Ultimately settling into a safe, at times boring sonic bubble.

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.

Overall, the album achieves its goal, unfolding a soulful listen with just about enough songs with vocals to keep you attentive throughout as well. It is also a nice change of pace for those who follow Moby’s more recent releases, but worth checking for anyone who is into ambient music too.

Lost on You does a fantastic job of embodying this scene’s classic traits in a way that feels authentic and true to themselves, even if it doesn’t need to take any bold risks to do so.

If there’s any grievance worth mentioning, it’s that they’re probably capable of going even deeper with this sound, but for now, they’ve tapped into something special here, revealing themselves as masters of balancing unconventional songwriting with accessibility.

The release may not be as fun as…well, Fun., but it marks yet another quality entry into Ruess & co.’s catalog.

It’s an album whose memory is firmly planted in this world forever, and one that will haunt you long after it’s done.

Overall, The Gaia II Space Corps is the most focused Motorpsycho album yet, crafting a truly cohesive listen from start to finish.

The fact that they still sound so visceral 32 years into their career is incredibly impressive, not to mention that this could very well be their best, most cohesive album to date. Into Oblivion is an album that shows off all the best qualities of Lamb of God and puts them all into one place.

These are simply ideas, a couple that resemble songs, a couple that resemble interludes, that hopefully signal a return to dedicated musicianship for the artist in the near future. Its vibrancy and warmth is as pronounced as it is well executed, and for those who can forget the mystique of Flying Lotus for a minute and appreciate what he’s trying here, you might find yourself dazzled.

It is an absolute instant classic that we will be talking about for years to come.

It’s technical excellence as a musical product cannot be overstated. For a pop album to be this busy yet possess a pocket as deep and rich as underscores displays here is simply amazing.

URGH is creative, scary and club-worthy all at the same time. If you're a fan of industrial music, techno, hip-hop and/or post-punk, there will be something for you to enjoy about this album.

This is an album for coffee and rainy Sunday mornings. For driving your kids to the park on an unseasonably warm February afternoon. For unwinding at the end of the night with a glass of red wine. The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve found beauty within rare moments of calm. Hen’s Teeth is an album that matches that mood, and perhaps you can chalk it up to a personal aligning of the stars, but right now it’s everything I need.

It’s beyond obvious that Duff wanted to showcase her emotional relatability and depth, but the album ultimately collapses under shallow lyricism and stylistic imitation.

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.

It would have been easy to expect the music to sound heavy, even morose, following such tragedy. But some of the deepest wellsprings of renewal come from places of profound loss, and The Mountain proves it. This is a rejuvenating record. A healing record. One that finds light without pretending the dark isn’t there.

There’s something here for every fan of his works, and it’s all executed concisely. More importantly, The Great Satan just brings that fun factor again, and frankly, that’s all you can ask for.

Liturgy of Death is still a decent slab of black metal, but for a band that has released so many classic albums full of banger riffs, hellish drum performances and demonic vocals, this album just doesn't measure up.

I’m intrigued but not enamored. Twenty-one years in, it’s certainly understandable how it’d be challenging to continually create that spark. In the meanwhile, Tenterhooks’ embers will keep fans warm.

While her vocals absolutely rule 99% of the time, the instruments just do not measure up. It's hard to even point out specific parts because it all blends together and not in a good way.

If you're a fan of ambient, new age or soft folk music, there's not much here that you won't like. I can't think of many other albums where a harp is so prominent and the chilling, reverb-soaked vocals are a perfect compliment to the misty imagery that Julianna and Mary are able to solicit throughout the entire 42-minute runtime.

Overall, Conflict DLC showcases HEALTH at their most accessible in their career. Nevertheless, they discarded a large part of their experimental moments, opting to craft a direct, fun LP.

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.

Ultimately, Ascension is guaranteed to rub fans the right way, and it’s adventurous enough to open up new avenues for the future, and at the end of the day, what more can you ask for?

Overall, it is an exciting era for FKA Twigs fans, as she continues her winning streak.

‘1999’ has a nice, early 90s computer game vibe, but the BMTH-esque screaming vocals completely kill any momentum that the two-minute track had. It really is a shame because there are plenty of moments here that make you think that Danny might turn the corner and bring back some of the whacky, darker vibes from the past, but those moments are always killed by embarrassing vocals, cringe worthy pop choruses and not enough of Danny himself actually rapping.

Iconoclasts is pretty much a complete 180 from any of Anna's previous output. That may scare some long time fans, but let this fellow Anna lover ease your mind because this album is pure bliss.

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.

