This record is very Crystal Castles of them, which is altogether a compliment and a criticism. It’s witch-house pop. You’ll find plenty to enjoy here undoubtedly, but there is still unrealized potential within White Ring’s arsenal waiting to be discovered.

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.

Every journey back to Meridian offers one more dazzling gem, shimmering in the music’s translucent waters just waiting to be discovered. Immerse yourself and become beautifully adrift.

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love sets itself apart from previous Deafheaven releases by connecting the listener to the kind of core-of-your-soul burn that can only come from the pain of failed connection with another human being.

The Now Now feels shockingly complete.

While they may be overzealous and inconsistent and pandering, there’s a certain gratitude reserved for the fact that these people, these dynamics, this electricity, all ended up in the same place at the same time: a trashed and cluttered share-house in California.

The easiest and most likely path to continued success for Welch and company would have been to attempt to re-create the spellbinding magic of Ceremonials or the anthemic qualities of Lungs. High as Hope is neither, and that makes it hands down the most forward-thinking album of Florence and the Machine’s care

In short, it’s a shining example of personal and musical growth. There’s something to be said for toeing the line between fervent experimentation and enjoyable song craft; here, Let’s Eat Grandma walk it effortlessly.

Overall, Our Raw Heart is a truly encompassing journey that requires multiple listens to unfold itself (much like any YOB album). There’s anger, frustration and melancholy to be found, still, at the end you’re left with a sense of relief.

It’s the sound of musicians that know exactly what they want to be.

A work of sheer hip-hop utility and performance.

The transitions are what make the thing, equally as important as the actual songs here. Bad Witch finds Trent at a rare peak in terms of song flow and focus, and as a piece is absolutely deserving of the LP distinction, brutally short runtime be damned.

The overwhelming sense Everything’s Fine leaves you with is that at some point a deep engagement with your artistic craft starts to look a lot like love--love between artists, between artist and audience, and finally a radical love for the world itself, even and especially because we know things will never be fine.

It’s Ben Howard doubling down on ambiance, creating a collage of moments both fleeting and everlasting while choosing the art of the craft over the simplest path to accolades. It may take more time to appreciate, but it’s a masterclass of songwriting that will likely dictate the future direction of his music.

We’re totally invested in Lump’s plight, watching it fight off numbness with two dead and flailing arms. But mainly because the tones here are wonderful.

This disconnect between intent and delivery is explicit the entire album through. From the harried, unfinished-sounding "No Mistakes" which is built on a skeletal Slick Rick sample and almost nothing else, to the choppy breaks for chorus in "All Mine", to "Wouldn't Leave" which is basically a Francis and the Lights demo with a Kanye scratch vocal quickly added in.

Stale songwriting and (mercifully) brief track durations birth forth mind-numbing verses and uninteresting choruses that repeat all too often, in all too predictable configurations. With such uninspired material to work with, it's difficult to conjure an emotion either side of ambivalent, neither to exalt nor to condemn.

A lot of the gratification of this record is in the production, which takes the age-old hip-hop trick of taking a fractional melodic idea, barely a song by itself, and spinning out of it a thick sonic weave.

Sparkle Hard remains an entirely worthwhile pursuit that resides within the upper echelon of Malkmus’ post-Pavement output. The way he experiments and progresses his sound is admirable, and it has resulted in some must-hear moments on this very record.

To Drink From the Night Itself returns to the peak of At The Gates’ creative side by delving into a more moody, nuanced and diverse set of songs that shares more in common with their first few releases than the one everybody seems to remember. In the process, they very well may have released the best album in their history.

An album like 7 easily sets itself apart from any other record Beach House has recorded thus far; it's far more easier to write it off as a derivative indie album, but to do so would discredit the obvious effort it took to actually record something so different from every other album they've done yet.

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.

His albums are usually quite long, but this one with its near hour and a half runtime might be a chore to sit through for even the most die-hard Sun Kil Moon fans. But there are some extraordinary movements on this thing.

Even if it’s not quite as good as Shinedown’s very best material dating back to their heyday, Attention can still claim at least one superlative in relation to the band’s discography. For starters, it may very well be their heaviest album, moving along at a consistent breakneck pace that relents only sparingly.

