“Suck” is a fun funk-inspired dance reminiscent of early Blondie, but doesn’t match the overall mood of the record, leading it to sound out of place. Nonetheless, Nothing Feels Natural is a great debut from an exciting band; arguably the best debut of the year.

The result is a record that’s concerned about faith, death, and the metaphysical. It’s heady stuff but grounded with vignettes of everyday activities--a beautiful, comforting second work from the singer.

Make no mistake--this is an album that’s challenging and demands attention, but if you can stay focused, you’ll be richly rewarded.

A truly progressive, existential, emotionally saturated hip-hop album that establishes the value of dance-centric collaboration by reminding us that it’s exactly that. And it will win this way, every single time.

Though it’s a tad long, and there are points where I get the sense that the band is still feeling out this new sound, Darnielle and crew have crafted a marvelous record that earns its place in the esteemed Mountain Goats canon while standing tall on its own merits.

Two and a half hours is a hefty commitment, but if you take the time, you’ll have fun with this one.

“Soothing” sounds legitimately fresh in a way very little new music does, and while it carries inescapable echoes of other artists (the bass line reminds me of peak career Tom Waits), the overall impression is that Laura Marling is paving new ground in her brand of folk music. Unfortunately--you knew there was going to be an “unfortunately”--there are only small glimpses of that innovation on the rest of the album.

The more you listen, the more you’re likely to find, and the more you find, the more you’re likely to like Beautiful Thugger Girls. It’s not quite as endlessly explorable as Jeffery and doesn’t quite project the same confidence and swagger.

Self-care has allowed Lorde to make something extraordinary and authentic, something that takes you by the hand and assures you that you can survive and thrive in the same sea of emotion.

[“The Bus Song” is] Unpretentious and thoroughly enjoyable indie pop/rock; expertly crafted. Nothing on the album comes close to it, even though there are moments.

A perfect pop soundtrack for the summer search for perfect love.

A lack of feeling behind much of Witness’ material does a listener no favors, and much of it gets forgotten once you leave it in your rear-view. However, if you take Witness less seriously, it reveals itself a bit of camp that is in many ways more compelling than the music project it’s supposed to be.

Their third record is their best, a meandering, wild, untamable masterpiece from a front man who refuses to stop studying and refuses to be predictable.

Planetarium demands repeated listening, the passages and movements make individual songs stand out less as it is not completely obvious when one track is ending and another is beginning. The record almost sounds modular in the vein of Brian Wilson’s technique on Smile.

As their original creative well starts to run dry, Relaxer’s experimentalism suggests that Alt-J will continue to struggle with other styles.

The moments when his music really comes alive with joy are the best on Teenage Emotions, and they’re often the less rap-oriented moments.

With an extraordinary remix of Sgt. Pepper, Giles Martin has knocked down the wall between the myth of the greatest pop album of all time and the listener’s experience.

Bouchard really puts work into these tunes. He strives to make each one better than it really needs to be.

It feels like a natural evolution of what Coltrane was doing, anyway.

Harry Styles is fun listening and will rightly soundtrack many a summer. But after demanding to be treated as a capital-A Artist, Harry Styles finds himself atop a pedestal without anything to say.

More often than not, however, this album brings you into its world and convinces you that love really is redemptive, that it can hold back the hounds at the gate.

If a person asks how to get into Slowdive, the correct answer is still to start with Souvlaki but Slowdive wouldn’t be a bad second choice.

Forest Swords' second record is simplistic on purpose, but that doesn’t make it feel less empty.

Feist is sounding her most directional in a decade.

Humanz, Damon’s fourth record as Gorillaz, is not his best, but it didn’t need to be. It’s a comeback record that’s less immediate and sugary than Plastic Beach, less iconic than the self-titled or Demon Days. It is a party record that sounds like it was made at a party rather than for one.

AZD is a slim, sparse electronica record. For all its high and low frequencies, it leaves much of the human audible range empty, space to imagine.

This one is no less ambitious and rewarding than some of his previous entries.

Nothing on The Far Field is comparable to the sheer synthpop perfection of “Seasons (Waiting On You)”, but few things are, and Future Islands prove on this release that they have some serious staying power.

Here, the music feels more organic and in line with the songcraft that has formed the band’s backbone to date.

The main pitfall of this record is its pacing. Bob’s best moments are lightning fast, like the 28 tracks in 41 minutes Alien Lanes. By contrast, this record is 32 tracks in 71 minutes. Its top moments are when it is moving the fastest.

It’s beautiful. The second half of the album, as mentioned earlier, is less interesting.

The problem with The Ride is just that it’s a lot duller than it should be, and it feels even more disappointing given that her most successful work is also her most eccentric.

