It's oxymoronic. It's uncalled for and essential. It's ridiculous and severe. It's useless and powerful. It's everything Run The Jewels stands for.

Despite the underlying melancholy throughout, Bonny Doon is by no means a downer of an album, and it’s due to the winning and classic songwriting tropes Bonny Doon have adhered to.

There’s a balance to be struck between playing it safe and playing it smart, and Lindstrøm leans more towards the latter. If he occasionally veers the wrong way, he recovers handsomely.

This album, short in track numbers but long in duration, fluctuates intensities, whirlpooling on its own without losing its path, logic and coherence.

There's an occasional human misstep reminding us that these aren't robots churning pristine pop, and that they can concoct foibles, but there's no reason we can't just sweep those issues under the rug. It's easy to overlook any small faults, as the rest of the record is so damn glorious.

Fallen Angels is cast in a wistful glow that is hard to resist.

Destroyer feels like a band waking up from the slumber rut that marred their more recent output. There is a distinct sense of urgency here, of the adrenaline felt with a new experience that always seemed previously out of reach. McBean has (fuel) injected an exigency to this project once again, and the results are great.

Though Some Rap Songs may come across as a collection of underdeveloped vignettes of previously covered subject matter, further and deeper listening showcases an economical poet at his most striking self.

While there isn't anything all that distinct about their approach, none of it deters from the fact that Seratones are making some truly fun music.

Where circumstance sometimes has a way of completely crumbling a band, PAWS persevered, grew, and turned out an especially fun and heartfelt release that also happens to be one of their best.

A Humdrum Star is largely successful and in a perfect world will be just one of a great many formal experiments for the band.

By the end, Lost In The Dream is similarly as sprawling and textured as its predecessor, harnessing the affirming, heartfelt sentiments without becoming corny or meek (mostly).

The record with a chirping synthesiser in the background that sounds like the dawn's birdsong. Tomas Barfod may not have produced a perfect album, but then when has love ever been about perfection?

You Only Lie 2wice is a reflection of past mistakes, a declaration of dreams for his family’s future and a time stamp for the strenuous reality of an artist who nearly lost it all on his way to gaining it all.

The music is now lush where once it was loud, layered and thoughtful where it was immediate.

It may be a bit malnourished in thematic ingenuity--it's not as honest as Old or Oxymoron, or as celebratory as Acid Rap--but the allure comes from ingenious, inventive production

The mix of hollow percussion, melancholy synth drone and further bird sounds on ‘Crying Fountain’ add up to a conclusion that seems to aim for open-endedness, but is mostly just half-hearted. This phoning-in is concerning, but the other eight tracks are as good and as interesting as ever.

The depraved and descending post-punk of ‘Down in the Basement’ sets the blueprint for Viagra Boys throughout most of the album, and on some tracks it feels a bit repetitive at times. The factor that distinguishes these tracks from each other are the odd and uncouth characters being described.

It just sounds like a bunch of young men looking to blow off steam, and that is what makes it such an enjoyable romp.

Memories Don't Die (stylized in all caps) feels like everything his debut should have been. Slicing off the fat of a self-important back story, Lanez lets the music speak for itself. When he does chat, it feels pointed.

Sheck masterfully transcends one-hit-wonder status throughout his debut.

Marigolden is yet another triumph, not only for Partisan but for the frozen tundra of America's Midwest.


Skepta has learned to remain steadily himself in the face of hurdling success, while delivering one of the most vital albums in the history (and for the future) of globally accepted grime.

PINS architect and frontwoman Faith Holgate has always stressed the band's desire to maintain a disparate sonic palette and it's an MO that can be felt throughout the first half of the album.

At its best White Hinterland can certainly hold its ground alongside these artists, but it's a much tougher and more crowded scene than where she came from.

Recorded without the aid of computers, its songs evoke great monsters of the '70s in its heavier moments, and '90s stoner rock in its mellower, more melodic moments. Innocence is an album that manages to balance these two styles incredibly well.

Drastic Measures’ kaleidoscope of sound will undoubtedly charm you, as Sellers himself sings “she looks like a go-getter.”

It’s a challenging but rewarding listen which uncovers itself most rewardingly when given full attention on a dark and melancholic night.