From the first note to the last, you’re transported back to a time you lost someone close to you and then retrace the path you traveled as you dealt with it. I doubt this album inspires anyone to pick up a guitar or start a band and the experience it details is too personal to inspire other bands to make a similar album. But, if this isn’t a masterpiece... I don’t know what it is.

Teens of Denial is a contender for album of the year, to say the least. It’s the rawest indie rock record since The Monitor.

The Center Won’t Hold is a revolution for Sleater-Kinney, an amazing act of artistic bravery, Sleater-Kinney’s best album to date, and my new favorite album of 2019. This is a cultural moment that should not be missed, and I highly recommend you listen to it immediately.

It's easily the band's best release in the last 10 years, and with time it will garner more appreciation in the overall catalog.

This album, musically, feels like a return to Cohen’s work in the 1960’s and 1970’s. While all the songs are brilliant, they’re not pop songs.

Stage Four is bigger in scope and is a flourishing sound thanks to Clayton Stevens and Nick Steinhardt on the guitars. They craft something subtle, where less is more. Elliot Babin's drums aren't as relentless as before and this too works in their favor because it allows the vocal lmessage to seep in. Deeper and deeper.

This album is arguably their strongest music to date and they manage to shoot the most cathartic of bullets at you.

Pollard’s sheer output is intimidating. However, as this album proves, his quality control may be as good as anyone’s in the business.

While New Bermuda was an exceptional album, it felt like a reaction to all the hate that came with Sunbather, as if they felt they had something to prove to themselves. Here, they’ve made a sun-drenched California metal album and offer no apologies for it. Ordinary Corrupt Human Love is Deafheaven doing what they want for themselves.

The pacing of Youth is near-flawless. It's a gloomy atmosphere but ambitious nonetheless.

DAMN. isn’t the same kind of masterpiece that To Pimp a Butterfly is, but it’s a masterpiece nonetheless.

All in all, this is a great album. Musically, it will be at home in the record collections of anyone who likes the previous bands the members of Coriky have been in. The lyrics are poignant and they’re delivered by some of the strongest voices punk has ever seen.

Jeffrey Lewis has finally written an album that people will look back on in twenty years and say this was the first album in what will hopefully be seen as his classic period.

It is a skillful, daring, side-step into a new plane that leaves the band with far more aspects to explore than when they started.

This is a great album start to finish, there isn’t any filler and one song flows into the next one perfectly.

Upon first listen, the album may not seem like the next step in the band’s career but upon further inspection, the album feels like the next necessary move. Mat Kerekes vocals really shine through on this record as they always do. This is definitely something to listen to if you enjoy Run For Cover Records bands or Citizen.

All of the songs are performed on 23 Live Sex Acts are done tremendously well, especially when the band incorporates some changes to them whether they be vocal, lyrical, or instrumental.

True Brew recaptures the original essence of the band as well as any magic these veterans have picked up on the ride over the past few years.

Bought to Rot is an exploration and an experiment, but a highly successful one that manages to come together as a coherent whole to really deliver something special.

Dose Your Dreams feels like a fresh breath for the band. With all the heavy meta-survey of their most recent releases spit out, it sounds like the band is floating upwards, and perhaps just as importantly, having a lot of fun.

Higher Power's brevity and the smart sequencing between aggro and anthem makes it effortlessly knowable.

This is one of the most profound heart and soul records I've ever experienced.

This is another great Mountain Goats album. If you are a fan you probably have this already but if not, got get it asap. If you’re unfamiliar, this is as good a place as his masterwork The Sunset Tree to start, as this is like the sequel, but coming from a seemingly lighthearted place with the wrestling theme.

Morbid Stuff is punk rock at its best. PUP has delivered something that achieves the rare feat of satisfying older fans while also leveling them up career-wise.

This record really scrapes past [No Closer To Heaven] with so much more heart and soul. ... The most well-produced and expansive sound I've heard from TWY.

While nothing too original, Loom still acts as its own thing.

mewithoutYou once more have put out a unique assortment of tracks.

Father of All Motherfuckers is a danceable, feel-good pop album with some really stellar songwriting and, after the impotent Revolution Radio and the ludicrous ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, ¡Tré! trilogy, seeing Green Day branch out a bit and succeed at something different is refreshing. It’s a sign of artists with a great deal of range and imagination who are far from done surprising us.

Transfixiation shows a dangerous band finally sounding as dangerous as their live show indicates.

It's a brutally diverse album that has something for so many rock fans. It doesn't drag across...but instead races--pummeling--through a few genres that delivers something beyond wildest expectations.

As long as their attention spans can accommodate the extremely lengthy tunes, any fan of heavy music would do well to pick up Foundations of Burden. Highly recommended.

One of the strongest albums this band has released in thirty years.

With so many amazing tracks on tap, it's hard to single out which is deserving of repeated listens because they all are.

