The songs are fun, intimate, personal, and at times simply epic.

As Williamson comes into her own on her fourth full-length, it’s clear that she has not only reached an enlightened moment of clarity in her life, but that she’s also crafted the best album of her young career. This record is intensely personal yet wide-reaching, and even if Jess admits that she’s “no sorceress”, she certainly has a way of captivating her audience.

It veers from cautious optimism, to sadness and to those odd moments where you feel anything's possible. Young and Crazy Horse continue to run free.

'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! is a truly unforgettable experience.

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.

The Archandroid is everything her fans had been hoping for and then some; Monae has earned her place at the forefront of black music in 2010. This ballsy, funky, and furiously intelligent album is pop as everybody wishes it would be.

Ceremonials is truly one of the few recent pop LPs that works both as a collection of individual songs and as a true album, with the right balance and flow to keep the record captivating from start to finish.

In keeping with Givers' multi-dimensional aural assault, it only makes sense that vocals would also come from multiple sources. While drummer Kirby Campbell occasionally lends a hand, it is predominantly Guarisco and Lamson who brilliantly deliver the boy/girl dynamic on show here.

With their eighth studio album, Yellowcard anything but disappoints.

Keenan was accurate to say that Fear would require patience to ingest, being a massive, compelling piece of music that unfolds beautifully and balances Tool’s unique style with plenty of rewarding new elements. Any fears that they would not live up to their past can be abated; Fear Inoculum is truly groundbreaking and one of the best albums of the decade.

Not the Actual Events is one of the greatest Nine Inch Nails releases ever.

Freed from the aesthetic demands of an odd-couple partnership, Big Boi (Antwan Patton) improves on the standard set with 2003's Speakerboxxx, an ostensibly solo work crystallized inside a double-album set, delivering a record that's rigidly focused and almost uniformly strong.

ILYSM explores memories and how to process them in the here and now, while also being a record I expect to be remembered for a long time. It’s Wild Pink’s crowning achievement as a band.

Defense of the Genre is the best major label release of the year, and the most surprising album to boot.

Rich and intelligent, it's a welcome blow of muted midnight compulsions, swimming in its own tides against the sea of bombast and extravagance that's taken root in recent years. Underwater dance music at its finest.

Exploding Head holds as one of the most consistent, mind-blowing releases this year, unwavering of an any possible identity crisis.

songs is Lenker’s most complete, her most personal work; her least comprehensible, but her most comprehensive.

This is a damn good record that is worth your time. Sink into Collapse, and let it sweep you up in its collage of vast, intricate atmospheres.

Moral Panic is simultaneously the most depressing and fun rock record of 2020, and that’s got to count for something.

Wave is texturally and aesthetically jaw-dropping, perfected by an artist who clearly took his time accentuating the beauty and sadness of every moment.

A well-earned victory lap for a band that pulled itself back from the brink of oblivion to sound stronger than ever. A source of pure joy, indeed.

Phantom Island is King Gizz at their best producing yet another album that can not only be heralded for its precision and progression, but for once again showing how to take a bundle of diverse ingredients and transform them into a cohesive, intriguing, and overall fun experience, while remaining introspective and exploratory.

Yolk in the Fur is a statement album. It’s an experience that flows effortlessly, combining a glistening, guitar-driven atmosphere with romantically-charged lyrics that make the whole thing nearly impossible to resist.

As a concept album, it's halfway to becoming an amazing cycle. There are a few flaws and the second half of the collection to worry about, but so far, Thrice has produced another stunner.

New Amerykah reveals its considerable depths and strengths, and invites the listener to invest the time needed to explore them.

Lyrically, the album is demonstrably strong enough to stand on its own two feet, but I cannot explain just how phenomenally the narratives are bolstered by the instrumentals.

Simon’s thirteenth studio album is as fresh and relevant as anything currently being mass-consumed by the market, and the things it forces you to think about are far more important than most of the topics that are being fed to us by the industry.

Morbid Stuff is a worthy follow up to The Dream Is Over in all the right ways--giving fans everything they asked for with some amusing curveballs. It’s a complete thrill from front to back that manages to retain the band’s whacky nature while making some inspiring progressions forward. You can't get much closer to a modern punk classic than this.

Black Up is at first mind-bending and perhaps confusing in its production and aesthetic, making it easy to lump in with fringe rap artists cLOUDDEAD. But to do so ignores the visceral qualities of the album, both in Butler's lyrics and in the production.

Two Suns then is everything it could have been--a worthy follow up to Bat For Lashes’ Mercury nominated Fur & Gold... and so much more. Here and now, take a trip, you just may come out enchanted.

It may not be an especially immediate album, and is definitely not one which can be listened to as background music for fifty minutes, but its slow-burning qualities turn what initially may seem a little messy, into a satisfyingly cohesive release.

Sonically, Nikki Nack is a joyous record which sees Gabril bursting at the seams with restless energy and tremendous creativity.

