In short, The Book of Souls is what every heavy metal fan might want a new Iron Maiden record to be and more.

While often a little too unfocused, The Anthropocene Extinction is a fine addition to their catalog.

As a result of their indulgence, The Night Creeper feels somewhat forced to be something it isn't. The mindset is far from what we heard on Vol. I and Blood Lust, although the ideas are the same. Recycling is good, however, 4 albums later it turned against them.

Depression Cherry is a startlingly easy record to get lost in.

On balance, Lost Worker Bee simply does not do enough to distinguish itself from the rest of Elbow’s oeuvre, and therein lies its greatest failing.

M is painfully bland and too on the nose.

With the progressive-pop-doom hybrid that Ghost have crafted on Meliora, with the occult aesthetic running in parallel to the music--is a resounding victory for the Swedish sextet and is assuredly the band's strongest album to date.

While the album also has its fair share of bona fide, looks-like-we-just-broke-the-bottom-of-the-barrel moments ("Fire It Up" instantly comes to mind here), Disturbed manage to do just enough to keep metal purists from dispensing with them completely.

Positive Songs for Negative People lives up to its name and is an enjoyably straight forward record. Unfortunately, the album’s biggest strength also holds it back from ranking among his finest, as the overarching optimism makes the record feel slightly thin and superficial compared to his previous offerings.

No one is ever going to mistake Genexus for anything other than a Fear Factory release, but the band’s slight alterations have produced a change in sound that is minor in execution, yet significant in scope.

HEALTH have never sounded as focused as they do here. These are sounds that will grab you by the hair and drag you where you need to go. It’s control of a potentially unpleasant, entirely intoxicating sort.

The Most Lamentable Tragedy is the product of one of the best punk bands of our time making music in their prime, and when you factor in the level of ambition present, you’re left with a rock opera for the ages.

This is a beautiful, cohesive album that stirs so many emotions and speaks for itself. It might not be as immediate or as catchy as ADD, but does the most important thing: paving new grounds.

Edginess and quirkiness aside, the band's latest is an immaculately constructed beast that never straggles behind or overstays its welcome.

[A] foggy, glorious mess of an album.

This is the sound of a cohesive unit letting it rip in the studio for by far the shortest album of their careers--and not a note is misplaced or wasted, despite how (intentionally) messy it sounds.

It’s reductive and doesn’t help really anyone by saying the hooks just aren’t there on the level they used to be, but it’s telling that I searched the rest of Currents in vain for anything as immediate as the crashing waterfall of multitracked vocals on the chorus to “The Moment.”

Hammer of the Witches is the post-Midian release fans have been asking for while retaining the riff-oriented sound the band have been attempting for the past 15 years--only this time they’ve actually pulled it all off.

These tracks of moderate length are dull and lack any sort of imagination or emotional intensity.

Although Freedom isn’t the return fans were hoping for, there’s enough experimentation here to at least remind old fans of what made them adore the band in the first place.

Pale Horses easily stands on its own as one of the year’s better albums. It entails almost all of the band’s greatest strengths, with the vigor that comes from a renewed focus on the post-hardcore stylings of yesteryear.

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.

On Connector, the accomplished quartet have recorded an immersive album that is not only satisfying in the moment, but also reveals further layers and textures upon subsequent listening.

It’s hard to move past this when there’s so much going on but, whether we expect to like it or not--which mostly translates to whether we expect to be able to put up with him or not, we owe it to Universal Themes to try. Despite his behaviour, it's still a great album.

This album has the feel of a “for us” record, one that rewards the band for making it and decides that it’s okay to create something deeply personal and a little self-indulgent.

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.

Although the softer moments here are only soft in comparison to the dazzling cacophony that usually accompanies her songs, Welch does seem more confident here letting her pipes do the heavy lifting.

It remodels slabs of wax in a way that not only acknowledges but embraces the pop potential those snippets of sound have been denied for so long.

One of the more intriguing albums of the year, because emotion isn't really a quantifiable trait. In this case, it's best to simply listen and find out which side of the fence you're on.

What’s impressive is the wide swathes of bubblegum pop Vol. 1 manages to cover.

The standout tracks are strong enough to carry the album, which means that it will probably resonate with listeners who don’t mind putting up with lengthy passages of fluff in between those moments of grandeur.

he more he opens up, however indirectly, the more Dark Bird Is Home is content to color his emotions through an opaque prism of expansive arrangements that belie a broken heart.

There are more than a few signs that the band will find the middle ground between the music that prospers live and the music that shines on record; Heirs is a frustrating reminder that they’re not there yet.

It aims to give fans something different, but it does the bare minimum.

There’s some reassurance in that many of the more aimless songs sound like they would translate far better to the band’s true home on the stage, but here they qualify more as two-dimensional portraits.