Part of me wishes that Swift would do a bit more soul-searching. The Life of a Showgirl is good entertainment, but I'm still trying to figure out how any of it matters on a deeper level. If you’re not fully invested in all aspects of her life, and whatever drama stems from it, then it’s tough to get emotionally on board. That makes this a glossy, surface level pop record for the majority of listeners. It’s arguably her most infectious, energetic, and fun release in several years, which will buy this LP some instant mileage in terms of streams, but I wonder how its replay value will hold up once the novelty wears off.

This album might not flow as perfectly as others or have one consistent style, but what it does have is riffs, balls and atmosphere aplenty, and when creating music based in black metal, it doesn’t get any better than that.

AFI’s latest offering is a good one, but also one that seems to hint at a promise that it never quite fulfills.

Getting Killed rounds up the anxiety, desperation, and existential dread of 2025 and delivers it in a way that no other band alive could. Such an adept distillation of a tumultuous era is rare, and Getting Killed is an equally uncommon instant classic that should prove to be as valuable to its audience as those aforementioned indie-rock cornerstones once were in the late 90s and early 00s.

In short, LSD is a poignant celebration of nearly fifty years of music, and one hell of a send-off for a true pioneer of the industry. .... It’s certainly turned out to be one of 2025’s best releases.

The attention to detail is impressive and the resulting soundtrack is quite cohesive. Nevertheless, the brief runtime of most tunes here make Tron: Ares more of a Ghosts I-IV type record with an attached EP of what you would expect from a conventional Nine Inch Nails release.

While Bleeds may not have the monstrous impact of Rat Saw God, it’s a truly glorious follow-up with just as many moments of brilliance.

An album that nearly matches its predecessor in quality while going with an entirely different formula to achieve its greatness.

The flickers of brilliance are scattered all throughout Man’s Best Friend, and for the most part, it’s a great album with some moments of weakness. It’s a clear step ahead of Short and Sweet, and hopefully, will be another stepping stone on the path to her magnum opus.

The result is a smooth, glistening, experimental, and often powerful pop record – something Hayley has not necessarily aspired for before, but that she nails effortlessly here. [Review is based on the 17-track release]

Even if a few songs don’t quite leave a lasting impression, Dreams of Being Dust on the whole does.

The band have since long cemented themselves as absolute songwriting savants in the genre and here on album number 10, they successfully build upon that legacy without skipping a beat. Though at times lacking ambition, the finest moments of Private Music are absolute all-timers – poised to throw a wrench into any “top 5 Deftones albums” list for the foreseeable future.

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.

I Beat Loneliness continues their evolution, delivering an electronics-infused alternative metal sound that evolves into a melancholic and atmospheric catharsis that possesses a surprising authenticity and emotional resonance.

As Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You winds to a close, it feels like reading the final part of a novel that kept you hanging on its every word. No matter what Anhedonia does next, this will always be a classic chapter in her book.

Metal Forth isn’t a bad album—it’s just deeply disappointing. It doesn’t feel like a new release, and more importantly, it doesn’t sound like a Babymetal album. Ironically, the three excellent original tracks only highlight what the rest of the album is missing.

The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1 proves that they have the chops to pull it off, although they don’t commit to it here.

Period is an album of lukewarm nostalgic bops, where the few moments of truly interesting artistry are left to languish alone in their respective corners. It’s by no means a poor record if you’re just in it for some lighthearted background party jams.

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.

Never Enough's tepid reheats demand some form of urgent rethink.

While Addison isn’t the essential listen that it clearly wants to be, it’s an intriguing start to a career that just might one day get there.

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.

The overarching takeaway from Get Sunk, at least for me, is a reminder that few musicians can write a better sad sack meditation.

Birthing does not resolve so much as disperse into a shimmering lullaby afterworld. It releases you, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it’s still playing and you haven’t noticed. Maybe you’ve changed afterward. Maybe not. It’s no new world for Swans. But it does feel like a world that’s more charged with that strange luminosity of those brightest days, when the edges of everything feel like they’re dispersing into the atmosphere. Whatever it is, it’s a beautiful thing.

The pairing turns out to be ideal - Sparhawk’s voice and presence maintains the kind of somber elegance he’s always had, while Trampled By Turtles provide a rustic backdrop which not only fits the material like a glove, but adds a world-weary sense of depth.

This album does not suck. It is disappointing, it is underwhelming, and it features some of the best pop cuts of the year. Yeule’s first hyper-playlistable album, I guess.

Something Beautiful is an absolute triumph that casts aside any qualifiers to make a strong bid for the best major pop album of 2025 so far.