It’s a truly overwhelming amount of a somewhat good thing.

Because of its contemplative nature, Crawl Space functions best as a deep listen rather than a casual playlist; while pleasant, its concentrated complexity requires attention to fully appreciate Teicher’s vision.

They do work up some magic every now and then.

Pure Comedy’s scope, ambition, and beauty herald something bigger: the year’s first great album.

Aitchison intelligently pairs her clever lyrics against beats that push genres outward, her filling in the spaces with her hooks and gigantic personality.

Though More Life has its faults, Drake clearly worked hard on it. If the first thing you notice about More Life is its monolithic runtime, the second is how obvious it is that Drizzy is doing his damnedest to get your cosign.

For anyone who was ever remotely interested in Mount Eerie or the Microphones, A Crow Looked at Me is a must-listen. But it feels made for a very specific time and place, and the subject matter is tough to stomach and tougher to shake.

Hot Thoughts is another top tier indie rock record from the most consistent band in the game.

Real Estate remains precise and consistent, and they retain their impeccable ear for melody.

Despite the glorious melodies hidden within so many of these tracks, like the opening duo of “Name for You” and “Painting a Hole”, huge potential is undermined by ham-fisted executions and depths you could wade through.

This record’s closest counterpart is last year’s Currents from Tame Impala. Temples can’t quite reach pop solidarity like those Aussies, but they come close enough.

No Home of the Mind fits the bill as the best ambient record so far in 2017.

The songs rock and are well written and that’s enough.

Drunk continues Thundercat’s slow ascent; his most ambitious work yet, one that wants you take it as a whole so you can experience getting drunk alongside Thundercat and stumble through the streets at 3 AM.

The supple dynamic shadings of earlier Projectors material is gone; everything’s annoyingly crisp, with lots of things at the front of the mix that shouldn’t be and Longstreth’s pitch-shifted voice running near-constantly throughout.

It’s a solid record and one that’s sure to please fans, myself included, even if it doesn’t meet the highs of its predecessor.

In striving for consistency, he sacrifices discretion and intention.

She may be uncertain of her talents, but she’s not uncertain of who she is, and in the case of Fin, that’s just enough.

On his fourth studio album I Decided, he positions himself as hip-hop’s poster-boy for all of these qualities [hard work, sacrifice, persistence, gratitude], but in rapping about such unassailable ideas, he comes away with uninteresting results.

Little Fictions is another solid entry in the Elbow catalog.

Within himself he finds the strength to embrace existence, an epiphany achieved after ‘processing’ his feelings thoroughly and honestly. And like the loneliest whale, he did all while sounding like nobody else.

Quavo, Takeoff, and Offset breeze through it all with a contagious confidence that makes for a fun and surprisingly accessible album.

SweetSexySavage, because of its consistency, can be run through easily, especially in a car with the windows down and the bass up. Feminism, rebellion, and plain old badassery pour from Parrish’s lips, and her melodic sensibilities are sharp enough keep you engrossed.

No matter how successful an individual composition is, though, each of these songs stand atop a sturdy foundation of life-affirming lyrics and towering melodies. Few bands can deliver music so uncynical, so exultant, and (yes) so hummable without skidding into schlock.

It seems as though Dylan Baldi has effectively evolved from a musical loner trying to go it alone to a mature frontman fully integrated in a strong and cohesive band. It seems as though Dylan Baldi has finally become a punk.

It might be his best work to date. Just about everything here is good.

As it stands, Hang isn’t an unpleasant listen, but it’s an oddly frustrating one.

It’s well-produced, clean and unobjectionable. Rennen fits this bill nicely, if that’s what you’re looking for. But regardless of whether it’s something you want, it’s nothing you need.

On Oczy Mlody they play out like a teenager trying to write a paper while he is high. The lyrics range from vaguely inspiring to cringe inducing, but just like their underrated At War With the Mystics, the record finishes with three strong tracks in a row.

The best record of the xx’s career.

Ajikawo knows she’s on her way to something new, and she enjoins us to follow her instead of white rabbits. She already knows where they’re going, and it’s not nearly as interesting as where she’s headed.

The blip-bloops and motorik groove of “Dear World”, could’ve easily slotted in as one of the better tracks on Hesitation Marks, and then there’s the contrast between hearing the digital diary entries in the verses of “The Idea of You” with the exploding choruses (aided by Dave Grohl). But nothing here is truly great.

It isn’t so much that this record is weak as it is well trodden, and the recipe is out.

It’s better than the first or second installments: slightly more ambitious and slightly more layered.

They are engaging, but ultimately don’t have the same replay-ability as the classic Bevan stuff.