A shorter, more focused affair could've easily been just as essential as Uncaged, while other cuts might have been more suitable for side projects or standalone singles. Few people will enjoy the album from start to finish, being clearly sewn to have something appealing to just about everyone, so pick up what you like and add it to your collection.

As assured as they are here, one still gets the nagging suspicion that Braids are yet to genuinely find their true sound. And, in a sense, this is what makes them such a fascinating proposition to continue to listen to.

This is, simply and purely, a great, if blissfully weird, Blur record.

The Dead of the World, well, doesn't do much of anything. It's cold without being chilling; it's colorless without being dark.

Musically, we get a wider array of genres, reminiscing their eclectic classic Feast Of Wire, released in 2003. Nevertheless, Edge Of The Sun flows smoothly from start to finish.

No track wanders along aimlessly or over stays its welcome, as Salome is a perfectly constructed rock record. At times beautiful while at other times eerie, this is a debut not to be missed.

One gets the feeling that they will have to make such a decision prior to album number two. Until then, what we have here with Lucid Dreaming is an enjoyable--but flawed - debut LP that hints at something special, but whose sum of its parts are ultimately greater than the whole.

Two Hands is a bit less chaotic and more carefully produced than the self-titled album, but offers the same amount of fun.

The album won't win many new fans, but for those already clued in it supplies a fresh batch of engaging, abstract production and, especially in the meat of "Old Rock n Roll", a few meals' worth of food for thought.

Glitterbug is pleasant enough and far from a chore to listen to, even if it feels too safe and inoffensive to warrant repeated listening.

Ecate ended up as the Italians' hardest hitting and most streamlined album so far.

Kintsugi suffers from many of the same flaws that have afflicted past releases, from a tendency to overthink arrangements to Gibbard’s more frequent relapses into trite turns of phrase and the occasional hint of immaturity.

Blending the light touch of her backing band with selectively applied electronic elements, Marina gives a more refined take on songs that in her past might have been layered in obtrusive electropop production or overwhelming string arrangements.

The level of emotional proximity, at times, will be enough to make you fight back tears.

Without over-embellishing it at all, you won’t find too many albums in the quintet’s chosen genre that betters the quality, consistency and diversity of Nerve Endings.

It’s post-apocalyptic, and it’s a gorgeous awakening for a band that continues to define the standard within its genre.

Although it might not be his most cohesive or strongest collection, the man manages to cater to every fan. He sticks what he knows best and that's how we want hi

There's a fair bit of tension in his rhymes and it works for him. Earl upholds a dangerous, unpredictable presence--when he slurs “step into the shadows, we can talk addiction” in “Grief” there aren't many who would take up the offer--but at times he holds himself wide open.

Every song possesses a distinctive identity, a different color fleshed out by its instrumentation. And the lyrical wonders Lamar works on top of all this is even more worthy of praise.

For long-time listeners, there's a definite air of familiarity in each track, but this record can serve as an acceptable introduction to Alien Ant Farm.

It’s not all bad, but one can’t help but think that this fifteen-track recording is a long album for someone with nothing to say.

Goon surpasses any suggestion of mediocrity by a significant margin.

Bjork's ninth studio album is the first to deal with such dismal and personal details, and is her most revealing as a result--through lyricism as well as through songwriting.

Chasing Yesterday is crammed full of natural sounding songs by a man who has only ever known one way of making music, and long may it continue.

Aureate Gloom distinguishes itself in Barnes’ catalog as its own inexplicable set of contradictions: a record rendered inert and sabotaged by its own ambitions.

The best Falling in Reverse songs, with rare exception, are the ones where Ronnie sounds like he's struggling to keep up with the song's pace.... The weakest songs on the album are, again, easily written-off as the band falling into familiar traps.

With Shake, Shook, Shaken, we get an album that has never sounded truer to The Dø’s strengths as a band.

I Love You, Honeybear is the rare love letter that manages to capture all the ugly, bitter sides to a relationship, the angles covered in shadow and hidden behind front doors, because it understands that these are the moments that make up a full and fulfilling relationship between two people with issues and histories and feelings that are more often awful and conflicted than not.

Alpha is easily the band's most accessible album to date.

For all its technical skill, though, this focus inward makes for a circular listening experience, at least for long time listeners of the band. It’s difficult to feel like this is ground that hasn’t been traversed before, and just as well.

What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World explores a much wider range of topics than their previous literature/storyline-bound themes could have possibly covered, and the result is hands down the most emotive release of The Decemberists’ career.

No Cities To Love is a triumph. Not only does it meet every one of our over-the-top demands as fans, it serves as a great entry point for those new comers who have yet to be introduced to one of the most important bands of the last quarter century.

