Old LP works because its growth doesn’t pander to modern notions of “cool.” But the way the band re-balances the grime-vs.-grandiosity equation with each song demonstrates that when it comes to musical math, the proof matters as much as the outcome.

Their most modest record to date. Think of Closer to Grey as an auteur’s niche art project—satisfying to the superfans, though not necessarily winning over new ones.

Underneath all the fuzz, there’s always been pop sensibility at work; Lightning Bolt riffs have been catchy in their own warped way since Ride the Skies. But at points, they allow those instincts to come into startling focus.

Even longtime fans may find themselves thunderstruck by some of the turns she takes here. But the record also confirms the essence of her creative identity; it’s shot through with sounds and concepts that have defined her work over the years, just presented in a way we’ve never heard them before. ... No Home Record offers something radically new and, in places, almost shockingly contemporary.

On Odds Against Tomorrow he has found a way to settle down without settling into complacency. The album retains the core elements of his best work, and his restless, postmodern exploration of the American lexicon, while refining what makes those qualities potent. Refusing to repeat himself, he takes tradition as a living thing, blazing new trails to familiar vistas.

The more Big Thief zoom in, the more magical they sound.

Their musical progressions are incremental and headed towards predictable outcomes. The slower songs are a little bit more country, the more uptempo ones a bit more rootsy, and all of it is bolstered by typically brawny Will Yip production that cuts through the chatter of any barroom or basement.

Things improve on the second half of the album, when, to follow his metaphor, Jidenna arrives in Africa. The melodies and breezy rhythms of songs like “Zodi” and “Vaporiza” are a welcome shift from his barrel-chested rapping.

You don’t need to be an expert in Cave’s wider cosmology to be swept inside of Ghosteen, to be devastated by its despair and lifted higher by its humanity. You only need the ability to suffer and the desire to survive.

Ode to Joy’s beguiling folk songs are direct and generous, quiet sounds coming from a big room.

It plays like the last record’s darker shadow. As with every DIIV album, it sounds timestamped from the year that punk broke, but the mood is heavier, louder, queasier. The guitars jangle less and brood more.

Look Up Sharp, dal Forno’s second album and her first on her own Kallista Records, doesn’t depart from her past work so much as coalesce the haze into more of a shape.

Kaputt excel at making complicated songs sound fun.

There is no moment where Brown grabs your lapels and demands you to feel what he’s feeling, whatever it may be. He has called uknowhatimsayin¿ his “standup comedy album,” and the mastery on display is that of the comic going out there and killing. But the best-loved and most enduring comedians left their own blood out on the stage, too.

These seven anemic songs find Boris becoming something new yet again—self-satisfied.

Even as the record is steeped in the long history of British folk music, that balance of the tactile and the spiritual anchors these songs in the present moment.

Olsen suggests that nihilism and optimism are closer than you think, that what feels like knowing yourself is almost always revealed as delusion. On All Mirrors, she glories in that tumult, and the sparks that fly illuminate her bravura turn.

His best songs put his ruminations on spirituality, family, loneliness, and humanity at the center, but here he sounds like the only thing he’s surrendered is his spotlight.

Eustis dances between revealing and concealing, admission and denial, and that tension animates the record from within: emotional whiplash as the engine of life. In this, the album plays out very much like the sweep of grief itself.

Nothing on Active Listening feels quite so urgent or alive as that one gem of a track [“The Eye”], but Empath set themselves a ludicrously high bar. The same destabilizing dopamine rush behind last year’s Liberating Guilt and Fear EP courses through this album.

KIRK is DaBaby in his sweet spot: alone and rapping with the untamed aggression of a tasmanian devil, on a beat that could destroy a 2001 Toyota Corolla from the inside out if played too loud. Change is overrated.

Case and Newman trade lines, finish each other’s thoughts, reveal the unspoken meanings of the songs; they’re old friends who find sustenance in each other’s presence. The essential humanity at the heart of this relationship offsets the dread that flows throughout In the Morse Code of Brake Lights, and gently leads the record toward something resembling hope.

Ghostface Killahs is marred by too many tracks that are either curdled by casual cruelty or just tired retreads.

SOUND & FURY is miles down the road from any of his previous albums.

Blue World falls just off-center—not a major addition to the Coltrane canon, but certainly an addition to a major part of it. ... But the strongest moments on this offhanded, unintended artifact are remarkable even by the standards of this band at this juncture, and the historical record will reflect that. Finally, the cat’s out of the bag.

It’s surprising how well the new sound works, though the voice of Skiba doesn’t always mesh comfortably with the production. As always, angst and unrequited affections are aplenty, but it all feels far too tame.

While based on a text to help the recently deceased reach rebirth, Songs of the Bardo is very much an album about life; a salve as much as a guide.

There’s nothing wrong with creating a club LP, but when you stack it up against TJM’s other, more adventurous albums, the consistency can’t help but drag.