It's bitingly honest, thoroughly self-reflective and often, uncomfortably relatable. One of the best albums of the year.

A record of imagination. A record of reality. Punishing and as accomplished as ever. They retain their best qualities--instrumentation-wise--and it's a pleasure to document how the technical skill of this band unravels in spades, yet again.

It can be thoughtful without losing any of the rage, and at its best, can shake us awake and reignite our awareness of the world around us.

Very versatile and loaded with replay value, prep yourselves for one of the best records you'll hear this year.

This isn’t simply a rap album. It’s a political album. It’s an educated album. It’s a creative hodgepodge of beats, ideas, and idealisms. And most of all, right now, it’s an important album.

It pulls from rock, punk, noise, industrial, hip-hop, and even African tribal music. Lyrically the album is among the first to take this kind of look at hacker culture as well as how the definition of the artist and art have changed in the digital age. Regardless of genre, this may well end up being one of the best and conceptually most important albums released this year.

It doesn’t resort to chest-beating nor does it attempt to dilute its primal metal urges. It simply cuts through.

When the dust clears, even though the album's length clocks in a bit long for them, you can't escape how they utilized the room to breathe. To cause chaos. Without really shouting. Paradise is ambitious and really stakes an early claim for album of the year.

Yet, with all these contrasting angles and despite the roadhouse crew bringing up the lower end, the album flies by breezily. Although the band has legion of dispatched formers bassists in their wake, it appears the band does play well with others. And not only that, they know how to use “others“ to great potential.

The tight musicianship around Kingfisher assembles like a puzzle.

Jeremy Bolm and his posse have taken the time and care since 2011 to ensure that Is Survived By plays off as not only their most mature and heartfelt record to date. It's the record that could well define Touche Amore's legacy.

Stevenson and her band have been improving in every aspect since their inception, and they've nailed it here on Wheel.

["Pothole" is] about someone wanting to be placed atop the mantle, of someone who doesn't deem them worthy enough. Them feelings. This album is full of them and it's assuredly going to be dubbed their best work to date. I bet everything on it.

For all the low lumbering and slithering and menace, the album has power-energy all the way through.

The band, here, is confident enough, skilled enough, and thoughtful enough to turn this massive piece--two lps of dark-metaphysical music backed by hardcore-tinged thrash--into one of their best works, if not their best work.

There’s an artful use of simplicity here to the extent that these songs don’t sound simple at all- they are massive, moving, and multifaceted- but never are they bland. Rather, instead of punching note after note down our ears, Screaming Females make every pluck, every single thwap, single second, do something to advance the album. When every single element counts, the whole thing feels that much more important.

Every Ghost album thus far has had a very distinct identity, and its hard to pick a favorite, but it’s safe to say that Prequelle is their most accomplished work yet.

Every song on this album is strong, starting from the compelling opener, “Satellite,” which firmly establishes the return to the classic Get Up Kids style which is as strong of an opener as “Holiday” or “Man of Conviction.”

Another powerful record from one of the most profound talents of this generation of us born in the '80s and '90s.

An album on par with its predecessor but at times, exceeding it. It has everything people love about the band in abundance.

It’s a perfect album in every sense of the word, this album is timeless.

Rot Forever is one of the most under-the-radar experiences you'll have this year

Cool is not only a masterful release sonically, but it strikes a cosmic chord that few release can hit.

The question is then, on Everybody Loves Sausages, the band's first all covers album, can they maintain the originality that seeps through their reworkings for an entire album? Yes, yes they can. And how.

It's a record that goes deep, slow and pensive at times, but then quickly gears up into its natural beast, staying in this state and allowing you to bask in its chaos.

It is just such a cut above everything they’ve done that it warrants a listen from anyone into fearless and challenging, yet still melodic, experimental rock. It's their finest work, and probably this year's best rock album.

Foxing’s giant leap takes them away from their emo upbringing and should place them among contemporaries like Portugal. The Man, Alt-J and Glass Animals. They’ve risked everything for this album and their desire for something greater. I’m calling it now: Foxing’s Nearer My God is the album of the year.

Yip and the band get it right--balancing all sounds to leave the scales oscillating between hardcore and punk, yet tipping more to the latter. And truth be told, that's an understatement. Turnstile has shed a lot of its hardcore skin and as cliched as it sounds, they're now... punk as fuck.

This album comes off as the most definitive and most complete that Joyce Manor have to offer.

One of the most relatable, heartbreakingly specific albums of the year.

Home Front have figured out a way to further draw out what makes them special and have used those elements to create an album, that perhaps against the odds, surpassed the emotional push of Games of Power.

It's all over the place but in a good way as it prides itself on attributes and characteristics that can best be described as rushes of earnest shoutalongs, candidly told and catchily brought to life musically. All with a songwriting vulnerability like he's never shown before.

