Trimming would have helped, still, a portion of his fan base might have asked for this full retreat into darkness for quite a number of years now. It’s ironic how Lanegan’s most tumultuous experience came wrapped in one of the most toned down collections of songs so far. Also, the difficulties of relating to these stories refrain the LP from becoming one of the strongest in the catalog.

The shockingly honest debut is more comparable to the work of Sharon Van Etten than any of Williams' contemporaries in the pop-punk scene; not in the music itself, but the way both women use music as an outlet, in the aftermath of years-long relationships where they were demeaned and made to feel worthless.

Steeped in striking colors but never losing sight of the gloom and grey continuum Katatonia have mastered throughout their discography, City Burials is emotionally arresting, ceaselessly atmospheric, and a milestone release that serenely ebbs and flows across a myriad of intricate, stratified soundscapes.

Heaven to a Tortured Mind eliminates the diversity and nuance of its predecessor in favour of underdeveloped avant-pop.

The album's best asset is how it ties together these disparate musical threads with the strength of its songwriting. Having found a stunning depth and emotional acuity on their last release, Reynolds broadens his focus to the world without ever losing the raw feeling which stood out in bold against The Spark's shimmering production.

Ghosts V: Together features a calmer, at times relaxed sound, yet you can feel tension slowly mounting around you. Reznor and Ross never allow you to completely let your guard down. ... It is a lot to take in, Together and Locusts require patience and a certain mood, however, both are meticulously crafted and deserve their place in the catalog.

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

Born Again is easily one of the best indie-rock/dream-pop debuts to come out in years. Siggelkow’s firm handle on her sound is genuinely remarkable – it seems like she’s been doing this for decades and that Born Again is the album that finally ties it all together.

Katie is making a point of saying more with less, taking potent emotions and quietly tucking them into a plain white envelope for us to open and interpret. She’s as lucid as we’ve ever heard her, stripping down to her emotional core and daring us to make eye contact.

If 03.15.20 is a full stop to one of the most dynamic, inventive, frustratingly inconsistent discographies of the last decade. I'm not convinced Glover's multi-hyphenate brain could ever stop working away, creating shows and songs and short films and botching album rollouts to a ridiculous degree.

Sorry is exactly the shot in the arm that indie-rock has been missing lately – a fearless band that has set out to make its mark on the new decade, and with 925, already has.

The last thirty minutes or so of Ghosts VI: Locusts feels that little bit more cathartic and rewarding by the end of it. What starts off as simple, sombre piano notes eventually swells up to synthetic ambiences, and the rise of a mechanically unsettling apex for the album’s closing quarter. Both of these albums require time set aside to really benefit from their journeys, but it’s time well spent if you’re willing to accept it.

The compositions are solid, every member brings something to the table and Eddie sings just as passionately as ever. Despite all these, there are only a handful of songs that spark actual emotion or groove at least, whereas the others fail to deliver memorable hooks.

The Ghost of Orion is My Dying Bride’s best sounding album from a production standpoint, featuring some of Aaron’s most accomplished vocals, and guitar melodies that harken back to the days of The Angel and the Dark River, and it is a welcome addition to the My Dying Bride discography.

It doesn’t necessarily feel as tattered or heart-on-sleeve as the group’s earlier works, but it’s also far more entertaining. You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere is a breakthrough for The Disctricts, and it’s already one of the best albums to be released this year.

This is very lush, star-lit country music that is practically breathtaking in the moment while transcending the typical boundaries of the genre. It's about time.

here’s nothing wrong with hearing these well-written songs, packed with sashaying grooves and wobbly synths, but by the mid-section of the record there is a definite sagging point, and the album doesn’t feel as effortless to listen to as Loner did. Even so, this is as enjoyable to listen to as its former, it’s just a shame that it doesn’t progress Caroline all that much as an artist.

Chalk Color Theory up as a sophomore slump - a misstep she’s not likely to repeat - and the most aggressively OK album of 2020.

Miss Anthropocene takes everything about Grimes the musician – her uncanny ability to build a song out of parts no one ever thought to put together before, that idiosyncratic voice, her ear for a classic melody – and concisely packages it into her most penetrating record yet.

