Hebrews is a wholly new kind of album for the band. Is it cheesy, over the top and a little too saccharine? Yeah, but the first two of those apply in spades to the first couple Say anything records anyways, and honestly I’d rather have someone singing sweet nothings to me when they’re in their 30’s than try and continue spewing venomous bile that they haven't believed in since their early 20's.

With their feet up on the couch and laurels well and truly rested upon, they’ve gifted us with L.W. which (excepting its sister record) is undoubtedly the most comfortable LP the group has released in quite some time.

Even with the steam the record loses near its end, its willingness to go for broke seals it as the group’s most thrilling and cohesive record yet.

In the end, if The Foel Tower reads as revivalist, it’s at least creative enough to stand apart from the bulk of contemporary acts in the scene, and the results speak loudly, resonating as one hell of a lonesome, dreary mood piece.

Even if a few songs don’t quite leave a lasting impression, Dreams of Being Dust on the whole does.

Swim is quite dark; this is definitely pop of the bedroom sort, and despite Snaith's vocals usually being indecipherable, buried underneath hissing drum machines and meretricious synths, there's a pervading sense of intimacy to the whole thing.

Fake It Flowers won’t blaze any new trails and beabadoobee is a far cry from a pioneer, but for a brief moment in the sun, her debut is both gratifying and immediate. There’s no reason not to bask in it.

Autofiction manages to be both raw and cinematic, dangerous and beautiful. Put more simply, it’s an excellent rock album.

Even if Lust For Life isn’t a game changer, it fulfills the potential of a sound that she has been slowly perfecting since she first entered the scene. The album, like Lana Del Rey, has earned the right not to be overlooked.

At Night We Live is refreshing. Far are heavy, but without sounding like a generic rock band, poppy yet not cheesy, and proud to show they are back.

The Used have taken the best elements of their previous releases, refined them and delivered the strongest album of their career.

There's enough brewing under the sedated surface to make Hvarf-Heim (and especially Hvarf) a satisfying listen.

Bitte Orca is an unorthodox listen; racking your brain and melting your heart all in the same instant, and that is something to appreciate.

Similar to UGK's "4 Life" earlier this year Dilla's friends, family, and admirers have created a(nother) great tribute to one of hip-hop's great.

Much like the Socialist commune they share a part of their name with, BJM retains the mysterious cult image that attracts a few but repels many.

Her delicate fingerpicking and shimmering vibrato carried her across state lines, oceans, into record deals and mixing rooms. The juxtaposition is apt: Beware of the Dogs is Stella adjusting the scales, shifting seamlessly between intimate and all-encompassing.

Ultimately this is very hard to judge as pop music. Judged as art, however, it's sensual, insidious, cathartic, and quite beautiful.

Heimdal has a more organic feel than its most recent predecessors, a less polished approach that gives it a rawer edge while remaining complex and adventurous. This more unrefined blackened aesthetic, though present throughout the album, is magnificently explored in 'Congelia', which delivers a constant and overwhelming flow.

The strength of The Ridge isn’t really in how it evokes emotions, or even to showcase Neufeld’s maturing skills, though it accomplishes both. Moreso, it succeeds in how it makes an indeterminate landscape worth trekking.

The end result is that The Unforgiving is easily Within Temptation's most ambitious record, an album that benefits from an increased energy level and strong songwriting in order to deliver a collection of the band's strongest songs to date.

Pure Music is transparently imperfect but remarkably enjoyable, while showcasing a lot of creativity, delivered in a spirit of wild abandon. True to form, Strange Ranger aren’t resting on their laurels. Who knows where they’ll go next.

With "75 Bars" being the only real dud on the album, Rising Down proves to be more of a collection of songs that work together as a whole than one cohesive album.

Insides is a thrilling, addictive, at times breathtaking piece of electronica and is sure to make Hopkins into a name more renown than just ‘Coldplay’s co-producer’, but here’s hoping that with his next effort he can focus a little more on stirring the heart and a little less on shocking the head.

Ocean Avenue Acoustic is, not surprisingly, at its best when it ventures beyond what is anticipated.

Whether they burn out sooner or stick around long enough to become cult heroes, 45 Pounds is the kind of record that will leave a mark—on your eardrums, on your nerves, on your ability to process sound in a rational manner.