Between the obvious stylistic growth of Shakey Graves and Rose-Garcia’s ramped up creative appetite, Can’t Wake Up presents itself as the definitive album of the project’s discography. It masters its own atmosphere, swelling with confidence at each and every turn while inviting all who listen to join in. It only gets stronger as it goes on.

This moment of fuzzed-out, fucked-up pop music with questionably scant odes to rap music is not designed for posterity. To his credit, Post gets that, and is content to make overlong albums where every song can be a single. Not every song on beerbongs and bentleys can be a single, but there’s enough of them hiding in there to make it one of 2018’s more rewarding releases.

In self-reflection, Hopkins deconstructs Singularity; for all its avenues, detours, desperate reaches and anxious retreats, true inner peace rests on a foundation of simplicity. A modest concept, often taken for granted.

The record isn’t immediately absurd, but rather keeps its composure and subtly turns convention on its head with a smile.

In The Rainbow Rain is an uncommonly jaunty listen.

It’s pithy and monochromatic, forcing the listener to pay the closest attention to every movement. Every harmony is a different shade of grey, and this record does yield some of her loveliest harmonies.

J. Cole’s raps, but KOD sounds like someone who is either unfamiliar with drug abuse, or is completely unsympathetic to the dynamics of drug abuse in America.

Eat the Elephant is engaging, atmospheric rock done right with intelligent lyrics and ambitious themes.

To be blunt, Tesseract are entirely too reliant on ambiance as their "secret sauce." Where a proper use of ambiance can add a pensive tone or an opportunity for emotional reflection to a song, Tesseract rely on it both as cohesive glue on nearly every track on Sonder and as a melody replacement. It's simply not enough.

With Resistance is Futile, they’ve finally caught up with their own reality and decided to produce the one album they never made; a serviceable rock album.

It’s a waste of time to recount highlights though, because this whole album is essential, and to skip from one point to the next without experiencing the journey along the way is sort of the opposite of how Golden Hour deserves to be listened to.

Moosebumps is [not] a bad record, it’s simply a more polished rehash of a fantastic record from another time.

Bark Your Head Off, Dog continues the Hop Along tradition insofar as it is sharp, well-produced indie rock accompanying Quinlan's bold lyrical earnestness. This is the band's hallmark sound, so loyalists can rejoice. What is different this time around, however, are broader and more grandiose instrumentation.

Themes and lyrics aside, the record is simply full of great songs.

It doesn’t aim to instantly satisfy unsuspecting listeners, dazzle newcomers, or alienate longtime fans; but what Unieqav does is craft a digital world sewn together by technology, biological information, science, and action. Engaged by the imprint of minimal techno beats and gliding melodies, the possibilities Unieqav promise are far from endless, but are indeed beautiful.

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.

Enjoyment for this sort of album can be derived from two factors: being, your toleration for pandering, and your toleration for complainers. Given the circumstances, I’d advise you simply look past either point and enjoy the music superficially, but if you’re finally sick of The Weeknd’s melancholy, now might be the time to look elsewhere.

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.

If you choose to look for the metaphors, there's beauty and even redemption to be found in Now Only; if you don't, there's a kind of quiet acceptance in the numbness.

Every single song is still about smoking with girls, and every song is the same stale, tired, derivative indie/emo I’ve heard a million times.

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.

AmeriKKKant falls on its face pretty fast.

Felt, in turn, is not Suuns going through the motions; it's Suuns putting down their guitars and dusting off the synthesizers and scrounging up less than stellar material.

A Productive Cough should have refined and furthered those musical ambitions, but basically, it didn't--they're right back where they came from in a dying scene, idolising the genre's past and ignoring its future when they could have easily been the writers of it instead.

This is one of Moby’s most cohesive efforts, so if you don’t dig this side of his musical output or look for a wild diversity, you’d be a bit disappointed. Other than this, the record flows surprisingly nice, unveiling a lot of strong material.

If Async was an album centered on the genesis of its creator's suffering and recovery, Remodels is the triumph over the odds put up against Sakamoto and his way of continuing to share his life's work with the world through the lens of his disciples and his contemporaries.

To describe this group's efforts as excellent or even superb doesn't do their record proper. American Dollar Bill is the record to the end of the world, maybe even to the world as it is right now. If it makes you afraid, then that's very okay. They probably want it that way.

