At the end of things, Morning Phase remains exceedingly lovely but disappointedly insubstantial; not a sea change at all, but just another passing phase in a career that’s made a specialty of them.

While his lyrics may not make complete sense and can be hypocritical at times, Nas is on top of his game with Life Is Good.

They Want My Soul chases that sound far past anything Spoon have done to date in their careers. It’s a chase I hope never ends.

Women occupy a unique place in the indie rock spectrum. Their songs and makeup can put them nowhere else –- Public Strain would be a Deerhunter album if it weren't for that sneer in its lip- and yet their music is completely singular.

Actress is known to be deliberate and, one might argue, almost ponderous in how he paces his work, but AZD is especially bottom-heavy in concept. Like in an adult store, the best stuff is at the back.

Konoyo is a heavy album, emotionally speaking, in a way that is difficult to explain, yet can be expressed in a way that only someone like Tim Hecker would know. By destroying, contorting and reconfiguring these sounds, Hecker draws out the most visceral emotions in himself via soundwaves--his music being his therapy, and us, the audience, being his witness to his solemn excursion into his very soul. It's all too beautiful.

They're spinning a lonely, sad narrative on Down in the Weeds..., but in telling the story they share it with all of us, which naturally transforms it.

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.

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.

It's an album you appreciate not because you have to, but because you want to.

IGOR is not by any means Tyler's best work, and at times deliberately plays against his strengths in order to keep the listener off-guard--this pays dividends in the stunning "I THINK" and "A BOY IS A GUN", less so on the repetitive and cloying "RUNNING OUT OF TIME" and "ARE WE STILL FRIENDS？". What it is, though, is a form of ragged beat-tape minimalist that Tyler wears extremely well.

This album isn't about questioning convention, but rather embracing it. The music radiates melodicism, with each song inviting the listener into an environment of splendorous euphony rather than alienating with irregularity.

Goon surpasses any suggestion of mediocrity by a significant margin.

Expands on the sound she has been sculpting from her debut to the point of creating something that is unmistakably hers. You’ll read comparisons with Grouper here and there, but I can assure you this operates on another level.

It’s not as seamless a blend as last year’s Ashenspire, but both idea and execution are exquisitely fresh among the extreme scene. Portrayal of Guilt always had the potential to craft a definitive album, and if Devil Music is not it, then they sure are on the right track.

Without a doubt, it’s ‘heavier’ than past PoGs on a moment-to-moment basis, but its constituent pieces of songvomit are frequently disjointed and undeveloped to the point that you straight-up question why the band were so unwilling to dig any deeper into them.

99.9% is an assertion of identity and a rejection of identity and a whole lot of other things all at once, and provides some of the most incredible music of the year all the same. If this is the sound of hip-hop today, we’re in a good place.

One of the most interesting releases of 2021 so far. ... Two tracks in, some details start to surface: the production, which leaves a lot of air for the singers to breathe and shine, and the very subtle but delightful instrumentation of every track of this recording. ... In Quiet Moments recalls an album that marked a generation of artists during the second half of the 80s, a project known as This Mortal Coil introduced by an album titled It'll End In Tears.

Super Champon’s genius lies in the way it brings this relatively complex subject matter down to a set of laser-sharp bangers, all supported with just enough English to resonate either side of the Anglosphere frontier.

Norah Jones may be the same artist who sang “Don’t Know Why” on the beach 22 years ago, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t taken steps to advance or update her core sound. Visions is solid proof of this.

Sycamore Meadows is an album that was born from heartache, and it’s on its saddest and most visceral numbers that the album truly shines, and perhaps gives some validity to that old lie about art.

You’re Not As ___ As You Think feels like the conclusion to something that was never started in the first place, it hasn’t earned any of the things it takes without asking, it’s a shallow pretender desperately fumbling in the deep end, and it’s an unfortunate development for a band that used to write dumb, fun songs about girls.

[Moms is] about lamenting family trees and the things that created us worse for wear. Together, Harris and Seim have created a rock album punching the stomach the way their lyrics do.

Sunrise On Slaughter Beach is far from a perfect effort, but it’s good to have the merry band from Maryland back again regardless.

Hayley Williams gives the first of several poor singing performances on the record [on lead single, "Low"]; the verses are toneless and she tries to cram too many words into them without really saying anything.

Monomania demands an undivided attention and continuous play to truly see the beauty within its surrealism.

If Norman Fucking Rockwell! was the record her non-partisan sympathisers dreamed she might make, this is the one they feared. It’s hushed but impersonal, pared-back without having anything to reveal, and verbose without saying anything of substance.

Vaxis II: A Window of The Waking Mind takes everything questionable about Vaxis I’s overall charming forays into stadium rock, castrates it of any semblance of grit, urgency or personality, and subjugates its once formidable trove of catchiness to an almost impressively bland slew of commercialised hard rock templates that, in conjunction with the record’s militantly pop production, render it a gormless caricature of everything once endearing about the band.