The Following Mountain illustrates a massive wealth of musical ability and endless directions to take that talent in. Even if it isn’t the most polished or focused piece, it’s a tantalizingly unpredictable listen that with the right molding and direction, could signal even better things to come for Sam Amidon and his fans.

The album's aesthetics are vaguely mostly there, but their function feels overly superficial. Giving The World Away does raise the bar over Keepsake in that it explores a wider range of palettes (jangle pop, gazey noise pop, synth-pop) and backs itself with a more momentous set of beats, but this is largely undermined by Pitfall the Second: Hatchie the vocalist.

Big Red Machine is an exercise in expectation and follow-through, and in how throwing a bunch of good ideas at a song doesn’t make a good song, nor a bunch of great tracks onto vinyl wax a great album.

That decision to expand their sound and focus more on the links between where they were and where they want to go is the true treat of Happy to You.

Crystal Castles is definitely a fun listen just don’t expect something highly experimental or interesting.

Everyday Life is bold and exudes confidence, and it never wanders into long, forgettable stretches the way that both Ghost Stories and A Head Full of Dreams did.

The disc is hook laden but the hooks are bland. The rapping is heartfelt but forgettable and, 'So Far To Go,' easily the highlight of the album, is actually a track of J Dilla's posthumous "The Shining."

In the end, Third World Pyramid is another rewarding listen for Brian Jonestown Massacre fans. It sums up various eras into a cohesive unit, but it also optimistically looks forward.

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.

With Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally., he’s given us his biggest curveball yet. It may not be perfect, but the hustle deserves respect.

While the most fitting genre to place Dr. Dog’s latest, We All Belong , in may be Indie-Pop, the 12 songs that make it up don’t sound a whole lot like The Shins or Death Cab for Cutie. We All Belong instead sounds like an album that was buried in Brian Wilson’s backyard for 40 or so years.

The Jaws of Life sets itself apart by not really doing anything memorable or interesting. In fact, it doesn't do much at all besides existing. It neither follows trends nor tries its hand at anything original.

Harlequin is a brash and goofy mess that will surely be kryptonite to those who were never willing to buy into her many, many eccentricities. For everyone else, it’s a three-word proclamation: GAGA IS BACK.

The benefit for The Men playing this sort of music is that where they’re nicking from grows less important--so long as they keep pulling it off. Pull it off they do in spades for the third straight record, save for the fact The Men have yet to figure out how to make their ballads as compelling as their high-octane songs.

A return-to-punk that simultaneously honours Green Day's history of arena-friendly alternative rockers, full of adrenaline and feeling. A mere four years after the execrable Father of All Motherfuckers, it may qualify as a minor miracle.

A Different Kind Of Truth is ultimately an accomplished, hard-rocking record that somehow manages to not sound too dated.

The run starting at "XO" is the real DROGAS Light: a summery shimmer of pop-rap which hits breathtaking highs with the delicate jazzy musings of "King Nas", or "Happy Timbuck2 Day"'s Tribe Called Quest-esque tribute to a legendary Chicago DJ. The other album, where the Wave section of the album name is derived, which loosely comprises the first half of the album and revolves around a mythical group of vengeful drowned slaves, isn't just Lupe Fiasco's best but easily one of the greatest albums I've heard in recent memory.

It's a nice project that might have been put to better use as a one night only concert, because it's certainly not the crucial next step in the continued evolution of this otherwise fascinating duo.

For as indecisive of an album as Tired of Tomorrow seems to be from a conceptual standpoint, the overall musical quality and talent level never wavers.

Although the new album is a solid affair and a step up in tightness/structure, it needed that previous edge to be truly compelling.

Keely has stated in interviews that it's this kind of record that he grew up listening to and wanted to emulate, and maybe that's why Tao of the Dead ends up being the most focused Trail of Dead effort in years rather than a space-rock sham.

Caught between the indie-pop that they so cleverly deviated and their new found ambitious sound, Death Cab For Cutie have lost themselves.

It’s a loud and brash album, but too often, that’s all it is.

Nas and Damian Marley are a formidable pairing, seemingly on the same level throughout most of the album in thought and overall presence.

New Material is an album that achieves a lot, but accepts failure as an option and takes it with a begrudging grace. So much can be made out of the stories told in the album's songs, but with the general lack of ideas, the role of the doomsayer is running its course for Preoccupations.

There's No Leaving Now is an album that begs to be picked apart, but that can't be picked at.

American Utopia, despite the chance at becoming a politically-charged vent towards particular injustices, instead aspires to give hope rather than add onto the dumpster fire of negativity; or so to say, Byrne sits us down and gives us reasons to be cheeful.

An ethereal but slightly disappointing album for the masses.

None of these songs will top the charts, and none of them are very immediate, but they work together like a well-oiled machine that delivers a relatively accurate depiction of how you might feel while reading the book or watching the film.