Lo Moon isn’t afraid to step outside of its comfort zone, and it’s a big reason why the album feels like such a distinct triumph over the genre’s familiar tendencies and tropes.

Some patience is required, but if you embrace the slow burn, Cusp will slowly reveal itself to you; the bright harmonies covering Diane’s darkest lyrics will come crumbling down. And when that happens, all you can do is listen--in awe of the beauty born from personal pain.

Hours upon hours of material is present for listeners, the hardcore and the uninitiated alike, to indulge in; the five-pound box provides listeners with a potentially new outlook on this underappreciated era of King Crimson, and is guaranteed to be worth the price of entry just for the fleeting mellotron strains of “Lizard” alone.

Patience is the key to the evolution of Glass, using tonal shifts and ghostly textures to compliment the improvisational mastery we are bearing witness to, whether or not it becomes something much more ghastly than beautiful.

This is an album of songs for a big idea before it was shrunken down and packed into the blockbuster money machine, and its well-intentioned attempt at bringing legitimacy to Marvel leaves Lamar and co. alone on a podium, broadcasting their passions through a megaphone to kids who just came to see superheroes do some backflips.

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.

Rich Brian didn’t need to go so hard with the image change, but as far as debut albums go, Amen is catchy, it’s not gimmicky, it’s not annoying, and there’s just enough Chigga still in there to keep things entertaining.

It’s post-punk theatre through and through, full of bright colours and left turns, with enough returning cast members to keep the old heads in their seats (“bring back the old Ought!”).

To put it mildly, Little Dark Age isn’t a success story, nor is it a comeback for anyone other than the most nerdish and devoted of us, and it doesn’t matter anyway. This isn’t the best this band has sounded in years, it’s the best they’ve ever sounded.

To the world outside the next thirty-six minutes: I'm sorry, you just don't exist while The Hands are at work. There’s little you can do to break the immersion, and even less you can do to break Andreas Werliin’s stride.

There are times where the record behaves so obtusely it could be trying to shut its own audience out (example: the conflicting rhythms in Bread directly averse to a “population of people who deal in cliché”), but finding the hidden entry points is half the fun. The other half is trying not to trip up on your way in.

Clone of the Universe brings to the table another batch of headbangers and a big surprise for fans as the second half. The classic Fu Manchu set is augmented by a more dynamic approach to tempo shifts, leaving the straightforward, punk mindset in the background.

Be it the lush, massive hills of Ireland or her genuine gratitude to just breath fresh air, The Two Worlds seems conjured up from the musician’s most isolated, profound moments. Lucky for us, she’s been kind enough to share them--and man, what gorgeous moments these are.

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.

What she’s crafted here is a breezy, personal portrait of her life through finely orchestrated folk tunes--and it's nothing short of a stunning debut.

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.

The record makes no indelible mark on your day--I imagine this skirting the periphery of most year-end lists, the perennial shut-out waiting flustered at the gates (“I’m sorry, you’re not on the list”)--but it’s detailed enough to add dimensions to the scene Burch sets.

To summarise, Man of the Woods is an astoundingly poor, inconsistent, and sloppily constructed outing from an artist whose defining feature has been his ability to cleanly reinvent his image.

Culture II sounds like a satire of every other rap album released by a major label these days, catering to the lowest common denominator of casual music listener. As a business decision, it’s genius; as a piece of music, it’s little more than an elaborate consumer scam.

It remains to be seen whether Down Below will have significant replay value but everything sounds so meticulously crafted that each listen results in a different highlight. Everything that Tribulation seem to have lost in aggression, they have gained in haunting atmosphere and hooks.

In the end, The Thread that Keeps Us is a good Calexico record, still it doesn’t have outstanding peaks. It flows gently down the stream, yet besides a few memorable moments (all of them coming from the band’s comfort zone) there’s nothing to go crazy about.

Wrong Creatures is an often somber listen, better done at night. It isn’t Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at their peak, although it shows the three seasoned musicians doing a good job in their own field.

A competent collobarative tape that nevertheless proves that Quavo should stick to Migos and Travis to curating his own albums.