There’s a lot of guests on this album and it brings a heterogeneous quality to Ordinary Man, but for the most part this aspect turns detrimental to the overall vision. Ozzy should have banded together a small fixture of musicians for the album and ran with a consistent tone that would see his mantra through to the end.

Changes is inferior to its predecessor in a lot of ways, but that doesn’t stop it from being a decent album. The most interesting part about this project is it lacks the 101 radio hits he’s so well known for.

At the end of the day, Parker proves good songwriting can hold the basis of a band’s sound, and despite the lack of guitar here, The Slow Rush does just that. It’s not as pristine as previous entries, but it certainly holds up Tame impala’s incredible reputation.

UNLOCKED's best features are its brevity and simplicity. Songs drop in, do what they need to and cycle to an end without melodrama.

What we have here will likely go down in history as the band’s magnum opus. It’s just so fucking massive and Netflix-level binge-worthy. Without a slow song or acoustic number, Brave Faces Everyoneis ten tracks of loud, abrasive rock music that should connect with anyone who’s life isn’t perfect.

Everything about Father of All Motherfuckers is lazy. It begins with the self-referential American Idiot album cover, which features a unicorn exhaling/vomiting rainbows whilst forcefully blowing flames out of its ass. The music is befitting of said artwork, as even the staunchest fan would have an aneurysm trying to figure out what the hell these guys were thinking on this one.

Despite its flaws, Hotspot deserves its place on the upper shelf of Pet Shop Boys’ discography. It’s the most complete journey from this Stuart Price trilogy, although not the most rewarding to be honest (the spot still belongs to Electric). Even so, it’s admirable how the duo manage to be this consistent and have removed all signs of rust lately.

It’s not the worst approach they could have taken, but again, there’s nothing super about adhering to the virtues of pop – and in turn, Bonny Light Horseman is a marginally decent record; nothing more.

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.

Dream On is missing something, and as long as Boman continues to trudge the path of minimalism (that almost borders on indifference), her music will struggle to differentiate itself from the thousands of other indie-pop/folk songstresses out there who all write and sing about heartache in a similar way.

Music to Be Murdered By doesn’t improve on Kamikaze, that’s largely down to its run time and hodgepodge of styles, but I can say there was at least some effort put into this one. The production is decent, the vocals occasionally hearken back to his playful era, and the guests do a pretty great job throughout, but there’s still too much baggage being carried over from the ‘10’s Eminem albums, and it kills a lot of the potential here.

Occasional flourishes reveal brilliance (‘Lost’, ‘Start Again’), but mostly it’s a homogeneous trudge through palpable emotional intensity. It culminates in some stunning imagery, which makes it worth the journey especially when you consider the relative brevity of the whole thing.

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.

It wouldn’t just be inappropriate to listen to Coin Coin Memphis casually, while playing a video game or doodling in the background, it would be impossible, so arresting and bracing is the experience.

For those wanting Untrue levels of output, that album will forever be at your disposal. An album designed as worship has now entered that same vault of romanticized antiquity.

There’s unhinged beauty meeting catchiness, a cabal that draws in its listener despite its inherent capriciousness. Hidden History of the Human Race is an irrefutable classic, dispelling any doubt that Blood Incantation are one of this generation’s leading death metal acts.

An album this tepid--which is to say, not completely tepid, but tepid enough--from a talent that immense, though, can only register as a minor failure. She can do better. The sonic virtues of her performance on Pang, however mixed, guarantee that I'll be listening.

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.

In spite of my own misgivings towards Leaving Meaning., it is an admirable effort that doesn't tell us much about what the future has in store, but to make people aware that Swans aren't quite dead...yet.

Magdalene sees FKA Twigs reach a wholly satisfying pinnacle that is unlikely to be rivaled by any of her peers in 2019.

The only real thing separating this from Some Rap Songs is the lack of duration and inter-song flow; Earl's last album deserved those slightly silly Abbey Road nods as much as Jeff Rosenstock's WORRY. did, whereas FEET OF CLAY plays as self-contained little musings that seem to flutter in and out as a radio channel changes.