A huge chunk of the record comes across as a potent reminder that even at the height of her powers, Lopez tended to provide second-rate, filler radio pop which was distinctly inferior to what Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and even Shakira were pumping out at the time.

So while AGBPOL haven’t exactly reinvented the indie rock/pop wheel with their sophomore release, they’ve still managed to come up with a collection of songs that are more than deserving of your attention.

With a fan-pleasing alteration in style and 'no-filler, all-killer' logic, the outfit have churned out one of the their most widely appealing efforts thus far, not to mention a staple release for stoner rock in 2013.

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.

Flying Microtonal Banana is essentially the same King Gizzard album from last year, updated for the sake of its own consequence. But it's also better than most other albums of its sort, specifically because King Gizzard appear able to coherently piece together a fun anthem with a sense of musical direction.

Their very best songs would see the light and the dark clashing within the same structure, every member's different interpretation of what the band could be fighting for dominance in an exhilarating rush. The major difference on Erase Me is that the two sides are in harmony, cleaned up and smoothed out and repackaged for a digestible listen.

The result is something to be proud of, establishing Omori as a welcome presence in the ambient landscape.

While Junior lacks the mystifying guitar work that she built her name on, it is her most visceral and down to earth release to date.

Music that is this desolate and isolated is rarely as rewarding as Little Joy which is what makes it one of the most successful records of the year.

What makes Lousy with Sylvianbriar a typically of Montreal album is Barnes’s effortless subversion of these classic rock idioms, his ability to distort the twangy harmonies and corn-fed heartland melodies with blindingly vivid, visceral lyrical imagery as deceptive and dark as it is gorgeously enunciated.

Resolution stands tall as a heavy metal record that flawlessly combine technical proficiency with sheer songwriting talent.

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

Sure, the lyrics are better, the songs aren’t quite as boring, but it’s becoming harder and harder to defend this band on the charge of being dad rock.

MGMT have (purposely?) lost that instant magic that they effortlessly whipped up with those debut singles, and in trying to re-establish themselves as artists that don't need the commercial mainstream to survive, they've created a record that lacks any defining characteristics to call its own.

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.

It's not just the sound, but the structure of the songwriting which can lack variation. Nevertheless, Big Echo, especially its first half, proves my initial thought when first running the record through. The Morning Benders definitely are a band worth getting excited about.

I Disagree is a record you’ll want to enjoy, but not necessarily analyze. It’s perfect for a romp down the highway at 90 MPH, or engulfing your personal critics in flames. It’s not going to spark much conversation intellectually or musically, with the caveat to the latter being the obvious hype that will emanate from just how contagiously fun it is.

The Other Side of Make-Believe preserves the band’s haunted post punk proclivities, but the subtle positive messaging from Banks (and occasionally from the instrumentals) adds another layer of depth to the band’s sound. ... This is easily one of the best albums of 2022, and it stands up to some of Interpol’s greatest works.

Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends takes a band who should have been in decline and a sound that’s been tried and true and makes it all sound fantastically fresh.

Flowers of Evil should represent an erasure of the false dichotomy of high art and base pleasures, but it feels like a middle ground strewn with the negative qualities of both, and will likely leave its audience in that chocolate-on-face state of feeling oversatiated and a little cheap.

Silver Wilkinson is a more streamlined yet enjoyably disparate record.

They might always struggle to recapture the spark that drove their first two albums, but The National Health might just be what the doctor ordered.

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.

United Crushers can come across as a draining listen, perhaps even an uncomfortable one to those accustomed to their earlier work. It takes a few listens to discern the resolve in Leaneagh’s lyrics, but it’s there.

About two-thirds of Moral Hygiene is good and there are no tragic moments at all. In essence, the LP brings together most of what Ministry explored during the last three decades. The results are not stellar, but Jourgensen found a balance again between getting his point across and focusing on diversifying the music.

Don’t rock up to this one expecting some life-changing epoch. Just roll with the punches.

It's really cool on paper, a showcase of obvious and enormous talent with an extensive feature list that manages to satiate fans’ long-awaited fantasies while still giving them opportunities to explore new discographies. yet somehow it still ends up much smaller than the sum of its parts, particularly the main star.

Simply put, Fate is a refreshment of the sound that has been missing for so long.

Those songs are products of an ambition that hasn't quite been tamed, but on the majority of Goblin, Tyler genuinely uses his creative freedom to create the fantastic.

It’s all memorable, and it’s all worth listening to again and again.

Some of the most spotlessly produced music I’ve heard in my lifetime, let alone this year. Gonzalez unfortunately continues to struggle with cohesion and distilling his musical ideas down to their most valuable elements, but his latest full-length is an undeniable improvement over his mid-late 2010’s output, and hopefully the beginning of a long upward trajectory for the M83 brand.

