These tunes are an absolute joy to listen to. Misadventures Of Doomscroller probably isn’t the AOTY 2022, but if your criteria is “best album to listen to while cruising the Pacific Coast Highway, wind in your hair”, well, it’s a shoo-in.

It’s a bit front-loaded, and not every track will floor you, but it’s definitely the most summative album of Robert Plant’s career.

It absolutely rests on Big Red Machine and Fiona Apple's heavy lifting with the bookends; IDLES and Courtney Barnett deliver fine but uninspiring retreads of the originals, whereas more electronic indie-pop renderings of "Dsharpg" and "One Day" absolutely pale in comparison.

While Heritage is the strongest of this new trilogy, as well as laying the blueprint for this current era, Sorceress is able to push the adventurous qualities further to outstanding effect.

Metals, in its muted, gray imperfection, feels vital--even when it isn't.

The Golden Age Of Glitter then, is a subversive record. Things may not be as they appear at various points throughout, but that’s no reason not to give it a go.

On Connector, the accomplished quartet have recorded an immersive album that is not only satisfying in the moment, but also reveals further layers and textures upon subsequent listening.

Motorpsycho raised the expectations bar so high and continue to hold it up there. You can only criticize small details, but overall, this is another excellent journey in their catalog.

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.

Its moments of potential aren’t to be to be trifled with, but neither are they enough to elevate it from a stale sequence of overthought ideas, and this is a real tragedy given its stark contrast to the preview performance the band gave on KEXP back in April.

In two albums, the man shatters our conceptions of music--and in the finale of his trilogy, he glues the pieces back together and hands the end product back to us, thereby redefining the word ‘musician’ in a single gesture.

At times, it can be a difficult piece of work and its dark themes may require a few spins to grow on the listener. Irrespective, Drums and Guns is a fine piece of work, Low's best since Things We Lost in the Fire.

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.

The Ghost of Orion is My Dying Bride’s best sounding album from a production standpoint, featuring some of Aaron’s most accomplished vocals, and guitar melodies that harken back to the days of The Angel and the Dark River, and it is a welcome addition to the My Dying Bride discography.

The Gods We Can Touch feels like a very round pop record, a little bit of everything for everyone, and it's been smartly complemented by great visuals (the video for "Cure for Me" is mesmerizing) and an impeccable production job by Magnus Skylstad, who doubles down as a drummer in her live performances, and multi-instrumentalist and producer Matias Tellez. Definitely a strong contender for one of the most interesting pop albums of the year.

This is, simply and purely, a great, if blissfully weird, Blur record.

It's their most accessible record both musically and lyrically.

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.

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.

Atlas Sound meanders where it ponders, a purely ethereal trip without the oomph.

Perfect Saviors probably could have been the quote best rock album ever. It should have been bigger. It should have been better. It could have been everything.

They're not really revolutionary because there's nothing that ambitious in them. Rather they're content being a light Dinosaur Jr., making pleasant, noisy indie rock with tambourines and static that's more an aural treat than a mental stimulant.

Agora is a lot of things, but one thing it is not is corny. But in the process he has sacrificed a whole lot of virtues. Where Fennesz once generated productive frisson in the mind-body continuum of his listeners, now his music stares blankly at them, as if hoping that their and not his affective dispositions will create the passion that sustains worthwhile musical practice.

Le Bon is doodling, but as she refines it, CYRK becomes a clear piece of work with a well-clarified core.

What you find in Transcendental Youth aren't answers to any big questions, but instead questions to a bunch of answers that never meant anything before but now seem exceedingly important.

Strange Timez doesn’t break a whole lot of new ground, but it’s Damon Albarn’s strongest release since Plastic Beach and an infectious celebration of the unique legacy of Gorillaz.

But for all the praise it should receive for being the record Deerhunter were destined to make, what will make Microcastle a classic (and this has every right to become a classic) is what the album means to the person listening.

In the midst of the endless formula tweaking and inventive twists, there is nary an ill-advised departure or split-second of suggestive identity crisis. It’s all fresh, and it’s all Fleet Foxes.