It’s an enjoyable ride, I can’t take that away from it, but replayability is slim and it quickly unveils humdrum and vapid songwriting the more you settle yourself into it. As with any album post De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, Daemon serves up another solid dose of black metal that pales next to the album that started it all.

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.

There’s little to complain about here, honestly. I think the only flaws I have with Vol.11 & 12 fall on the things it doesn’t utilise to the fullest. ... The important takeaway from this is that it is a really fun record to listen to. It’s short, it’s tightly written, and it will cater to a broad demographic of listeners.

This is a special piece of music, and one that is all the more likely to impress because of how unexpectedly it departs from the formula laid out in Part 1. As both a standalone piece and as a counterpart to its predecessor, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 2 is a towering achievement.

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

There is something for every Mark Lanegan fan. It is also a good starting point for those unaware of his music. The only mildly bothering element is the production, since it doesn’t fit every tune. On the upside, there’s a rawness to the guitars and especially the vocals (most of the time they sound as if he’s singing in your room in front of you). Even so, during the multi-layered parts, some details get lost in a muddy pool of reverb.

What makes the trio’s unique blend of noise and hip-hop so effective, however, isn’t any kind of obvious messaging, or an attempt at allegory. It’s that you don't have to read it in any particular way.

A better title might have been Thriving, because this record continues their remarkably consistent run and proves that they are still very much at, or at least near, the top of their game.

Olsen has created an undeniable stunner that should go down as one of the strongest folk albums of the year.

Metal Galaxy is easily the best and most entertaining release of Babymetal’s career, featuring a diverse array of songs that are all capably carried by Suzuka’s proficient vocals, improved songwriting, and an excellent production.

Brown still raps like he's from the future, it's just a timeline less removed from ours where Tribe Called Quest nostalgia and retro instrumentation is fully in vogue. Of course, this being Danny Brown we're never getting an easy meal, and some of the best moments see him shaking it up once again.

Hello Exile is full of idealized versions of Menzingers songs, a little slower than usual but still containing all the sonic and lyrical hallmarks that we’ve come to expect.

There’s nothing about Ode to Joy that is meant to set the airwaves afire. It’s raw elegance; a surplus of creativity delivered with equal portions of restraint.

It’s not a bad album, but it is hindered with a lack of understanding on what made the band so great to begin with. So, prepare to experience as many rough moments as there is smooth ones.

It’s another masterpiece that will forever be enshrined in his ever-growing legacy. Absolute perfection.

The album’s two parts are apparent. It threads in-between two halves, creating a jagged tapestry of lush rock and murky chaos. Outside of that context, a person might find that LφVE & EVφL is a confounding and inconsistent experience; a chimeric monster of conflicting interests and ideas that trades blows with itself amongst a heavy backdrop of metal and noise. But to Boris devotees, it’s everything and more.

The inherent problems which bog Welcome Home down largely stem from superficial writing. This is nothing new for the band, but for a record centring itself around Vinnie, the lyrics feel like they’re skirting around the topic in a humdrum manner in favour of really getting into the nitty-gritty of it all.

None of this is as nuanced or beautiful as Sailor’s Guide, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s a momentary pardon from the insanity of daily life. That’s as good of a reason as any to get down and dirty with Sound & Fury – Simpson’s most straightforwardly enjoyable offering to date.

A higher level of ambition and a confident balance of the various changes in tone is felt all over the record. While not all of the flaws from the new Opeth are gone, the band are giving their full effort and showing off how creative they have always been, and still are without doubt. Renewed inspiration and a fine balance between the dark and light sides of Opeth’s music make In Cauda Venenum their best work since Heritage.

Unfortunately, it’s little more than a bland exercise in pop that the band needs in order to sell records and tour again.

his is the full realisation of the promise of blink-182 with Matt Skiba: the minor-key melodies and desolate lyrics of +44 brush up against a fully comfortable Skiba as lead vocalist, delivering his best vocals in fifteen years or more – all within the confines of a gleaming clean pop-punk production. ... The overproduction is frustrating both because his songwriting is at its best state in at least 10 years, and because for every generic pop moment there are subtle and fascinating production details to discover.

