The past few years have shown West first-hand what happens when the populace turns against its demagogues, and with Fantasy, he's letting us know that he's ready for our scorn and adulation.

What Shackleton has done with this mammoth album is create a full-bodied, visceral experience that meditates on the nature of the essence of a sound in a time and the space of time in which it appears, and the narration only presents the voice as the confrontation with time.

Overall, it's Boards of Canada trying new things and experimenting outside of the box that they built for themselves; commendable and quite addictive.

The Age of Adz is an outrageously fun and messy masterpiece.

All the things that give an album its personality--the sound of a band finding its feet, the little tempo fluctuations, the requisite "are we rolling, Bob?" fits and starts--are here in spades.

The ease of the instrumentation and the hushed vocals do their part to loosen you up as the music whisks you away to the innocence of childhood and teenage dreams that have never left the recesses of your mind.

Once upon an Axcess and Ace, this was a musician who would let his timid voice and simple themes sink in until they were a full part of the consciousness. Now, and more so than on the MEC premiere, strings, slide guitar, peddle steel, banjo, violin, trumpet, and piano are filling in every cranny to create less of a full-on effect, but an equally satisfying rash of strong songs.

It’s a masterclass in formal brilliance meeting dogged idiosyncrasy on equal footing.

The greatest aspect of Tournament of Hearts is Bry Webb's singing. His voice convinces you of the truth of the emotion and power of his songs.

It's as stunning a debut as I've heard in a long time.

Fear of Men speak with clarity (for all their lo-fi charm) through the idiom of twee and jangle pop.

The songs on Twin Cinema are simply of a higher caliber than anything the Pornos' individual members can create by themselves or had created together before.

Xe is a complete ecstatic experience itself as well as a dynamic text that reflects (on) these structural limitations that we employ in making sense of experience.

Its funereal funk can be hard to shake off; its catchiest hooks stain and discolor.

At 35 minutes, Room 25 is more of a mission statement than a treatise on Noname’s self-examination. Its 11 songs leave us wanting more.

The high points are so fantastic that their missteps are easily forgiven.

Illinois certainly isn't perfect, but it does do a couple important things: it proves that Sufjan has the skill and the talent to prove flexible and long-lasting, and that it's not much of a stretch to expect even better albums from him in the future.

Despite it being a massive departure from their previous efforts, there is almost nothing to dislike about Crimes.

Love is the Plan, The Plan is Death, perhaps Blackshaw's most lucid and rawest effort to date, explores the effects and possibilities of repetition, plunging deep into a humility that suggests the movements of this process of refinement.

All We Love We Leave Behind entices kinetic release in every possible way, irrational and otherwise, allowing unchecked ventilation as means for escape through a medium that has never sounded so engaging.

Perhaps his greatest record.

The mesmerizing quality they create through drone beats and varied vocals engage the listener in a whirlwind of noise, and it rarely ever lets up.

What is most impressive about New Amerykah is that Erykah simply breathes life into these tracks.

Trial is as rhythmically acerbic and propulsive as the last couple of French Kicks offerings, but the pace is a little slower and more deliberate, the songwriting more cohesive, reflective, and mature.

At the end of the day, Kevin Barnes is really trying to make good pop. Paralytic Stalks is just that, bombast and all.

Its idiosyncratic animus is something to behold, and even if you don’t like it, both the digital age and Burnett himself can reassure you with the verse, “Don’t worry; in a few, you’ll all be somewhere else.”

The goal here is a noise-dance album, and they succeed admirably.

Primitive and Deadly will take you to the highest heights of doom, high enough to see the end in its coming. It’s all over now, there’s no need to come down.