The album is good, which is a component never worth underscoring. But it could be much more than that.

Despite its numerous shortcomings though, it’s a difficult album to completely dislike--largely because of its wistful, nostalgia-inducing melodies. But it’s impossible not to expect better from the former Oasis mastermind.

At its best, Rebel Heart has an ease, and a long absent softness, qualities sorely missed since her last masterwork Music. For every godawful moment, which come and go with a sad frequency on Rebel Heart, there are glimmers of virtuosity buried within the overworked mess.

Gliss Riffer offers just enough hooky material to entice you and make you dance, but you still need to work hard to gain even an inkling of understanding into Deacon’s vision.

The issue is in direction, and the real issue is that there doesn’t seem to be any.

Luckily, even without all of the context and lofty exposition, If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late is an altogether great and always thrilling listen.

This might be their best album, in the sense that it feels more complete and narrative than anything preceding it.

Trainor recycles the themes from every forgettable Billboard alumnus from the past decade, with a bit more color here and there, but not enough to distinguish herself from the pack.

The density of Tetsuo & Youth just could have benefitted from even the slightest dose of levity to throw its rhetoric and messages into sharper relief.

It is certainly a solid and promising debut from a richly talented MC with the potential to help others with his music in the same manner his forebears inspired him.

Hats off to this fantastic singer-songwriter for not only emerging from the fog so quickly, but also for crafting a dynamic album that is bigger than its size and very deserving of the praise it will undoubtedly receive.

It’s a little too steeped in irony, not without tenderness, flippant but consternated, self-satisfied yet hungry for more, eager to expose the world’s duplicities alongside its own and then do nothing about it.

The about-faces make for an engaging, challenging listen, but by the end it all seems a bit vague.

Shadows is no lark: it’s a gentle and undulating return to Dylan’s salad days.

For the most part, Space holds it together, but there are a few moments that feel a little... moronic.

With On Your Own Love Again, Jessica Pratt has crafted a record that is as accessible as it is complex, two traits that she proves are not mutually exclusive.

Uptown Special exhibits a long-playing cohesion missing from his prior output. The sense of free-wheeling fun, however, is largely absent with the exception of the record’s funky A-side trifecta.

Vulnicura is a harsh and demanding album, one to sink into with a good set of headphones. But it’s also Björk’s most--if not first-- personal record.

Their approach works because the songs are so excellently written than they’d be praiseworthy coming from a less capable, more pedestrian group

What a breathless--and breathtaking--comeback it is.

Beneath its well-produced cacophony, Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance is an emotional and intelligently bruised work.

They’re not always entirely compelling, but it’s difficult to question Meloy & co’s sincerity in these Kumbaya moments, and that is the band’s true triumph here.

It’s frequently arrestingly beautiful (“Selfish Gene”) or driven nearly wild with joy (raucous party-starter “Mr Noah”), but always with a visceral, off-kilter kick where Panda Bear’s last pair of full-lengths opted for heavenly effervescence or communal transcendence.

This is the Second Coming of D’Angelo, not a close second, but a continuation of that lineage. We’ve waited fifteen years for his finest album to date.

Sucker’s greatest musical weapon is Aitchison’s voice--a posh, melodramatic caterwaul that will encourage either adoration or virulent hatred for all of its full-throated, Union Jack swagger.

Almost thirty producers were affiliated with the album, yet the music is shockingly simple.

What’s unfortunate is that songs the group co-wrote are the weakest ones here. The exception is the aforementioned lead single, a Journey-inspired ballad that’s catchy regardless of how much my instincts demand instant dismissal. The other slower, anthemic numbers on the album are not nearly as inspired.

There are no wasted notes, no wasted time, and nothing but the impulse to listen again.