It’s been five albums now with this formula, and I’m not saying I’m looking for a New Coke version of Tiny Moving Parts, the formula is very good, but it’s holding the band back from being anything more than pretty good.

Any which way I look at it, I see in its 45 minutes all the signs of a true classic, an album whose daring attitude and commitment to odd sonic luxuries future emissaries of the great tradition of experimental hip-hop music should only hope to emulate.

Overall, The Nothing is a huge step back for the band. The Paradigm Shift and The Serenity of Suffering were far from perfect, but they rode a line that balanced a contemporary vision with their stapled characteristics. This tries dearly to be nostalgic yet fresh, but the finished product just comes across forced and derivative.

This is, arguably, the most consistent sounding album she has ever produced, and although it may not appeal to every one of her fans, it’ll certainly have old fans relishing in the brooding spiritual journey it provides.

Overall, Lost Girls ends up as a fun record that luckily, doesn’t overstay its welcome. It has groove and substance as it takes its cues from the likes of Prince, David Bowie, Madonna, Cindy Lauper or Peter Gabriel to name a few.

This is her best album yet, and great moments abound amidst the fat.

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.

Despite the lack of any real surprises, Awakening easily stands with anything else Sacred Reich has ever done and shouldn’t disappoint any longtime fans that are still out there. For those that were too young to experience Sacred Reich back when they were originally active, just be prepared for some early nineties-style metal with a few songs that move back in time to a point when no-frills thrash ruled the metal landscape.

Braindrops is somehow both more personal and more detached than Liddiard has ever been. It’s personal in that there’s moments of unmitigated passion, manifesting as anger, vulnerability, and virulent snark; the shrapnel from broken relationships and haywire politics ricochets off the band.

On an album this long, there is equal room for good and bad, and you’re always equidistant from either one no matter what track you’ve reached.

The album is far from perfect, but it is still temping to describe it as a welcome return to form for a songwriter who has lately ventured closer to fluffy indie-pop than the biting folk that made his name. The best of the songs on No Man’s Land mix dense historiography with accessible catchiness.

forevher is a supremely catchy, slightly experimental (the horn sections in ‘princess leia’ couldn’t go unmentioned), but chiefly fun pop record that implements plenty of ideas that are completely new to Shura’s arsenal. ... With a sound this infectious and spellbinding, Shura has undoubtedly found her calling.

It’s all very Ryan Adams-esque, and the overall quality of the songs here live up to that comparison. Caretakers is at its best when it leans right into its own clichés. The more romantic, summery, and spellbound the music is, the more successful the album becomes.

Any Human Friend cements Hackman as one of the most intriguing figures in indie-pop/rock, if not for her lyrical antics then for her ability to constantly reinvent her music.

Truth is, none of that intimacy [in For Emma] has gone, just the direction it's flowing has changed. Bon Iver today has traded that one-to-one, man-to-listener intimacy for the many-to-many intimacy shared between Vernon's circle of collaborators.

This is grounded, back to basics writing that becomes the breath of fresh air for the album. This is the record the band should have come back with post Paul Gray’s death; it has all the hallmarks of what made Slipknot great in the first place, but it contains a lot of the good elements that came from .5: The Gray Chapter as well.

An unwieldy, 80-minute record that was barely promoted and likely rushed to release. It's not 22 tracks of straight garbage, but the idea that Chance had three very viable debut album candidates but chose this as his big day would be funny if it wasn't so deeply frustrating.

Overall, I is an interesting record, mainly due to Follakzoid’s uncompromising efforts to cross boundaries between electronic music and psychedelia. Nevertheless, it might be too much to take in in one setting, unless you really are in the mood or on drugs to drift away while listening.

For all intents and purposes Clairo’s debut album, Immunity proves to be everything that people who’ve watched her ascent could hope for. She has set the stage to dominate her own slice of the forlorn indie-pop niche, alongside peers like Baker, Heynderickx, and Soccery Mommy.

