Cole's keen sense of injustice registers throughout 2014 Forest Hills Drive, whether slagging white artists for artistic thievery or seething over national media outlets pigeonholing black genius into sports/pop either/ors.... But the absence of "Be Free" still detracts. Unless you're the type of moviegoer who sits patiently through the end titles, feel free to duck out of "Note to Self" a bit early and head over to SoundCloud.

It's a small, controlled, uncommonly focused album, by an artist well into the kind of middle age that prizes refinement and brevity.

Something is definitely missing on A Better Tomorrow: not necessarily the cryptic slang and mythology, but that RZA and the other members haven't found something to replace what stood them apart from the crowd.

Structural issues aside, the strength of the material on The London Session is enough to place the Queen back on track to relevance, after a number of less-inspired efforts had all but sapped her career momentum.

"Sister Ray" comes across like a medley has so many shifts in speed, volume, and energy that it seems more like a medley than a concentrated take on the White Light/White Heat epic. It's the brightest gem among many in the collection, which consolidates all of the group's many faces into one cohesive opus.

Four [is] the most consisting-sounding Direction album yet.

Fans of TVOTR's early density and difficulty might get dismayed at their gradual transformation into the thinking stoner's Coldplay. But it's impossible to listen to Seeds' luxurious fuzz and think that this is a band who mean to be anything but fat and in love.

He's put together a record that's as full of unforgettably kaleidoscopic melodies as it is surreal shoutouts to Dolly Parton and Kurt Cobain--pom pom is just about as beautiful of a mess as Pink himself.

The album is another leap forward for the producer, refining his sense of songcraft and expanding his instrumental palette without sanding down his rough edges in the slightest. Faith doubles down on the industrial brutality of Problems, while also balancing that with a sense of hope and comfort rarely heard from Stott previously.

Broke With Expensive Taste is a project dripping in confidence, class, bursts of brilliance, and personality.

Even the full-length's sleepier moments offer a break from its breakneck speed and succeed in balancing out an otherwise dizzying record.

[Kiesza] serves up is one of the most elastic albums of the 1990s, both 20 years too late and also totally in time.

2's developments in subtlety and humor.

The emphasis put on the soundscapes for these songs--unprecedented for the singer/songwriter--results in her lyrics occasionally getting buried under the synth swooshes, but for the first time in a long time, the majority of Taylor's lyrics don't really demand your attention anyway.

Instead of a triumphant return to form, then, Innocence is more of a satisfying side conversation, a familiar face coming round to the back door and whiling the time away nicely till dark or dawn

Reversing their gradual progression toward gentler, grander grooves, the Pornographers' sixth album is both their liveliest since their first and their most immediate.

Isolating his experimental tendencies to specific tracks leads to some uneven pacing on the album's second half. Otherwise, Green Language fully delivers, serving as a fascinating turn for an artist who earned his reputation by essentially bashing fans into submission with bass.

Though its list of guests may suggest a hedge, Echo largely hews to the road that's less heavily trod upon.

The record is 13 tracks long, sounds nice sometimes, and features Ty$, Juicy J, Project Pat, Curren$y, Chevy Woods, and Nicki Minaj, so it doesn't overstay its welcome and has decent taste in guests.

The world that Worlds conjures is fantastical and defiantly cheery.

Her extreme choices can fall extremely flat when she tries too hard to force them to be what she wants (or, to put it in Sinead's own terms, when she winds up coming off as bossy instead of as a confident, charismatic boss). But when they pay off, it's all worth it.

In its menacing incandescence, LP1 sounds like nothing else in the world right now.

Featuring 10 tracks of gooey, dislocated goodness, its gravity-free atmospherics are just right for soundtracking summer moon treks, intergalactic windsurfing, and asteroid volleyball. Down to earth it is not: These deep but compact space jams can't get much higher.

McGee may not know where he's going on his murky head trip, but he's a compelling enough guide that you want to follow him.

Soul deftly blends caprice with the ensemble’s usual care. Anything featuring Daniel’s scrunched-up, uncommonly expressive yelp and high-strung guitar can’t help but be Spoon-y.

Like floating from level to placid level in Monument, listening to this record prompts your imagination and encourages discourse and reflection. Not the academic kind, but the kind of communal discovery people have been doing for ages.

No myths to sell, just the idea of a working rock band reclaiming what's left of a center-right boomer rock coalition. Hynoptic Eye gets my vote.

In her tuneful insistence that every unhappy couple is unhappy in its own way, Lewis remains one of our foremost chroniclers of heartache and its discontents.