Overall, Chase This Light takes the pop rock sound of their latest albums and perfects the style, complemented with Butch Vig’s flawless production skills. Again, the choruses sound bigger and catchier than ever.

Despite a few individual disappointments, Alive 2007 is as exciting a collection of music as any released this year.

Thankfully, the thrills don't stop with the summer's hit single.

If you get past this wall of noise, only bothering to burden Share the Joy for a freaky sixteen seconds, you'll find a record contained within its little motto, the noise dropped, the joy shared tenfold, the delightful "Dance (If You Wanna)" circling our heads, encouraging us with a smile.

This record is definitely a step in the right direction and has some of their most refined and exciting tunes to date. It doesn’t dethrone shutdown.exe, but its ambitions and consistency make it an excellent entry, with fans sure to lap it up.

Trouble is a brave step forward for a band unafraid to test its limits and a frontwoman unable to see any.

As it stands, Wild Crush is their most complete, well-rounded and accessible record to date.

Dive is the kind of high quality release one expects from Hansen.

It's certainly an all-encompassing, monolithic piece of work, an album that'll make a bunch of people suddenly relieved that there's another Swans album, in a we've missed you kind of way.

There is a savvy depth evident throughout ‘The Family Jewels’ which simply cannot be ignored; fun, serious, poppy and unorthodox, it is an album full of contradictions, but one which rarely fails to entertain.

This is war poetry at its finest and will keep you coming back for many repeat listens. Its influence on any listener, impressionable or otherwise, should be a positive one.

Sun is a rewarding return to a new Cat Power, one who seems more at ease with her music and herself than ever before.

I Was Here For a Moment, Then I Was Gone is simply an excellent post-rock record, with all the fat and filler cut out, leaving only room for pure, brilliant songwriting.

Despite its searching, Hannah exudes a qualified, though not-at-all-false confidence.

Release The Stars, if not a step forward, is at worst a side-step en route on to a knockout album.

As easy as it goes down, The Voyager is a record that rewards repeated listens.

As gorgeous a Ryan Adams record as anything in his own catalog.

Dimensional Bleed may not be the monumental statement Death Spells embodied, but it is certainly capable of engulfing anyone willing to allocate it some dedicated time. Moreover, it reaffirms Holy Fawn's position as one of the most intriguing bands soundtracking the real-time slow-motion apocalypse of [right now].

The band (and mix) sounds healthy and reinvigorated, the tracklist covers a fair range of sounds, and at the end of the day, it's still every inch a Baroness album.

Trail of Dead sound rejuvenated, ridiculous and ready to rock. From the gloriously corny 80s riff that "No Confidence" rides to greatness to a recurring musical motif that ties all these disparate sounds and several interludes together, paid off perfectly in the moving closer "Calm as the Valley", XI: Bleed Here Now is a complete piece of art.

False Idols has the potential to be a more accessible and instantly enjoyable album than say, Maxinquaye, but because it's not as challenging to the experienced trip-hop fan, False Idols is also vulnerable of losing some its captivating allure.

If Fiasco could take the energy captured on the breathtaking second verse of "Ms. Mural", a truly fantastic trilogy-capper, and stay there for an entire project he might finally make his masterpiece; this time around, though, unhurried and easy is a suit that he wears well.

They're spinning a lonely, sad narrative on Down in the Weeds..., but in telling the story they share it with all of us, which naturally transforms it.

This rather back-loaded LP--which has fittingly been released in time for the Northern hemisphere summer--will not only go down a treat live, but also rates as Four Year Strong’s best record to date.

It’s hard not to feel like there could be a little more to Big Sigh, a little more to Hackman. Regardless, there is a lot to be found in this excellent album if you allow it some time, give it some space and, while it may not be as easy as it seems, embrace its familiarity.

Angels and Devils is a triumph of anguish, needles and monsters and evil in aural form. Be warned.

It may be flawed and an uneven listen, but The Hum Goes on Forever is another gripping entry in The Wonder Years' canon in spite of that - perhaps another defining moment, where they finally keep their heads above water long enough to see the sunrise.

Bando Stone... really is just an excuse for Glover to flex his acclaimed range, with a mishmash of tracks that presumably gel with moments in the movie given the snippets of dialogue peppered throughout. The price of this lost cohesion is that the man really does have the range to pull all this off.