No matter what musical approach is being explored on Is This The Life We Really Want?, it never abandons being clever and lyrically adept.

Ringo remains Ringo, for better and worse. And in keeping with the hangdog Ringo persona this isn’t even the best country-adjacent album by a Beatle. It’s an album for Ringo Starr, and if we can’t give it any sort of adulation, we can at least respect its intentions, and those of the artists who made it.

Wooden Shjips succeed in making their material as easy listening and cool as possible, and tread on the trails of acclaimed artists such as Tom Petty.

Personal Life is nothing new for the Thermals, but that doesn't mean that it's nothing to write home about. It still packs enough of a punch to please the most diehard of fans.

From here ["Man on a Mission"], the album meanders a bit, yet manages to maintain a solid presence. No Rain, No Flowers ends up their most mature effort to date.

Sigel is too erratic to fully allow his album to mesh well upon itself. But that is why it works so well anyway, The Solution as much Sigel’s fresh step into untested waters as it is a fall back into a well-worn groove.

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.

...Of The Dark Light simply suffers from a lack of purpose, as if it was penned and recorded just to fulfil the band’s onus to Nuclear Blast. Entire cuts come and go without having done anything worth remembering, and the ones that stick in your mind often do for the wrong reasons.

The Big Pink’s A Brief History of Love will elicit a response of some kind. It’s just that kind of album.

Chasny has completed the move started with "School of the Flower" into a more polished sound and Luminous Night seems to be the finest example from this new period of Six Organs of Admittance.

Bouncy bass and catchy vocals keep it going, but sometimes it seems Albert Jr. has nothing substantial to fall back on.

Yet there's certainly no shame in falling behind three albums that are as brilliant as those are. For the fans, this is a blast - suddenly, trip-hop's Godfathers are back on track.

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

Jukebox isn’t a misstep, but it does seem like a unnecessary lull towards an album that might build on the promise of Jukebox’s best assets, the most important ones being of Chan’s own, warming design.

Colors is a varied and blissful pop album that finds joy in our times, and Beck expectedly makes it interesting and vibrant to experience. He has decided to make something optimistic in the midst of so much unrest, and it succeeds in bringing a celebratory presence to a world that need it

As much as Travellers drags in the middle after the novelty of hearing new Apples in Stereo has worn off, it does redeem itself near the end, more on the basis of Schneider hitting on some of the best melodies of his recent career than on any variance in sound.

The magic of the live performance is watered down and he only momentarily looks to test his voice. One can’t help but get the feeling that the potential is there with Castro, but one must wonder if his laid-back disposition could not only be a strength, but also the weakness which limits his capabilities.

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.

An infallibly-down-the-line no-nonsense rather-quite-good-but-not-at-all-groundbreaking psych-rock record.

The music takes a decidedly darker, slower note, further delving into the folk rock of The Trials of Van Occupanther and losing the powerful orchestration that made Van Occupanther so special.

Instead of relying upon the old classics, touring the same old stuff, he and SP have forged ahead to create a record that could well be the catalyst of a stellar second era for one of rock's more interesting groups.

Zach Hill is a talented drummer, with some great ideas, but certain elements of the album just tarnish all of the positives. This album is even unlistenable at moments.

For fans of Pretty Lights, A Color Map of the Sun is an acceptable recreation of his wild live show, if nothing else. For those looking to get into the real contradiction of Smith, the album makes for a wonderful primer.

Dark Rainbow is the sound they’ve been chasing for five years now, and while it’s not perfect, and lacks the raw edge their earlier works were so good at, it’s definitely a sound I can get onboard with.

Small Craft is an attempt to puncture that bubble, but doesn't quite do it; but, hopefully, if Eno's focus is still there, the next one should. I'm at least optimistic that it will.

Even where the record shines--and it does at points--it really only does so against a background of blinding light from Muse’s back catalog, which is an unfortunate, but inescapable point.

Listening to the joyous simplicity inherent in the album's mood, you get the feeling that love, for all its pitfalls, really is the simplest thing in the world to feel; you need only to be inside your house, the city without, the falcons overhead, the days stretching off into the future, and listen.

'Prisoner' is unquestionably a captivating LP where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, since the cohesive nature of its songwriting is clearly intended to suit a beginning-to-end listening experience and enhance longevity.

Despite its competence musically, Tickets to My Downfall’s cookie-cutter, antiquated presentation and MGK’s blatant ignorance make it a truly punishing experience to sit through. Punk by definition is supposed to be something that comes straight from the heart in all its raw ugliness, but this album is the anthesis of that and doesn’t even try to hide its overt shallowness.

Although Too True is not Dum Dum Girls’ finest hour--that would still be the cathartic Only in Dreams--it remains a commendable shift from an artist on the verge of being swallowed up by memory.

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.