Where Circles succeeds, where it becomes a graceful and elegant piece of art rather than an experimental excursion, is in finding the perfect subject matter for its laidback meanderings. Quite simply, these songs are dispatches from a day in the life of Mac Miller.

It stands well alongside any classic Springsteen record you can mention.

Feed the Animals, despite its tentative start, is chocked full of the same bombastic booty-shaking moments that defined "Night Ripper."

Shore sees Fleet Foxes reborn and entering a new season themselves; a stunning evolution to behold. Fleet Foxes’ fourth album glistens with warmth, energy, and melody. Whereas Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues, and Crack-Up were earthbound, Shore sees Fleet Foxes entirely liberated and taking flight – a fresh incarnation of their former selves.

What you find in Transcendental Youth aren't answers to any big questions, but instead questions to a bunch of answers that never meant anything before but now seem exceedingly important.

This is good because Letlive know their strengths here, hooks and Butler, push both ahead to the front, and come out with the best eleven tracks of their career thus far, easily.

The Historical Conquests is astonishing for its depth of exploration in the folk genre.

[“Round We Go” is] a roiling, overpowering emotional mixture, and it fits right in with what I’m Not Your Man wants to accomplish: a forthright treatise on sexuality and relationships, told with an uncanny sense of comedic timing and a penchant for reaching for the throat with its hooks, arrangements, and, most resoundingly, its lyrics.

He displays that it’s just as impressive to make an effective pop song, as it is to create a progressive rock epic. Steven Wilson proves that an artist can venture into uncharted musical waters, even 30 years into their career, for ambitious and vibrant results like these.

That’s their secret sauce: there’s no bells, whistles, or trappings that can replace songwriting with an important core message. Once again, Silberman and co. deliver that incredible depth and meaning, with an earnestness like only they can muster.

It crafts an atmosphere of quiet terror that also just happens to be a flawless sonic extraction of this very moment in history.

On Panorama, they show themselves to be one of the tightest units in music, writing groove after memorable groove. Guitars, bass, and drums meld seamlessly, with no component vying for attention above the others. What stands out is how rarely the guitarists resort to palm mutes, heavy distortion, or even fast strumming. There is an almost improvisational aspect to the music in a lot of these songs.

The ONE… doesn't feel like work for G-Side, rather it feels like a first love, a record that gives a hundred percent to garner every compliment it earns: flowing, smart, sexy, and even global to those who hear it and its grand tone.

Copia is Cooper’s greatest work to date, but it leaves even more roads for him to take.

Without hyperbole, it is one of the most fun, vibrant, rewarding, intelligently structured pop records to shimmy through these parts in quite some time, taking cues from whichever electro-punk-pop-DIY-indie-sludge-rock hybrid 21-year-old Londoner Mica Levi fell in love with when she was 14.

The Tortured Poets Department is a complex album to even perceive because there is an oversaturation of surrounding context. If you whittle it straight down to what matters, however – the music and the lyrics – it’s an excellent record despite its tremendous length and monotonous tempo (discounting ‘I Can Do It With a Broken Heart' here, which is an absolute bop). There are beautiful instrumental accents and interesting production flourishes throughout, and Swift continues to illustrate lyrical growth even though it has always been her strong suit.

Deacon nips the synthetics that allowed Spidermanâ??s sandpaper production to grate, opting instead for smoothly textured layers, a trick that strengthens a brilliantly executed dance album into dramatically structured art.

Less eccentric and exciting than its predecessor, perhaps, but only by choice. Glass Animals are at their peak in 2016, and perfectly content to be slower and quieter, worming their way into your head by inches but settling in for the long haul once they're in there.

Konoyo is a heavy album, emotionally speaking, in a way that is difficult to explain, yet can be expressed in a way that only someone like Tim Hecker would know. By destroying, contorting and reconfiguring these sounds, Hecker draws out the most visceral emotions in himself via soundwaves--his music being his therapy, and us, the audience, being his witness to his solemn excursion into his very soul. It's all too beautiful.

He trumps his incredible debut in every way without resorting to drastic tactics in order to avoid some sophomore slump, instead subtly perfecting his approach to great effect.

It's totally different from everything he's done while still being perfectly, irrevocably Kanye.

With every compilation, tracks are bound to fall flat. However, the turnover rate is relatively low, making Dark Was The Night so refreshing and ultimately a worthy purchase.

There's no pandering to authenticity here, no appeal to the emotion: Love Remains doesn't drag you into its world with any sort of force whatsoever so much as it places square within it, naked and indifferent.

Little Wide Open certainly isn’t grandiose or over the top, but it does feel like most of his best material settled into one place here. It possesses all the marks of a year-defining folk/Americana release – and while I’ll stop short of calling it an instant classic, I do think time will be kind to this album.

It is absolutely an evolution from his opening trio of releases, and a strong step towards becoming an integral voice in the indie rock scene.

Wilco have had their peaks and valleys, but they have never sounded as confident as they do on The Whole Love.

Slave Ambient is the work of a band making us listen for every piece of them.