In the end, if The Foel Tower reads as revivalist, it’s at least creative enough to stand apart from the bulk of contemporary acts in the scene, and the results speak loudly, resonating as one hell of a lonesome, dreary mood piece.

While much of the record’s content could be charitably filed under inoffensively middle-of-the-road, ‘Outsider’, ‘Addicted To Pain’ and ‘Shards’ are some of the feeblest compositions the band has ever released.

woods’s golliwog is the rare symbol that truly awakens from the dead on what seems like his twentieth stellar full-length, given breath by the cursed voodoo that permeates the entirety of the album.

Their return more than holds its own as a direct progression of Mclusky, but there’s a sense that they themselves feel like expectations should be tempered just a hair, a self-awareness that ends up dangerously close to hamstringing the cocksure arrogance that’s such a crucial part of their charisma.

Pink Elephant isn’t jumping the shark, so much as it is a formal DOD.

Animaru is as gorgeous as can be, and undeniably triumphant as a debut. Mei’s music has all the exuberance of a sprint imbued with the mindfulness of sitting with your eyes closed; it fits just about every occasion. “There’s something I like about it” indeed.

This album sucks and is probably the band’s best and worst work yet. Sleep Token have conclusively proven themselves to be wholly incompetent songwriters and everything here is almost offensively boring.

What truly makes Shell~Wave unique is the uncanny ability of its creator to imprint himself in the music, making some of the most machine-like techno around sound uncharacteristically human. This was the genre’s calling card when it was invented, and decades later, it’s still the thing that makes techno interesting and exciting. Surgeon hasn’t forgotten.

Who Will Look After the Dogs? is a long way from a perfect record, but this is no obstacle to respecting it on its own terms — as a sadsack burnout trip from a band that has lost sight of almost all its past brilliance and knows it, but still has enough dignity to own its scrappy qualities for what they are, rather than inadvertently collapsing into them (The Unraveling of PUPTheBand) and/or self-consciously hawking them (per The Unravelling of PUPThegoddamnedBAND).

There’s something absurdly listenable about the whole package, and I suspect that the listening experience will only get better as the weeks go by and the thermostat cranks up to increasingly unbearable temperatures. This is, after all, one of those records built for those moments spent wallowing in the heat haze. Sounds like a bloody good time.

viagr aboys is a remarkably consistent affair that invites attention and dance-steps, but not by swinging for the fences. Instead, the band commits to a steady churn of tightly written songs, each one grounded in better hooks, tighter grooves, and a more coherent sense of pacing.

"Marks of the Evil One" and "Umbra" (I hope you like cowbells) could have easily been singles, they’re that good, and they solidify Skeletá as a worthy new chapter in the history of the only mainstream band that is able to sing about Satan in stadiums while having the ultra catholic zealots silent as a grave.

The Film is that rare kind of collaborative effort that sees both parties' voices enhanced into something distinct, marked by careful restraint and caustic volatility. .... The Film is one to be treasured.

Stygian Waves crafts a rich, immersive experience that thrives on atmosphere, melody, and mood. It’s an album that rewards patience, pulling the listener in with its delicate intricacies and dreamlike textures – all executed with remarkable finesse. At the end of the day, you may come for Alex Lifeson, but you’ll stay for the strong songs and capable vocals of Maiah Wynne.

Thunderball would greatly benefit from another 10 or 20 minutes worth of mid-to-low tempo grooves to grant their now-besotted audience a chance to sway like sluggish Evangelicals in a primal stupor.

There are a few tumbleweeds in the bunch (“Dirt” is curiously overlong to begin the record; “Showdown” fails to make much of an impression), but this is about as good a curiosity that I would imagine a Julien Baker and TORRES country spinoff to be. It’s evocative, heartfelt fun.

The record’s most profound and memorable experiences arrive at the hands of the tracks that are not afraid of crossing timelines, the ones that are unafraid of integration and understand there is no returning to the past.

The album's relatively narrow focus does it few favours here; its reluctance to experiment outside of sparkly, quickfire bangers inadvertently spotlights how the appeal of its weaker cuts is directly interchangeable with that of the highlights.

Scowl's push toward melodicism is overall a step in a positive direction; certainly nobody loves to see punks embrace melody more than me, but it feels like Scowl is still trying to appease their old fans and branch out at the same time, and they end up handicapping themselves in the process.

All in all, Forever Howlong feels like a missed opportunity. There are enough good bits to show that the band are as capable as ever of crafting a spellbinding moment, but there’s a frustrating lack of direction or commitment that prevents these moments from ever coalescing.

