Omens shows some return to form, but couldn’t hold a stiff one against the likes of Ashes Of The Wake, Sacrement or VII: Sturm und Drang and that’s not at all Cruz’s fault.

Heimdal has a more organic feel than its most recent predecessors, a less polished approach that gives it a rawer edge while remaining complex and adventurous. This more unrefined blackened aesthetic, though present throughout the album, is magnificently explored in 'Congelia', which delivers a constant and overwhelming flow.

Cracker Island is a perfectly good album made for an active audience larger and more diverse than most artistz could ever dream of having.

It takes several spins to fully comprehend the ambitious scope on display here as this is the kind of record that unravels the longer one ventures into its gorgeous textures, subtle progressive leanings and consistently clever lyricism.

As a guitar record, Pretty Years perhaps doesn’t reach the delirious heights of LOSE, but the melodies here are more consistently grounded in pop roots, however ripped and dusty they may appear. ... One of 2016’s best albums.

If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is on an upward trajectory in terms of Halsey releasing quality music. By and by, Halsey may not have love, but her latest record is power.

Whereas Beatopia felt stuck between two different eras and styles, This Is How Tomorrow Moves takes the new ideas beabadoobee introduced on that record and fully fleshes them out with no reservations. As a result, it’s the most self-assured and downright enjoyable album she’s released in several years.

If Firepower was Judas Priest proving that they’ve still “got it”, Invincible Shield is them making sure no one else will steal their crown. Plenty of veteran classic metal acts are kicking around to this day, but none of them (not even Iron Maiden) still sound as vital, fresh, or vibrant as Judas Priest.

Dive is the kind of high quality release one expects from Hansen.

For its obvious melodic strengths, though, EP is a tease, slowly removing one layer at a time until its heart is revealed.

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.

There's a depth to these tunes, one that comes not out of fast nights and wrecked relationships but the hindsight and experience of age; it's a well that, thankfully, seems to be getting deeper and deeper.

Right now I'm pretty content with digging The King of Limbs as I'd dig any new record: enjoying the personality that comes from the record itself and not the name behind it. And guess what? Radiohead makes good music. As if you had any doubt.

At fifty minutes long, and without a single climax, Arrivals becomes exhausting in its maturity, composure and homogeneity. And while it is a great album to chill, think and lose yourself in, it doesn’t seem to shed much warmth, much emotion.

Twenty-seven minutes is quite short, and the last couple of songs still feel undercooked compared to the slab of punk bangers offered by the first half. Despite this, the songs that bang do because they carry powerful punk riffs and relatable, Linkin Park-worship lyrics to yell.

At the end of the day, Purge is Godflesh doing Godflesh and doing a good job at it, but as far as how it stacks up against the rest of their discography, it’s far from a high point.

Saya Gray’s newfound streamlined approach comes at little cost to her oddball M.O.. She is remarkable for how she irons out what would once have been a lone idiosyncratic contour into the basis for a full track, stuffing verse/chorus structures with ideas so prickly that it’s a wonder to hear them sit so naturally in a conventional framework.

The End, So Far is lack-lustre at almost every turn.

We’ve come to expect more than inoffensive, lukewarm indie-pop from these guys. MGMT should save that for the thousands of other indie bands out there that all sound exactly like this, and go back to the stupidly fun and unpredictably bizarre music that most of us fell in love with.

Visions often feels suspended in the best way possible, both in time and space.

The band certainly doesn't sound one hundred percent confident (or even comfortable) moving into more accessible territory, but their fidgetiness results in one of the most intriguing listens of the year.

Lost Songs is brash and sincere, a caterwauling beast of chunky guitar chords and drums that never give you a chance to breathe, and in its best moments is as fiery and hot-blooded and rousing as anything off of those earlier albums fans are always pining for.

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.

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.

Not that his previous POP songs weren't POP, but never before has he sounded so confidently chart-ready in a chorus of his. Likewise, "Justify Your Life" features trip-hop beats, slabs of chillwave layers, and a reverb-full soundscape in an uncompromisingly banging way.

Sticking to the slowlane and sanding down jagged edges has done wonders, giving VOID much more space to breathe, its dripping atmosphere thereby safeguarded, and preserved yet further by excellent pacing and pristine production.

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.

What sets the album apart from what they’ve churned out the past 18 years is its ability to channel exactly what has always made them great, while injecting a renewed sense of genuine musical creativity that finally sticks it to the tired notion that all they needed to do was play around with a new gimmick.

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.

Too often, the melodies are listless, the song structures are underdeveloped, and the album’s weaknesses are masked by waves of synths and ambience that add nothing to the experience other than time – and that, unfortunately, is time that we’ll never get back.

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.

With "75 Bars" being the only real dud on the album, Rising Down proves to be more of a collection of songs that work together as a whole than one cohesive album.