A passionately resonating, electronic-underscored tour de force that somehow never betrays their true essence.

Like a pang of guilt does he sample his former self, like a torch carried to its final flicker of illumination. And to hear all that, to be able to almost feel that happening, is to bear witness to an artist working at the apex of his talent.

Continuing to dominate the fusing of musical styles he unintentionally started, the punchy yet gorgeous qualities of Kodama sees an impressive balance of contrasts, darker and more purposeful than Shelter while evolving triumphantly.

If you’ve enjoyed Holter to this point, it is worth investing the necessary time. Aviary touches every corner of her sound, resulting in an enchanting, if slightly dizzying, fifth album.

Gorgeous melodies are painted across a variety of instrumental backgrounds, forming an ideal blend of his more traditional emotionally-charged ballads and bolder, more unfamiliar pieces.

Tears of the Valedictorian is easily one of the best records of the year.

A bold and colorful magnum opus that marks an almost unbeatable personal milestone for Lorde.

The Shepherd's Dog proves that Beam is worthy of the attention that he is given and actually a brilliant musical mind rather than some guy who got lucky enough to make a great album in his bedroom.

The second half of this record is so continuously alive.

Elsie is nostalgic, contemplative, and persistent; it's also one of 2011's best.

Fortunately that art is unbelievably fucking dope, and that's mostly because of the significant drawcard of this production: the production. ... There is a level of hip-hop reflexivity here that I haven't heard since RTJ4.

The first album in a series of three (all with the same title, differing only in capitalizations) BLACKsummers'night isn't just the soul album of the year, but also a top-tier addition to the canon of a once-fizzling scene.

The band's latest intersperses melody with mania, and it's a moment of exceptional energy and creativity which should rank near the top of their career achievements to-date.

They've rarely sounded this in-tune with each other or this certain of their purpose. It's gorgeously arranged, amazingly textured, and evocative in ways that only patient music can be.

By listening to What Does It All Mean?, you're giving yourself a vital history lesson, a blast of fun, and above all, some 130 minutes of fantastic music.

Somehow heavier but feeling lighter than they have in years, meeting your gaze not with a self-deprecating shrug but a grimace and a snarl, Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs is a perfect sendoff to one of pop-punk's finest drummers and a victory lap for one of the genre's best acts.

There’s rarely a song here that isn’t beautiful: Fortino’s sense for gorgeous melodies, both instrumentally and vocally, simply shines throughout.

This album is the sound of an excellent singer, songwriter, arranger, and, I’d argue, thinker translating those strengths into some of the most stirring music you’ll hear this year. Loud City Song may not be loud, but the echo it makes is unforgettable.

Veckatimest works like a cash-back bonus, the more you give in to it, the grander the return.

A masterpiece of edgy, pop-infused rock composed with intelligence.

Major/Minor is just another testament to Thrice's ability to do no wrong.

The entire album is a collaborative project, in that sense; yet each song acts like a personal journal entry, documenting Justin Vernon's experience back with the living, after being with the ghosts of memory for some time.

England Keep My Bones finally gets the combination right and stands right alongside Love, Ire and Song as one of Frank Turner's best works.

Pretty much, Say Anything offers more for fans and opens up the Say Anything sound for new ‘users’ to come and enjoy. It’s the perfect balance of a step forward and a redaction to a more “safe” sound.

Dedicated Side B is more upbeat, energetic, and memorable than its counterpart, featuring hook-laden verses and explosive choruses that only came through intermittently on what we’ll refer to as Side A. It’s everything Dedicated was and everything that it wasn’t, all rolled into one. These songs don’t feel even the slightest bit unfinished. ... Her very best album to date.

Though it's a lengthy record, at just over an hour, it's a rewarding one.

The Bedlam in Goliath is simply an immense album.

Regina has basically mastered everything else too; it's hard to see her making a wrong move anytime soon.

Spectral Lines is a batch of quietly luminous tracks that feel just as interlocked as the secrets of the universe, sharing pianos that blossom to stunning effect, vocal harmonization that whisks your mind off toward the ether, guitars with just enough bite to lend traction, and seamless transitions that give the entire experience an effortless, elegant flow.

A Wave That Will Never Break is a nearly flawless comeback for WU LYF. The variation between the tracks and the pure emotion shown throughout has me asking why it took them so damn long to make another album and why they split in the first place after their classic debut, but it also proves that the band still has plenty left in the tank.

Spiral is a swoon worthy record, and one that cements Darkside as one of the brightest glowing acts of its kind.

It is a ferocious and captivating listen that twists and turns through the deepest darkest depths all the while pushing forward into new sonic territory.

Make a point of hearing one of the angriest, most intelligent, and subtly hopeful albums of 2012.

Option Paralysis equivocates the maturation of musical ideas over the Dillinger Escape Plan's storied career, as Miss Machine and Ire Works are currently looking as mere test samples leading up to this point. In all, Option Paralysis is a work of art, but don't think for a second they've gone soft on us.

It's their most accessible record both musically and lyrically.