Definitely a leap into the right direction, the album is the product of a clear mindset and less ego tripping.

In trying for everything, they’ve highlighted the disjointedness of the end product, turning a fully-fledged transformation into an erratic collection of middling-to-great Belle & Sebastian songs.

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.

What we’re left with is a somewhat novel approach that’s bolstered by improved songwriting, but ruined by a sheer lack of direction--or anything interesting to say.

Sremmlife is as good as it is because of how sonically pleasing it is.

Minaj’s latest release is a complicated being, one that might never sit easy, but the layers she provides for the listener to peel through provide for an engaging and ultimately satisfying experience.

Sucker, for all its charms, occasionally comes off as one-dimensional. But there were few records this year as sparkly and blindingly colorful, with production values that revel in excess and a mischievous spirit that rivals the best of Charli’s rebellious, sexually adventurous forebears.

It is simply a good collection of good songs, put together by talented folks to showcase their obvious talents.

It's both primal and audacious, raw and approachable, unnerving and at times comforting. Most of all, though, it tackles the relationship turmoil in a brilliantly inventive and thrilling fashion.

To be honest, Super Critical is simply a cute record that shows they are back on track after a few years of less successful experiments.

The speed at which the songs are played sounds not only like they are stuck in the mud, but that the weight tethered to them is also dragging them backwards. The final result is an anemic, lackluster 52 minutes.

What makes this effort so different is its ability to transcend those mere qualitative descriptions and transport one’s mind to its most emotionally darkest corners--even if it has to clear away some of the cobwebs that we attempt to veil our pain in.

The robust rock songs fall flat, rarely achieving lift off from their rote, chugging origins, while even the band’s worst proggish impulses are neatly trimmed down into manageable four-minutes-and-under transitions and slapped with a typically Trail of Dead-ian name, a middle finger in disguise. Only closer “Sound Of The Silk” really marries the two histories of the band into the kind of complete performance that made Tao of the Dead such a thrilling ride.

The Last Act of Defiance isn’t here to dazzle you with musicianship and diversity, it’s here to bludgeon in a way that only good hardcore can.

Dope Body have managed to modulate their sound without watering down the characteristics that made them unique in the first place. In consequence, Lifer is a ferocious record that deftly coalesces noise rock with early grunge and psychedelic flourishes. It's a trip down memory lane well worth taking.

Outside of “Love Again,” the album is chock-full of jams from front to back, and RTJ2, in its astonishing scope and finesse, continues a tradition of greatness for the unlikely duo, and serves as one of the more distinguished bright spots in an otherwise stale year for hip-hop.

It’s not a verbatim copy of Kendrick’s work, but it’s every bit the stylistic counterfeit, and while it, along with the other mentions above, could be seen as imitations done in reverence had they been released on a free mixtape, their use on an album is no doubt a calculated effort to profit off of the ideas and work of another who did it first, in an attempt to capitalize on the ignorance of those listeners who may not know better.

What truly puts Swift’s fifth full-length in its own class is the combination of brilliant songwriting and incredible production. Those two strengths come together throughout 1989, but no track showcases it better than “Out of the Woods.”

This is a very nice record, yet feels more settled overall. Nevertheless, it's a matter of choice rather than quality.

On Lift a Sail, we see a Yellowcard that is no longer holding back.

Despite being frustratingly inconsistent though, Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness is still a step in the right direction.

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.

Upon repeated listens, Our Love reveals itself as quite the complicated record; nothing ever stays still for very long, whether that’s Snaith’s serpentine compositions or his lyrics, so often cast in shadows as they are triumphantly lit up.

Comparing to what the band has done in recent years though, Siren Charms is still an unforgivable misstep containing oversights in both songwriting and execution that such a veteran band should be able to spot and correct.

Rivers' lyrics are just as bad as they've always been, the band's sense of pop-song structure is still the backbone of every track, but that doesn't matter when everyone is having fun.

Syro stands as a quiet achievement, an un-fussy, humbling, and excellent release.

With Ritual in Repeat, Tennis have crafted the most affecting record of their short career and purged the emptiness too often lurking behind the facade of similar artists, not to mention their own past work.

Even though 52-minute long Enter! feels very much like one multifaceted composition, it has been awkwardly divided into two parts. The first one is way more engrossing, showcasing the big band's knack for blending numerous potentially dissimilar styles to dazzling effect.

At times The Physical World feels like the real deal, at others a pale imitation of a too-distinct aesthetic.

The very things that inspired Maybeshewill to make music in the first place--social unrest and robust melodies--are both absent on Fair Youth, and there isn’t a whole lot left to take their place.

It’s a bit front-loaded, and not every track will floor you, but it’s definitely the most summative album of Robert Plant’s career.