There's a clear aesthetic touchstone for pretty much everything this album does. If you're the kind of person easily frustrated by such influence-heavy music you'll be turned away, but I admire the consistency of songcraft needed to hold together an album pulling from so many places.

As expected, Duck wants to please everybody and this is the reason it fails to take off. ... They prefer the safety of the comfort zone, although they fare much better when they show some grit.

Of Monsters and Men use Fever Dream to reject the expectation that they’re nothing more than a “made-for-radio” indie folk band, and based on these results I’d tend to agree with them. This could be the group’s strongest offering to date, and it’s a noticeable few steps outside of their comfort zone. Here’s to hoping that they continue to wander astray.

Bandana is terrific because it makes you yearn for that imagined history, the struggle from page to audio that surely happened to produce such a god-given chemistry. Freddie's deep, choppy flows might initially seem somewhat at odds with Madlib's production but that's why it works, because playing too much to the soul-soaked nostalgia robs the proceedings of their bite.

This feels like a halfway point between a true Flaming Lips full-length and one of their many novelty side-ventures. This is undoubtedly a worthwhile pursuit for fans of the band that also marks a welcome return to accessibility; maybe with a bit of a stronger backbone, it could have been more.

There’s no delusion going on that Sum 41 have reinvigorated pop-punk, but Order In Decline certainly qualifies as a pleasant surprise. ... They’ve proven that there’s still something left in the tank.

Tiny Changes is an emotive listen start to end, especially if you already know the album by heart (if you’ve never heard The Midnight Organ Fight then by all means, start there), and contains several thrillingly imaginative takes on the classics we know.

There’s little to fault here in all honesty; it plays everything right and does so with a near flawless execution. Though one could argue it’s a little one-dimensional in terms of almost exclusively working with one style, as I said earlier, it nails the way these songs are presented.

This is a solid slab of industrial metal without a distinguished bone in its body, and not much else. Here’s hoping for next time.

On all counts, “Let’s Rock” succeeds in its mission. Hit the road, roll down the windows, and play it loud.

That's the trick which keeps ANIMA from losing itself in the beat-heavy, extroverted exterior. The Thom Yorke of 2019 has a newfound openness which endears him to us in a way the famously reticent singer never has in twenty-plus years.

The negative bits that afflict the songwriters individually--clunky lyrics, a tendency to trend towards clutter, influences taking up whole damn sleeves--certainly remain here, but somehow, together, the couple’s issues never overwhelm, never distract from the Raconteurs’ thesis statement of just making great, concise rock songs.

Even with its glaring issues, Rise shows a lot of promise for Hollywood Vampires. If the band should ever choose to proceed further, an exclusive focus on original material seems like the best way to go, given that this is where Rise displays its, and the band’s, strongest attributes.

III is a masterpiece of modern indie folk. Bad Books have in every way lived up to the potential of a so-called “supergroup”, combining the best aspects of Andy Hull’s and Kevin Devine’s artistry, with help in no small part from Robert McDowell’s atmospheric guitar wizardry. The songs themselves are rich, lush, and flourishing – yet totally simplistic.

Even with an eight-year gap between, it's easy to think of Final Transmission as a sister album to White Silence. The facts of each album's creation are remarkably similar, down to being nine-song hitters largely recorded in practice spaces rather than a recording studio proper. The difference, of course, is that Final Transmission is short and raw by necessity rather than choice.

Silversun Pickups’ fifth full-length sees the band craft another very enjoyable alt-rock album, but it’s one that is full of holes. For every catchy melody, they seem to abandon their creative spirit. When they aspire for the stars artistically, they can’t seem to locate their tune sense.

Regardless of its intention, whether vapid or passive-aggresively referrential, SHE IS COMING is really, really fun. It bounces from eye-roll-inducing to warmly dazzling without asking whether or not it should.

Jambinai have crafted a beast of an album with the perfect length to maintain its punch. Besides this, there are many idiosyncratic elements here which are hard to forget and easy to recognize once listened to. Though their music isn’t for everyone, once you get to the gist of it, it’s very rewarding.