Gundred's richer-than-you-expect voice is the key to these jagged little pillows.

Those who wanted another full flamenco affair like El Mal Querer might be disappointed, but MOTOMAMI is an exciting detour where Rosalía flexes her seemingly limitless artistry across 16 tracks.

It's a savage, heartfelt, at times hilarious goth-mosh emopera. [Nov 2006, p.95]

Root for Ruin's dreamy ferocity is familiar, but the feeling of camaraderie keeps growing.

These songs have strong, familiar features, but they build off of one another; every one of them is full of hyperactive, bats**t detail that makes it immediately attributable to this band alone.

Twenty years later, he returns with Upland Stories, and the prolific singer-songwriter has never sounded better.

Alpha Games is a reconfiguration of sorts. It’s not imitating the earlier works in Bloc Party’s catalog so much as it is building from them. Produced by Adam Greenspan and Nick Launay (IDLES, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Nick Cave), their latest creation is an exceptional addition to their arsenal.

Greenwood’s previous PTA scores provided feral atmosphere first and foremost, or in Inherent Vice’s case, a convex take on classic Hollywood film noir incidental music. Phantom Thread’s score, on the other hand, feels like another main character or storytelling voice in the film. Greenwood’s abilities have never served one of Anderson’s films better, or proved so integral to its power.

This Berlin-via-Manchester producer's debut EP blasts through not only genres, but the divide between the otherworldly and the physical, too.

The Slip is primo death funk, with Reznor seething seductively about skies fading to black over grinding soundscapes that perfectly split the difference between computer-music clarity and live-band grit.

An inspiring “is this even rap anymore?” record.

The fidelity hasn't improved much from the Calgary foursome's basement-recorded debut, but Public Strain consolidates the clanging drones and subtly hooky flourishes that previously existed only as separate pieces.

I Don’t Live Here Anymore is The War on Drugs’ poppiest, most bombastic work yet.

Don't worry--eight albums into their reign, Slayer still sound like Slayer. [Sep 2001, p.158]

Clinic remember that Britpop is supposed to be fun. [Mar 2002, p.127]

Armor is Bachmann's most vigorous post-Archers of Loaf full-length since 2003's Red Devil Dawn.

[He] gets back to the sweetly twisted folk rock that he does so well. [Nov 2006, p.100]

Flashing all the (slight) overreach of a much-anticipated debut album, After Robots still exuberantly delivers.

An immaculate 38-minute lullaby for the not-working class, replete with tape hiss and timpani, sweetly brooding vocals, and otherworldly Hobbit-core. [5/2001, p.147]

Ritter's wordplay can be dense, but his warm, inviting voice makes it a pleasure to unravel.

While EDM grapples with growing pains, beset by adult problems like drugs and money, Avicii has made an album with the kind of pure pop heart that's as likely to appeal to eight-year-olds as it is to amped-up ravers.

[BRMC] have never sounded more self-assured. [May 2007, p.84]

Lisbon, like 2008's You & Me, is a gorgeous journey into the elegiac, inspired by the music of Memphis' Sun Studios.

They've stepped up their ballad game, and the grooves, smartly percussive and Kanye-slick, are deeper than ever.

A near-perfect album by a band that seems, finally, to have found their identity. [Jun 2007, p.89]

Instead of reaching that precipice and seeming to over-stretch for some sort of tipping point into the mainstream, he's forged his own world, on his own terms, and invited like-minded artists to flourish there as well.

Among those still cranking out shambolic odes to the suburban bored, these reformed shitgazers rule.