The pace and tenor occasionally resemble the Bataan Death March, but Bondy’s gorgeous melodies, vivid imagery, and haunting voice keep you pressing on.

If there's an ounce of you that's ever been keen on Pearl Jam, or even if you've never bothered, grab a pair of headphones and let Binaural pummel and soak into you, and relax about it.

It’s largely a plainspoken, cohesive work, closer in spirit to single-minded efforts like Morning Phases, Modern Guilt, or even Sea Change. And really, that’s fine.

The new album’s particular saving grace is its self-loathing streak, the sense that scales have fallen from eyes and that Stay Gold’s nebulous disaffection has soured to regret.

Bronsonland is a place you enjoy spending time in or you don't, and that does not seem likely to change anytime soon.

It just might be a masterpiece all over again. [Nov 2007, p.118]

Never has she sounded freer than she does here, a self-styled villain biting the forbidden fruit of gossip and letting its juices run down her neck.

It’s no wonder the process felt redemptive for Smith; to exorcise years of mounting bleakness is no doubt a relief, but the resulting record is one that’s compelling for the exact opposite reasons. It’s not a light at the end of a tunnel, but luminescence creeping through the crack of a doorway--illuminating just enough to let you realize just how dark everything still is.

In the grand, elegiac 'Legacy,' singer Neil Tennant delivers what's either a farewell kiss or simply a cheeky end to the most thoroughly heartfelt chapter in the pair's 25-year story.

Contra is more fully formed, a '70s-style record-type record. It's their version of the Talking Heads' "More Songs About Buildings and Food," the disc on which they see how well their gold-star ideas move.

Vernon re-accesses that potent sense of self on Bon Iver, a stunning sophomore set whose landscape-painting cover art underscores the idea that his songs inhabit their own psychological space.

While not as conceptually taut as its forebear, the new record plays like a jolt back to reality — and a sprint toward the dance floor. It is, by many leagues, the most objectively fun Mitski album to date, anchored by the pairing of ‘80s-tastic “The Only Heartbreaker” and “Love Me More.”

New Moon offers pleasures aplenty.

These Englishmen have learned impulse control. Frontman Eamon Hamilton's playful yelp has given way to a sturdier sound.

Whether directly inspired by backpack rap or just embodying the raw energy of that era, the group has none of the preachy divisiveness that made that movement a half-joke.

Dirty Sprite 2 is a tremendous compendium of everything you want from a Future album in 2015.

The strength of and the Anonymous Nobody... remains how it holds together as a complete, cohesive listen.

This is the first stateside CD reissue of the stylistically peerless album.

Injecting a familiar formula with a justified newfound seriousness, With a Hammer further cements Yaeji’s place as one of the most valuable producers active in electronic pop today.

Ultimate Care II is reliably dream-like, the sort of album you never quite hear in the same way twice; passages jut out or fly under the radar.

Pretty Girls Like Trap Music, his third solo full-length, feels like a cousin to Migos’ Culture, another highlight of 2017—a bit more sinewy but still overflowing with seven-figure absurdism.

A sultry brew of Gypsy, Mexican, and pop ingredients that's adorably silly and unexpectedly moving. [Mar 2008, p.100]

[A] sensational debut--she’s evolving into an artist serious pop listeners can commit to.

These new songs gleam with nouveau riche sparkle. [Oct 2006, p.96]

Remind Me Tomorrow turns on thoughts of growing older and reflecting on the past, resulting in some of Van Etten’s most mature lyrics to date. Most bittersweet is “Seventeen,” which applies radiant clarity to the hazy, faded production aesthetic of a band like the War on Drugs. Even when swamped in overproduction, Van Etten’s performances are uniformly the best of her career, and Congleton for once gives her the perfect amount of space.

High drama of the blunt, uncliched sort unheard since the Afghan Whigs' '90s heyday. [Jun 2007, p.94]

Even more than on FLOTUS, the vocal effects and electronic textures of This (Is What I Wanted to Tell You) create a fractured and sometimes staggeringly beautiful sonic environment for his songwriting, which is as strong as ever here.

Tokumaru counters the tweeness of his Japanese-language croon (plus the unrelenting innocence of his twinkly, trebly melodies) with arrangements that densely interweave oddly organic twittering to suggest psychedelia without ever stooping to its cliches.