A fun, taut, and compelling package of powerful black metal from a band of tried and true pros whose understanding of modern metal--and the subtlties and opportunities for bombast therein--is expert.

As an EP for the band to dip their toes back into the creative process of being a band again, it’s a thrilling piece of work, a preface to their national run of live shows and, well, whatever comes after that. Because while EP4 makes for a mighty fine mixtape, one certainly hopes they won’t stop there.

The band are in fine form even as they step out of the spotlight, with synthesisers, organs, baritone guitar and other textural touches constantly hovering in the periphery. With no crunchy guitars to fill up the mix, O'Malley's basswork is the best it's ever been, anchoring all this sci-fi nonsense to something both earthly and indisputably funky. Discerning in all this where the space-age future rockstar ends and Alex Turner begins is a head-spinning task, fiction and real intertwined along knotty mobius strips of melodies which resolutely avoid radio hooks.

Restless Ones can’t quite translate their live show to record (2005’s Stairs and Elevators remains the high water mark for that), but it does perhaps the best job yet of mediating between the band’s ragged past and its veteran road warrior present.

Uptown Special’s greatest attribute, then, is that it could have been a hit in any decade, a slyly running commentary on the fluidity of modern pop music but one that never fails to forget what the people really want: to dance, dumb and delirious, and forget.

All in all, Sand + Silence is an accomplished blend of rock, indie, and pop.

It’s the kind of music that nobody, perhaps not even Moderat themselves, expected from this record.

It's not necessarily a masterpiece nor was it ever meant to be a grand statement that'd capture everyone's attention; a low-key unveiling is more fitting, for it's the Collective's return to form, except in a way that nobody expected.

ARIZONA BABY is Kevin's most diverse album yet in production, veering from Southern-tinged slappers to euphoric rushes of R&B to more Blond(e)-inspired meanderings, but an emotional vulnerability that follows on from "MARCH" and the like pulls these disparate songs together into something more.

viagr aboys is a remarkably consistent affair that invites attention and dance-steps, but not by swinging for the fences. Instead, the band commits to a steady churn of tightly written songs, each one grounded in better hooks, tighter grooves, and a more coherent sense of pacing.

For anyone interested in the world of contemporary analog synthesizer music, Ishi should be a welcome addition to any collection.

Titans of Creation Testament have released another excellent thrasher that proves they’re still the most reliable band of the original thrash era.

After The Disco displays a sense of focus that feels like the two musicians finally coming together as a band--although, unfortunately, the album is not quite as sonically diverse as one might hope.

Ultimately the thoroughly satisfying maturation on display is enough to overcome any lyrical shortfalls.

There are those moments, here and there, when patience isn’t quite rewarded. .... The package as a whole however, those moments when the Pit of Language returns intoned into the drone and choir of Tar & Feathers, those moments where all of the haunted brilliance of Neubauten are on full display again, that same soul that made the subterranean abscesses of the bloated, dying West its echo chamber and forced it to confront itself.

Perfume Genius could easily have made this as a wilfully oblique record; the reality is mercurial, intoxicating and richly creative at every turn, and you now know this. Get out there and get lost in it.

From the slowed tempo of the cinematic opener “Grand Junction” to the animated “Sixers”, they’ve crafted some of the most unpredictable and sweeping arrangements yet. This is an odd one, folks. And like much of Finn’s work, I’ll be racking my brain on its many idiosyncrasies for the foreseeable future.

Hobo Rocket is definitely an overall fan-pleaser, and one that compensates for Beard, Wives, Denim by mutating its 'flower power' whimsy into an erratic display of mood swings and horror-show theatrics.

In two albums, the man shatters our conceptions of music--and in the finale of his trilogy, he glues the pieces back together and hands the end product back to us, thereby redefining the word ‘musician’ in a single gesture.

This record nourishes Oxbow's most morose tendencies more generously than ever, and the fruit they bear is oh-so-flatteringly proportioned.

There's not much new in the way of substance, but the execution is nonetheless pleasing enough that you can shrug off flat or dull offerings (see, e.g., "Brighter" or "Wasteland"). It's a nice record filled with nice moments.

