As is typical on Run the Jewels albums, every feature is perfectly placed, but the inclusion of Mavis Staples and Josh Homme may be El-P’s finest production moment yet. Homme’s ghostly wailing and questing guitar provide a backdrop for Staples to sing an image that perfectly distills not only RTJ’s oeuvre but the bloody centuries of America’s history.

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.

It’s the first track that commands serious momentum, though the closer “50/50” isn’t too shabby either. ... Its novelty burns off by the halfway mark, but there’s a strong sense that here, at least, was a direction worth doubling down on. Kudos. The rest of the record is an over-calculated mess.

After a series of good-to-great efforts, the self-titled manages to present a much more unified mood than its predecessors and additionally cuts out the spoken word moments which (in my opinion) greatly detracted from previous albums. Here, it all comes together.

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

The best parts of classic rock find a home in Holy Vacants without ever seeming forced.

Hit Me Hard and Soft is a bold, well-crafted pop record rich with the personality of its creator, and like most such albums, it holds up just well if you take it as a face-value set of engaging, gratifying songs as if you mine it for complexity (aesthetic or lyrical).

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.

While Johnny Blue Skies may not boast the adventurous songwriting of Sturgill Simpson’s most daring epics, there’s something about Passage that is honest and comforting. It feels like we’re getting an actual glimpse into his life for the first time in nearly a decade, and while it’s not all rosy (see the nine minute closer about falling out of love with your soul mate), it’s at least all real.

Humble, modest, unassuming, and attentive to its runtime and the need to make a better song; in a year where Migos, “Mask Off,” and DAMN. have dominated the conversation, Big Fish Theory sticks out as the most consistent and well-versed rap album of the year.

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.

Another stylistic pivot in the future could prevent Waxahatchee from settling into too predictable of a groove, but even if she stays the course, it's clear with Tigers Blood that she's discovered a sustainable winning formula.

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.

[Aftab’s voice] is the gold thread that is woven through the aforementioned musical tapestry. Singing in Urdu and English, Aftab delivers a breathtaking performance that floats above the album as a guiding star. Further, Aftab has a keen knowledge of when to take control of the music and when to let the music speak for itself, which only adds to the ethereal atmosphere created throughout the album.

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.

It is perhaps the most unforgettable work of her career.

Merriweather Post Pavilion is heartbreaking and heartwarming, and you can either disregard what is one of the most pleasing, enjoyably rich and rewarding releases of the past decade or you can rally with the rest of us, and clap, and sing, and blare it through the earphones on your iPod because we are still all the things outside of us.

It may be early, but get ready to etch their name alongside some of the all-time greats. Bright Green Field is already an album rife with the qualities of a classic.

Appropriately, the music across In Lieu of Flowers is the fullest, boldest, and most confident-sounding of the side-project’s entire discography. But honestly, with a story this poignant, potent, and cathartic, the melodies almost become an afterthought. In Lieu of Flowers is the perfect conclusion to a story for the ages; come, gather around, and experience some of the best songwriting of a generation.

Fans of the band’s earlier albums should enjoy it, while those pesky unbelievers may even be converted as well.

Romance has its problems. In a vacuum it sometimes sounds cloying, as overtly cinematic as a Marvel trailer, and indistinct from its forebears. But it also does something I've never experienced before: making Love an impetus is the kind of staging trick that allows realism and idolatry to exist in the same room.

At once exquisitely beautiful and deeply tragic, and imbued with a bucolic sense of a rural England full of villages and country lanes and woods and fields, I Am Not There Anymore is a journey that you won’t readily forget. Flaws and all, it’s both a worthy comeback for an excellent band and one of the year’s finest releases.

As with Lover, folklore wears out its welcome by containing too many tracks. A tighter song list would have done a world of good.

For being so politically and socially charged, American Band is not a divisive album.

Everything about Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt. II demands worship and solidifies Raekwon as one of history's best with a continuation that exceeds his original debut in every way imaginable.

30 might not have been the cleanest of breakups, but it more than translates in lyrical form.

It's not only his best (yes, even better than Lonesome Dreams), but also his lushest and most emotionally absorbing. Acoustic guitars shimmer like diamonds on the surface of a still lake, while Ben Schneider's melodic verses echo a magical blend of nostalgia and romance.

Conquering does nothing genuinely new, and that’s genuinely okay. The basics are the basics for a reason and, as Employed to Serve demonstrate, executing them with passion and precision is sometimes all that you need.