This is neither a reboot nor an overhaul of their signature sound. If anything, it affirms all the things the duo does best and then shows they can do much more.

It’s simultaneously daunting, exhausting, terrifying, all at the same time. It’s all a lot to take in, with not a whole lot of the Gambino we are familiar with to help wash it down.

It’s when Nightride decides to shift gears in the latter half that the outing gets really exhilarating.

An underwhelming record. Kitschy 70’s synths and live drums abound throughout. The lyrics and vocals continue to distract from the true draw of the production.

This onslaught of concepts and sonic rushes drives Redemption right along, carrying the listener through Richard’s vast and captivating imagination. Though she tends to repeat the styles of her earlier works, Richard still sounds like nobody else in the game, and for that Redemption stands apart.

As Tesfaye notes on “Reminder”, The Weeknd has inspired a lot of imitators. Instead of moving forward on Starboy, he ends up sounding like one of them.

All told, there’s more flaws here than there is greatness. But with each of Tribe’s albums up until now, it’s pointless to dissect it track by track when really, it should be taken as one, singular groove (made up of smaller grooves).

Ultimately, Ping Pong, is a disappointing step for a once promising garage rock act. I guess we can still go back and listen to our old Smith Western’s records.

This is a mess of an indie pop album, filled to the brim with ambient interludes and a taste for unnecessary drum machines, but a mess that longs to make sense of itself.

In the show’s context, this soundtrack is a solid A. Evocative, thrilling, and dynamic, it’s everything you could possibly want from a TV score. On its own, it’s one of the most refreshingly forward-thinking electronic releases of the year, even if the tracklist could use some cleaning up.

It’s Crampton channeling her own history into 25 bracing, punk minutes of post-everything, out-there, futurist electronic madness. Drexciya would be proud.

Big Baby D.R.A.M. makes it clear he’s interested in a lot more than just writing breezy radio tunes. The only problem is that’s unequivocally what he’s best at.

To fully enjoy Bonito Graduation, view it through its own inquisitive outlook, and to not be daunted by the fact some of it won’t be understandable to you.

Nobody’s asking Kings of Leon to reinvent the wheel here, but they could at least make their hubcaps a bit flashier.

Though this cache of innovations is often depleted, when utilized correctly they wield enough ingenuity to distinguish Nilsson from the rest of the pack.

This is a darker, more direct take from a band that sees in pop music a place to distill their ideas.

Yes Lawd! cuts a deep groove and doesn’t let up for nearly an hour of R&B/hip-hop bliss.

It’s not breaking news that reunion music isn’t a revelation, but this album seems worse than the merely dull crop of new Owen material.

Joanne still represents a striking course correction for Lady Gaga. By abandoning the dance club for the dive bar, she may have tossed aside her status as a pop star once and for all. But Gaga has emerged as something better and truer.

Impressively condensed to under an hour, Cashmere’s thrilling tale of two MCs stands as a worthy achievement indeed. Musically, it holds up in the same way actual cashmere holds heat: better than most.

Three is perhaps Phantogram’s most incisive record yet, sustaining a very solid and concrete idea of what kind of pop it wants to promote.

Overall, no risks are taken: all of the lyrics want to be mantras but end up as little nothings instead; practically all of the songs reveal their hands way before their often too-long song lengths; they mistake reverb as a songwriting tool.

Ruminations is ultimately a lamenting, low-key record. It’s sobering but never elevates higher than just a sparse collection of gloomy acoustic songs. It took just two days to finish and, for better or worse, that makes a lot of sense.

Overall, there is an unfortunate, unintended fatigue that permeates the rest of this album, likely due to the reliance of syncopated guitars to carry most of these songs.

They’re neither particularly evocative nor pleasant to listen to, meaning they fail at being ambient music in all respects but slipping into the background.

By scaling back from the overambitious sentiments of albums since 21st Century Breakdown and returning to the simple yet effective power chord structure of earlier Green Day, the trio manages to make Revolution Radio both personal and timely for a country going through the same sense of dislocation they themselves have all too recently experienced.

Though at times it rages, it also rebukes division and seeks dialogue. In the same way black art is enriched by its complicated history, A Seat at the Table shines due to Knowles’ unwavering commitment to her own complexity, both musically and personally.

As a mixtape, I understand why Campaign sounds so derivative, but still I wish Griffin had pushed a bit further in terms of musical experimentation.

The record may be about repeating, but Jaar has yet to repeat himself.

RR7349 proves that Stranger Things was no fluke. Survive are clearly still in the process of perfecting their “analog equipment meets digital-age songwriting” sound, but for the first time in their career, I think they’ve come close to achieving that perfect harmony.

This is an excellent and refreshingly tense album.