There are no good songs. There are no ‘moments’ that make any of these 18 songs worth listening to. There’s nothing that implies there is potential, there are no guests that make Eminem worth listening to, there are no good lyrics, there are no good production flourishes, and there aren’t any melodies. There’s no evident flow, and there isn’t anything to be gained from listening to this that can’t be done by listening to literally anything else.

Truly, the blame lies at the feet of Sean, whose limp bars and flow make middling fare of ten reasonably well-rounded bangers.

If they’ve been treading water for the last ten years, then How to Solve Our Human Problems, Pt. 1 is the sound of them emerging--refreshed, invigorated, and ready to return to the hearts and ears of fans across the world.

Material Control doesn't cater to anything except the next rush of adrenaline, the next high. ... This is a Glassjaw album, through and through.

For about nine songs, Experience is good.

Lyrically, it’s inconsistent, and doesn’t serve its title or occasional flirtations with current events very well besides a few references smattered in every other song. Musically, though, it feels more disposable than before, and less beholden to locking into deeper, more resonant grooves.

At its best, the album embodies the curiosity of revisiting audio or video recordings, scanning for oddities which could possibly be the etchings of spirits crossing the veil between worlds. At its worst, Gallarais fools you into thinking its divination has lasting credibility.

Beneath the psychedelic bluster and cluttered production job, this is still mostly the same old Noel. The man's been doing one thing for most of his career, and continuing to do it well even post-Oasis.

The discarded Carrie & Lowell tracks will not disappoint any fans who revere that album and should thus be acquired--independent from the whole album--if need be. As the remixes stand, they’re fairly inoffensive on their own, but will likely not sit well with those who have developed a personal connection to the original cuts.

Reputation is a hodgepodge of styles that have been percolating around the mainstream for years, repackaged into a shiny, expensive-sounding vehicle for Swift’s lyrics and sizable cult of personality.

There are some nods to years past, and most longtime acolytes will be satisfied with what is mostly testament Converge; but the band's causal nexus doesn’t exist in a vacuum, or in the grips of GodCity Studio, but out there, rooted in the mundane and then amplified to hysteria. Much of The Dusk in Us seems to obsess over the everyday, or maybe more accurately, our demons lurking on the cusp of day and night.

An album which simply allows itself to be washed over, and take it all in. To simply be. In a time when even being must hurt like hell, that's one hell of a gift to give to the world.

Reaching for Indigo transcends the traditional appeal of a singer-songwriter. Whenever Haley Fohr sings, it’s as if the instrumentation around her is momentarily frozen in time; quite the compliment for an album that surrounds her with so many uncommon vibrations.

Pacific Daydream is pretty much just fine--34 minutes of unambiguous, catchy music, competent enough to land on the good side of Weezer's discography without reaching for anything more.

Fragile, mysterious, and powerful, Preservation is one of the most elusively passionate albums of the year.

Mirror Reaper is a challenging album to listen to on multiple fronts. On the one hand, it is oppressive and deep music, wrought with heavy themes and even heavier aesthetics. On the other hand, it challenges the listener's patience with overcooked ideas that threaten to spoil what is otherwise an immaculately produced record.

Freed from the obligations a full album would have entailed, Wu-Tang are free to make their best music in over ten years.

In short, it’s a Wolf Parade album. Much like last year’s EP4, the aperitif the band dropped prior to a reunion tour, however, it sometimes leans too far on the formulaic side of things to leave a real lasting impact.

Compared to previous outings, this may be the most bold and unabashed offering of Annie Clark’s career. It certainly isn’t her best collection of songs outright, but there’s a certain amount of style points that she garners for remaining so committed to bucking the expectations set by her audience and industry.

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

The songs on Black Mile are expansive, textured, each one like a painting in a distinct style; the layers of Simple Math are back with a vengeance, but instead of the empty palazzios and antique wooden drawers of that album, we're left with mineshafts. Pitch black, filthy, bottomless. Tempting.

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.

At its worst, Younger Now is inoffensively bland, wasted Dolly Parton talent aside. Songs like "Love Someone" are dead on arrival with their lifeless energy and forgettable hooks.

The record’s energy is impressive; the craft, even more so. What it doesn’t have, though, is any sense of vision, nothing of that dangerous excess or discovery that the best Cut Copy provides in spades. Instead, Haiku From Zero ends up being a bunch of great songs and little else.