Against all odds, My Bloody Valentine managed to put together an album that keeps enough of the elements that made us cherish Loveless, while stretching their sonic palette just enough to keep things interesting.

Overall, Muncie Girls have created a fresh touch to the mixture of indie and punk. The band has officially mastered their sound and made ten songs the band should truly be proud of.

While Bad Religion’s forays into new territory may be subtle, they’re certainly there, and it’s commendable to see a nearly 40 year old band still trying to find ways to innovate and make their sound fresh and new. I know that I’ll catch some grief for this, but I honestly would call this the best Bad Religion album since The Empire Strikes First, and a sign of a revitalized band that’s ready to start making some more great music again.

This is far and away the best record Ragan has done.

If you’re mostly into pop-punk, you probably won’t like this. Everyone who likes it rougher needs to check out Iron Reagan and Crossover Ministry.

This is the result of three women who have perfected their sound, now it’s our job to listen.

In an album that is about a breakup, the band is more unified and more cohesive than they have ever been before. I say it before with every Screaming Females album, but really, THIS ONE is the best one yet.

Daylight have released an album that'll have you talking about it for weeks.

The album itself is PROOF that chaos and anger and conflict and an open mind and fun is what gives Morris his strength, creativity, and singularity.

The Sciences proves that Sleep has got the goods and no manner of years could pull the magic from the Pike-Cisneros connection. And more importantly than that, Sleep, when merely focusing on being Sleep instead of a being collection of influences, is able to produce work that is uniquely them, uniquely fresh, and frankly, inimitable.

Baldi's lyrics encapsulate those tenets just as well as the music he and his bandmates create.

Whereas most inside/silly jokes are used by a closed group to draw their own bonds closer, here, the Melvins are using that device to invite people into the world. And frankly, it’s a fun and funny world despite the gratuitous use of the F-word.

This record is so good we don't need to focus on those details. With I Hate Music, Superchunk will once again land near the top of my year-end list.

We have the most lush Mountain Goats record to date: Pallett was the perfect producer for the album.

What’s particularly neat here is that record masterminds Mike Haliechuk and Jonah Falco have forged their most diverse and chameleon-onic sound bed to date.

Cope is a loud dose of poetry which I can see stretching its musical arms very far and very wide.

Yes, the Vivian Girls were and are good, but we already knew that. However, more importantly, Memeroy cements that NO ONE can do what this trio does and, more than that, they’re doing it even better now then they were before.

As talented as Oberst is on his own, his symbiotic relationship with the other members of Bright Eyes makes it easily Oberst’s best project and one I hope continues on for the foreseeable future.

On “When It Rain,” Brown shouts, “You ain’t heard it like this before,” like a madman. Atrocity Exhibition proves him right.

This whole album really takes no prisoners, and brings to mind everything that was good in the underground music scene from the eighties into the early/mid-nineties. Lyrically, the band takes no prisoners and holds nothing back shouting down religion, political leaders the world over, and anyone else that gets in their way. They also are able to do what so many modern bands fail to do, blend their influences well.

Painted Shut is a phenomenal follow-up to 2012 and one that'll be creepin' on you so hard. No longer is Hop Along the world's best-kept secret.

Truly, this is one of the best reggae records of the year… and one of the best records of the year.

This comeback record--the band's first since 2006--feels like their most mature, seasoned and solid body of work to date and also, it feels like they're pressing forward like never before in a world mangled by torn emotions.

This record blew away all expectations. It never stands still and always finds a way of resonating.

What I think makes this album stand out just a bit more, edgier and whatnot, from her debut three years ago in Stranger in the Alps is there's a fearlessness to embrace the mainstream aesthetic just a bit more. Not something like Lana del Rey's style or that kind of thing, but a more contemporary, alternative and dare I say poppy sound.

There is a fantastic flow from upbeat, crescendoing rockers to gentle yet looming ballads.

Integrity Blues is Jimmy Eat World's best record since Bleed American.

The album certainly has epiphany, but it also raises as many questions as it answers. Oh, and the music itself is really, really, really, really good.

M-Glory took a risk by being unique and going for the bigger sound. It was a gamble that paid off immensely.

This album is another experience in the bag, and another masterpiece written on the wall.

Whether it's rock songs chock-full of reverb, haze or distortion, at the end of the day Untethered Moon is another well-assembled, guitar-driven gem that will continue to keep Built To Spill as fresh and alive as ever.

While a product of hard times, Defend Yourself is a joyful listen and welcome addition to the Sebadoh catalog. It will please any fan of the band and also wouldn't be a bad jumping-off point for a new listener.

It's loud, raucous and the kind of magic that will kick your doors down, even if you didn't want it to. A collection of sing-alongs and shout-along anthems that will devour you -- blood, hair, eyeballs, and everything else.