gestural, as opposed to literal.

How Do You Burn? boasts a mixtape-like eclecticism, communal bonhomie, and psychedelic texture that feel untethered to the Whigs’ past playbooks.

On Yungblud, Harrison leans almost exclusively into saccharine pop-rock, making this his most monotonous and least distinctive record.

On Jennifer B, plot twists play out like a delicious art school scandal. Just when you think these orchestra enfant terribles will stick to their notation books, Jockstrap scurry to the bridge and chuck every page into the Thames.

Despite showcasing some of Eminem’s stylistic growing pains, Curtain Call 2 isn’t completely lined with duds.

He stays in the background for most of God Did’s 18 tracks—but once in a while, he finally tiptoes out of his usual templates. It’s not enough to salvage a bogged-down album, but coming from him, even a little experimentation is surprising.

Even though the 3xLP/2xCD set jumps backward and forward in Stereolab’s timeline, the result is a fairly comprehensive portrait of their development from their initial motorik nihilist assault to the pop molecules of their later work.

Keep On Smiling’s glossy veneer never disguises its particle-board center.

Living Torch is a fitting and crucial next step, as Malone fulfills and expands the promise of her self-made early works.

While Free Company and Wayfinder were rife with wry one-liners and observations to offset the otherwise emotionally knotty writing, Art Moore is a bruising and remorseful record that aches without reservation.

The album may not shock the singer’s die-hard fans, but Broken Gargoyles is a moving, painful listen and an ideal access point for the uninitiated.

All of these moments lurch through time without any thought of build or denouement—no tension, no release, no narrative. Muse parade their influences while giving us all comical winks.

Drillmatic is plagued by the tracklist bloat typical of the streaming era. Neither fun nor profound, the album is almost impressive in the sense of collecting so much talent to create something so mediocre.

The music on Garden Gaia is inspired by the idea of Earth as a self-regulating system, and it’s heartening in that context to hear Weber let his machines fall into disrepair. But Garden Gaia sounds best when they’re swallowed up entirely.

Swapping their detached sneers for a warm, heartfelt tone, he gives his strongest vocal performance to date. As Forsyth ventures into new territory, he’s found a way to bring his influences along for the ride.

A solid, spunky-yet-reflective country record told squarely from the teenage perspective.

Silversun Pickups tap into a well of quarantine-bound inspiration that results in some of their most varied and carefree songs in over a decade, even if the majority overstay their welcome.

With Let’s Turn It Into Sound, Smith turns her music upside down, shakes out her assumptions, and lets the pieces fall where they may, all in the interest of finding new connections between things that were never meant to go together. It’s a leap into the unknown, and her excitement is infectious.

Against the Odds perfectly captures the band’s legacy precisely because it presents the history, music, and memories with an admirable degree of honesty and doesn’t try to make the story into something it wasn’t.

You suspect The Painter may ultimately have been more rewarding to create than it is to listen to. It comes off as a therapeutic act from an artist who, assuming he’s managed his royalties, never really needs to work again, rather than an album that simply had to be made.

It’s their most cohesive record to date, exploring a still, prayerful tone. On Earth Patterns, Szun Waves foreground their subtle, intuitive approach by dialing down the tension of their debut and the more utopian tone of New Hymn to Freedom.

As passionately as All of Us Flames dreams of escape, it’s bound to a dystopian reality, where even the dreamiest, most abstract songs aren’t immune from fear.

Pre Pleasure takes its time unwinding and occasionally leaves too much unsaid. Some songs drift away, setting a mood rather than communicating an idea. But when Jacklin allows the two to work in tandem, she excels.

Kikagaku Moyo continue to make unpredictable choices, even on an album that didn’t need to be more than a celebratory victory lap. Kumoyo Island is the apex of their journey, introducing new musical territories while surveying just how far they’ve traveled.