Ultimately this is very hard to judge as pop music. Judged as art, however, it's sensual, insidious, cathartic, and quite beautiful.

Listening to The Optimist is an intense experience, and can have wild transitions from one song to the next given how different some tracks are from others. They are able to make it work though, being an adventurous and engaging continuation, and conclusion, of a past record's concept that still sees the band evolving in a rewarding fashion.

If you’re looking for something with a bit more bite and ambition, you might be a little disappointed with what’s on offer. In spite of that, this is easily one of the strongest rock albums to come from 2023 so far, and if you’re a fan of the band or you enjoy the genre in general, this is sure to quench the majority of people’s thirst.

It’s an emotionally dialed-in, instrumentally ramped-up, and vocally memorable collection of mismatched ideas that somehow function together smoothly. Even amid the record’s eclecticism, it’s still a definitive Foxing experience.

[“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.

Skullcrusher’s first album may not present a doormat saying ‘welcome’ in bold letters, but it presents one of the most rewarding sonic experiences of the year for those willing to open its undefined doors.

Black Mile has already won your heart, and you know that it is going to be one of those albums that stay with you forever; a byproduct of life events coinciding with its release and an uncanny relation to Hull’s lyrics.

This is a lovable but frustrating record-by-committee, seemingly unsure of what it wants to sound like, the band's talent diluted and occasionally even aimless.

Overall, Flight of the Conchords created a well-rounded, original, and entertaining album filled with classic songs from their hit show.

Every line tends to ring out with a sense of unparalleled, down-to-earth beauty. It's melancholic and often mournful, but thanks to Hansard's ability to spin even the most daunting situations as an opportunity to rise to the challenge, his music has also never sounded this full of both life and meaning.

It all stacks up as an agreeable (not wonderful, definitely not boring) assortment of thumpers.

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.

To attempt to rank Wavering Radiant within the Isis discography is to miss this point. Fans of earlier releases will likely be disappointed but if this record proves anything, it's that Isis are a fully-functioning organism, slowly moving towards something not yet known by the listener and perhaps not even the band themselves.

Terje’s cocky, frisky songwriting skills shine, and It’s Album Time easily clears the high bar the producer set for himself through his remixes and EPs.

With Alegranza!, El Guincho takes what could have been a disaster and forms one of the most peculiar, inimitable records of the year.

When Slug is at his most Atmospheric (ie, emotive storytelling), he's at his best, but it really doesn't matter. Nothing here really sticks with you, but it's more or less the Aesop Rock show through and through; hopefully he puts out more in the future.

It’s a shame Eno had to make so much of The Ship’s artistic vision. Divorced from pretence and divorced from the rest of the album, his final moments here are enjoyable.

Beyond’s main flaws come in a lack of variety.

Near to the Wild Heart of Life succeeds only in proving that the Japandroids of 2017 will have a hard time matching their former glories.

From the slowed tempo of the cinematic opener “Grand Junction” to the animated “Sixers”, they’ve crafted some of the most unpredictable and sweeping arrangements yet. This is an odd one, folks. And like much of Finn’s work, I’ll be racking my brain on its many idiosyncrasies for the foreseeable future.

With Noble Beast, time stands still for a brief moment until a song eventually hits a certain plateau, but sometimes that plateau can be too distant.

Brill Bruisers is spread everywhere at once, loud and crass and saturated with color and nearly fit to burst. It won’t make very many memories, but it will create a hell of a lot of good times.

What we have here is an album crafted by two high-profile artists that manages to live up to the names involved. It’s somewhat unexpected just how well they mesh, though, crafting songs that don’t sound the part of a first-time collaboration.

As it stands, Liars is an appropriately titled, highly worthwhile piece of work that the band and any of its fans should be extremely proud of.

Chromatica’s main flaw lies in its indecisiveness. Lady Gaga has a number of great ideas on this thing, but the problem is that she doesn’t know how to make them work with any pragmatic fluidity. There’s a lot of redeeming qualities to the tracks, but it’s a patchwork job more often than not.

I Am Very Far is certainly a more enthralling listen than The Stand Ins was; though it may lack some of the emotional impact of Down the River of Golden Dreams, or especially Black Sheep Boy, the album remains a welcomed addition into the work of a band who commands great quality-control.

The important thing to note when it comes to In Prism is that as hiatus records go this is one of the best in the last couple years.

The raw energy and occasionally questionable anger of their early years has nicely matured into a confidence and consistency that they've never had before, a diverse set of songs which feels more than the sum of its parts thanks to the band's locked-in chemistry with their longtime producer.

From the ashes of Volta, an album that occasionally felt like a career-killer, has come an album of startling beauty, furious invention, and inviting, warm atmosphere.

Perhaps it’s too early to mark this out as a game changer, but there’s something undoubtedly visceral here, an untouchable element that tugs ever so bristly at the connection to the depths of music that not even time might seek to mellow it.