Despite the obvious beauty on display, there’s a thick veil that I just can’t seem to lift in order to fully connect with the work. Try as I might, a good portion of the record seems to roll by its picturesque scenery without causing too much of a stir, with “Capezio” and “Hanging Out” challenging the confidence of my object permanence.

In spite of its more defined nature, Microtonic is an entirely immersive affair. There’s tiny sonic motifs littered across the record, connecting each moment to the next and making everything feel like one well-rounded experience.

Lonely People With Power is a masterpiece that turns Deafheaven’s story on its head, leaving greyed out charcoal marks where Sunbather was once penciled in. In fact, declaring it the band’s best work is probably the least interesting thing you could say about the album when there is so much thematic resonance to latch onto and seemingly endless points of musical intrigue packed into this dense of a package that will only continue to reveal itself in time.

Off-kilter rhythms and dark thundercloud choirs may occasionally spell doom, and the incessant shrieking of the newborn in the next room may keep you up all night, but the album’s captivating parlor trick is its ability to stand confidently in fire and brimstone and smile through the rupturing of its eardrums.

is is (yikes) a low-stakes and contented release, quite enjoyable for what it is and wholly inessential.

Though it may not match its forebears’ ambition or near-flawless execution, the speculative and nostalgic centrifuge spinning like a catherine wheel at the heart of the record assures listeners of the usual cutting insights, by way of brazen bars and some of the finest storytelling of the group’s career.

A willingness to wear many hats and Benny Blanco's dreamy production help usher in Selena's best project yet.

Whether they burn out sooner or stick around long enough to become cult heroes, 45 Pounds is the kind of record that will leave a mark—on your eardrums, on your nerves, on your ability to process sound in a rational manner.

The number of songs and the length would be a bit more understandable if there weren’t also the feeling that some of these songs are woefully undercooked and underdeveloped, but it feels like a true russian roulette to engage with the totality of Music when you get a song that feels kinetic and lively and progresses, only to then be met with a bonafide voice memo that repeats one idea over and over.

The core songs are decent, still, there’s nothing mind blowing. While the instrumentals occasionally dive into intricate progressions, they never truly reach a powerful climax. Thus, we are left with several fragmented bits and a couple of fleshed out numbers in between.

Off With Her Head is a solid album, well-produced and with occasional moments of brilliance, but ultimately it’s the singer’s blandest effort to date, its best moments offering little more than a bittersweet reminder of what it could have been.

Drive to Goldenhammer is a smashing success because it never lets these inspirations get in the way of actually feeling inspired. With a lot of bands, a debut can often feel like watching a weathervane settle in a direction; but with Divorce, it feels like they could go anywhere they want to go.

This is a fine release with great emotional depth, and its oft-haunted tone is given a perfect kiss-off with the final track, which can only be described as pure - a loving ode built upon classic country song imagery.

Little of the album ever actually dips in quality (“Don’t Call Tonight” is the only real leftover nacho), the confusing aesthetics of the album cover and the decision to tack “Die With a Smile” on here do go a long way to making this package feel a tad disjointed and lacking a bow. Still, the aesthetic failings are only a disappointment because the contents are so dang good.

There are minor exceptions here – the wondrous flourishes of opener "COLORATURA", the lilting inflections Aoba rides on "Luciférine", the aching nostalgia of the centrepiece "FLAG" (for my money, the one true Aoba classic here in every sense of the word) – but you'll be hard-pressed to find a record so full of subtle details that puts so little emphasis on the spectacle of individual moments, that drifts so freely within itself.

After nearly 15 years of middling releases, Parasomnia is a triumphant return to form – possibly their most creative, focused, and engaging work since Metropolis Pt. 2.

A Paradise In The Hold is one of the best albums you are going to listen to in 2025. It is focused and whole, while also being as breathtaking and wild as the land from which it derives its inspiration.

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.

in spite of this record’s formlessness, i keep coming back to choke enough. there’s something intriguing about a pop album committed to never, ever popping, while presenting enough cute little bits that are just memorable enough to be able to describe oklou’s music.

While the ceiling is low and the majority of So Close To What is annoyingly undercooked, there is still a lot of promise to be found. Tate and her team clearly have an ear for sticky melodies and the lack of necessary lore is appreciated, but there still is a very pervasive sense of figuring things out here.

Blindness doesn’t necessarily come together in the way a record ideally would, despite the fact that the songs are largely high-quality. Nonetheless, I’m quite intrigued by the record’s final stretch, which notably improves the overall feeling of this release.

It fails on every level. It’s not fun. It’s not sexy. It’s not impressive. It’s not inventive.