In its simplicity lies a uniquely Eels beauty, realistic and wise. It may be unsure, yes, and there’s certainly some fresh horror around the bend, somewhere, but perhaps that future is more promising than what came before.

This record holds up on its own terms, and it’s pretty enough to do well on anyone else’s.

Lenderman plays the tropes, sure, but when those warm blasts of fuzz come swelling up underneath that lazy slide guitar, what else can you do but smile and roll right along with them? If I don’t feel this hitting the status of its great forebears, that sure won’t keep them from being in the same conversation; hell, with Manning Fireworks Lenderman may find himself shuffling his way into that pantheon.

This record is brooding and shadows, joy and smirks, a blood-red dusk on a quiet desert evening; all emotion and sparkling instrumentation, confident of where it wants to go and even surer on how to get there.

Sister Faith may not be entirely consistent, yet in the long run it proves way more heartfelt and genuinely bruised than a typical hardcore punk offering.

Whether she’s touching on the impact of losing a legend like Bowie or battling her own demons, Strangers in the Alps is a vibrant and rare debut that’s not afraid to tell it how it is.

This is a lovable but frustrating record-by-committee, seemingly unsure of what it wants to sound like, the band's talent diluted and occasionally even aimless.

Gravity Stairs is the ideal vision of a band of pop's elder statesmen aging gracefully. There's no shameless chart-chasing or transparent attempts to capture the sound of yesterday here, which we can ascribe to the remarkable fact that something about the Finns' music simply sounds timeless, no matter which sound they're exploring or name they're releasing it under.

As crushing as some of these songs are, Heartthrob never lets you feel the weight, but prefers to revel in emotions good or bad, most often while sweating everything out under a crystalline disco ball.

Loma doesn’t offer us the moment where the lines converge (i was never good at geometry) but it reaches for something more substantive: catharsis. Funnily enough, it sneaks up behind them as they’re looking elsewhere.

It’s fantastic to hear Boris exploring this side of the rock spectrum once again, and since NO is more substantial, more ambitious and better executed than Vein by a decent margin, history may end up flattering it.

IGOR is not by any means Tyler's best work, and at times deliberately plays against his strengths in order to keep the listener off-guard--this pays dividends in the stunning "I THINK" and "A BOY IS A GUN", less so on the repetitive and cloying "RUNNING OUT OF TIME" and "ARE WE STILL FRIENDS？". What it is, though, is a form of ragged beat-tape minimalist that Tyler wears extremely well.

The songs are, like Hart and Khashoggi’s union, strange and vulgar; they’re ugly, morbid, and not quite destructive but don't offer hope to those looking for it.

Brill Bruisers is spread everywhere at once, loud and crass and saturated with color and nearly fit to burst. It won’t make very many memories, but it will create a hell of a lot of good times.

Most of the songs here are growers, and even the one's that are supposed to be immediate tunes like "My God Is The Sun" and "If I Had A Tail", don't quite grab and hold on to our attention like "No One Knows" or "Little Sister".

It’s their most cohesive record since Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and its eternally exhausted realizations and powerful, if demanding, passages confirm that the band is as tight and concentrated as they’ve ever been.

Experience may be a cruel messenger, but Daughter’s success comes not from pulling away, but from embracing that. In doing so, Not to Disappear comes out the other side, not beaten and lost but vibrant and alive.

The union between the two musicians (one entrenched in Cretan folk and medieval music, the other in instrumental rock and post-punk) is the alchemy which makes this record both structurally cohesive yet subtly and, somewhat contrarily, diffuse.

These Swedes know how to groove like they know how to make modular furniture, they know how to lay down a black resin-caked nastiness that reeks from each and every one of their guitar solos they, in short, know how to make a good psychedelic album.

It’s a much more jagged experience; a patchwork as opposed to an exercise in consistency. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, Nightmare Ending manages to be Eluvium’s most evocative and interesting work to date.

There’s greatness all over this thing, and the way in which Boris stop just short of seeing the whole thing off in style can’t help but scan as unnecessary and frustrating. Did Heavy Rocks (2022) need to be a triumph for rambunctious heavy rocking glory at the minor but palpable expense of quality control? Bah. Shou ga nai; Boris is Boris.

Save for a few stretches of inconsistent detours, You're Dead! is another reliable entry into the canon of one of the most brazen and forward-thinking producers out there.