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.

Perfume Genius could easily have made this as a wilfully oblique record; the reality is mercurial, intoxicating and richly creative at every turn, and you now know this. Get out there and get lost in it.

Mercado 48 feels like he's pouring out his soul more than usual while also bringing about a sense of resignation to life itself. It's hard to say what kind of mood the listener needs to be in the get the most out of this album, but one thing is for sure, Daniel makes something out of nothing more often than not and Mercado 48 is a perfect example of that.

This is damn good music. Like, legitimately sensational. Some of the best of 2023, actually.

Simply put, No More Stories… is accessible without being overbearingly so, experimental without sounding too abstract and ridiculous, and most importantly, one of the year's most endearing records.

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.

Desire is an amazing record the story of Monch and his recording career is admirable in its own right.

Although Every Country’s Sun isn’t a flawless album (there are a number of tracks in the middle section that need more time to kick in), it shows us Mogwai nowhere near losing their touch.

While documenting the shattered dreams of small town Americana, Brandon Flowers has finally created the Earth-mover that he's always lusted after – and ironically, it comes during a moment of quiet reflection.

While no song is earth-shatteringly amazing, there’s something (quite a lot, it seems) to be said for a record of nothing but great tracks. This really is a good shoegaze album with a nice atmosphere - but it’s also a little more than that. And it doesn’t seem to care about any of it.

They sound like they'll probably end up being one of the most enduring bands of our era.

What Relentless Reckless Forever boils down to is a pair of decent, if not good, songs at the beginning, several painfully average songs in the middle, and a mish-mash of mediocrity at the end.

One Of Us Is the Killer is the explosion all of us were hoping it’d be, and yes, lethal as ever--now it’s just easier to pick up the pieces afterwards.

The trio are at the top of their game, and if they haven’t grown out of their disposition for laboriously concocted indulgence, then they have at least worked out how to synthesise it towards more entertaining ends.

Pearl Jam's ninth album sounds a lot more optimistic and positive than the band ever has. More importantly, Backspacer sees Pearl Jam finally escape the slump they fell into with "Binaural" nine years ago.

The Unnatural World is the punk rock ethos of Deathconsciousness coming into its own and it feels really good to hear. New comers to the underground darlings will find quite a lot to love here.

This thing is quiet. It’s cozy. It’s simple. It’s, to be blunt, a vibe. Horrible Occurrences is a warm blanket during this time of year where the days can stretch on forever and the nights can swallow me whole.

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.

This album is exactly what you’d expect from Fruit Bats. It’s fairly slim in runtime, very chill, and could conceivably be described as anything from indie pop to country rock without a listener batting an eye. There are songs notably catchy (“Rushin’ River Valley”), affecting (“We Used To Live Here”), and both of those previous descriptors at the same time (the goofily-titled “Jesus Tap Dancing Christ (It’s Good To Be Home)”)

It straddles that difficult line between accessible and adventurous, making for a fine stopgap between Fiery Furnaces records and an excellent summer album regardless of the year.

Violence Unimagined is thus not only a treat for those who feast upon flesh but also a proof of resilience, power, and determination. It is yet another successful chapter in one of the best portfolios the genre has to offer.

It's cerebral, labyrinthine and self-involved.

The band are at their best in short, sharp, concentrated bursts of euphoria, which Late Developers delivers in spades. More importantly, they finally seem to have recognised that it's not impossible to balance their slyly wandering spirits with their wryly written pop sensibilities to rediscover themselves at their very best.

To these ears See You At The Maypole is far more consistent in quality, despite being by far the artist’s longest release, at seventeen tracks and nearly an hour in duration.

Creating such a tightly-knit record is a simple style a myriad of singer-songwriters have lived by, and in that sense Diaper Island feels just as uncompromising, if in a different way, as the equally miserable Blood on the Tracks.

Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / in a room7 F760 ends up a glorified, if very welcome, double-single as such: its satisfaction lies less in an end-to-end listen and much more in the binge mileage of its cornerstone tracks. Aphex Twin's sound is in as vitalised as it's ever been, but this release also suggests that a little contortion is more vital to his matrix than some may have thought.

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

Along with fellow Georgia natives Mastodon, Kylesa have crafted one of the metal albums to beat this year.

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.

The Way I See It isn't going to blow any minds, but it might open a few eyes.

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.

None of these songs are entitled to be the album's best and none of them work towards anything other than creating the quiet, gloomy album that it is. And yet there's so much of this focus given to each song.

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.

So no matter what audience The Big Deep finds, one must respect The Sleeping for this sincere and passionate performance... For this truly is now a band that feel comfortable in their own skin.

It is easy to tell what you are going to get with Monolith of Inhumanity, and the album delivers just what you expect plus a bit more.

Fans will debate whether Failed States tops previous records, but certainly meets the standards the band has set for themselves.